Dear Jan,
I had a further thought on your question, prompted by a note I just
received from one of my students.
When students are being interviewed for jobs, they will have to find some
way to describe their work--and, often, to explain what design research
means to them. Knowing how to position one's research in the broader field
of design is important in itself. And it can be critical when the job
possibility lies in an area adjacent to design. Such positioning calls for
more than a bare description of the particular research subject of a
dissertation. It calls for some understanding of the overall direction of
research in the future, as one's career unfolds.
This is a practical value in understanding the directions of inquiry in
design. But it also prefigures how a student may seek to shape the field
in further work. And, of course, this is ultimately an issue in design
theory, as we attempt to explain the major threads from which the field is
woven. As a wise person once explained to me, any question pushed far
enough becomes a philosophical question.
I wonder if others have advice on how to position doctoral research in
design?
Richard
Richard Buchanan
Carnegie Mellon University
--On Monday, December 20, 2004 1:26 PM +1030 Jan Coker
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> What is the use to which identification of design research "categories"
> will be put?
>
> Jan Coker
> C3-10 Underdale
> University of South Australia
> +61 8 8302 6919
> fax +61 8 8302 6239
> Relativity teaches us the connection between the different descriptions
> of one and the same reality
> Albert Einstein
>
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