Understanding the design activity of farmers in agroecological transition: Towards a trilogical design model

This article examines the agroecological transition as a design process led by farmers on their farms. The objective of this article is to contribute to the understanding of the design activity implemented by two cereal growers in France engaged in a conversion to organic farming. To this end, several interviews were conducted and supported by the Chronicle of Change Method (Chizallet et al., 2018). They are analysed on the basis of the dialogical model of design understood as a dialogue between the "virtual" and the "real" (Beguin, 2018) to which we propose to add a third dimension: the "designable". The results obtained contribute to a better understanding of the design activity and to characterize it through a trilogical design model that includes the "virtual", the "real", and the "designable". These results are discussed in the light of research studies emphasizing the temporality of actors' trajectories, which make it possible to enrich the characterization of the design activity proposed in this article. Finally, this article proposes ways to improve the Chronicle of Change Method. (C) 2019 Societe Francaise de Psychologie. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.