Dear Geoff,

Thank you for your reply.  Honestly, I think the most important issue is sorting out the terminological, conceptual and epistemological mess of Design Research. Without that its very hard to proceed easily. Personally, I'm not over concerned about how it appears - retrogressive or otherwise. The important thing is to move on and improve the situation. I'm not sure what you mean when you suggest it appears inward looking 'in disciplinary terms' - its the 'disciplinary terms' I don't understand.

Social Science research and Engineering research sounds the sort of disciplines in which one would undertake research aimed generating of  information about <snip>'the realizable possibilities for change in the material
culture'<snip>. Not sure why one would also need to call it design research. I use the term  'information' rather than 'knowledge' because it seems  more accurate in this context.

I think the conceptual view is better from the opposite perspective than seeing 'designing as an effective research methodology',  I'm just starting empirical research with partners in the UK to explore the characterisitics of research methods specific to designing to add a fourth category to the usual trilogy of 'Basic', 'Applied', and 'Clinical' research methods. This follows careful epistemological analysis on this issue during 2001. For want of a better term I've called this new category 'design-focused research methods and perspectives'. It seems to do the same as what you suggest without the need to go back into other muddier conceptual waters that suggest that designing is researching..

So in short, I disagree that it is helpful or necessary have the term 'Design Research' extend beyond the 'study of human design activity'. There are issues to be resolved by  better definition of designing (such as the onme you raise about ethnographic study of designers) and these are most easily reoslved by tightening the definition of designing so  that it doesn't include all sort of other associated activities.

Best wishes from sunny Galgate, near the witch city of Lancaster

Terry

===
Dr, Terence Love
Love Design and Research
Western Australia
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===

-----Original Message-----
From: Geoff Matthews
Sent: 7/08/2003 9:09 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Refocusing Design Research


Terence Love wrote

<I suggest the term 'Design Research' is most usefully and technically
applied only to the 'study of the human activity of designing' for which
there is no other specific term.>


I agree with much of what Terence has to say about the types of disciplinary
research that contribute to designing and to the understanding of design
phenomena. However I disagree with the idea of limiting the term 'Design
Research' in the way he suggests. What bothers me is that it is
retrogressive and in disciplinary terms represents an inward looking lack of
confidence. Claiming the core of design research for designers and
promulgating a form of knowledge valuable in its own right I think is part
of the last decades' achievements in our discipline.

I am convinced that 'designing' can be designed as a very effective research
methodology. Applying it generates a very special kind of knowledge
'knowledge of the realizable possibilities for change in the material
culture'. It doesn't aim to produce knowledge about designing activity,
although it may do so as a useful by-product. It does aim to use designing
activity to produce knowledge about the world.

'Design Research' is the only specific term that would cover this. I draw a
parallel with those sciences where 'research' concentrates on improving our
understanding of external phenomena and not on the 'study of the human
activity of conducting the science'. The latter is the job of historians,
psychologists, ethnographers etc.

In short, research through designing is a form of design research that we
couldn't very easily call anything else but 'design research' without
misleading people as to what kind of knowledge was being produced. 'Study of
the human activity of designing' although we might legitimately continue to
refer to it as 'design research' might not be called that by a social
scientist using ethnographic methods to study a group of designers at work.

Dr Geoff Matthews
Interdisciplinary Design
Lincoln School of Architecture
University of Lincoln, UK