Mark Nelson wrote:

'However, while it is easy to dismiss those who question the research
basis of a PhD as scholars who profess to use "intuition" or "designerly
thinking" for the basis of research methodologies, there is some
validity to these questioners' criticism; design can be studied in a
scientific manner, but design is not itself a science.'

 

I agree with the central point but I think this leaves the question of
what 'designerly enquiry' is or is becoming open. First let me attempt
to distinguish between 'designerly thinking' and 'designerly enquiry'.
'Designerly thinking' is shorthand for a range of rational and
non-rational manoeuvres that people resort to when they are engaged in
generating and resolving ideas for improving incoherent,
epistemologically complex, or ill-defined practical situations. That is,
we use designerly thinking when real-world constraints render purely
technical and interpretive processes inadequate. 'Designerly enquiry' on
the other hand is systematic exploration, analysis and evaluation of
possibility, usually involving critical methods of visualization,
modelling and simulation. In summary, designerly thinking is a question
of style, designerly enquiry of process.

Research is a creative endeavour insofar as, within the framework of
methodical enquiry, the researcher is required to structure data in new
ways to create the possibility, through analysis and interpretation, of
new ideas and insights. In this sense 'designerly thinking' plays a part
in research. However, there is a semantic issue here also. In some
communities 'science' has a narrow meaning, it refers essentially to the
products of an experimental methodology. In others it has a broader
meaning, i.e. systematic and formulated knowledge, which is the pursuit
of researchers in many disciplines where 'experiment' in its narrower
hard science sense is irrelevant. 

Some designers do pursue systematic and formulated knowledge and are
hard at work developing the methodology of 'designerly enquiry'. We
still seem to be deciding what to call this kind of research because
'design research' has been defined to exclude designerly enquiry. Design
is not a science, even in the broader sense, but designerly enquiry
conducted within the framework of a rigorous methodology, is.

The distinction between research and professional doctorates is well
established in several disciplines; in Design they already exist in
several places around the globe. The only thing I would add is that a
PhD in Design usually signifies that the candidate was a researcher in a
Design department of a university, it tells us nothing about the focus
of the research or its methodology. It would be a mistake to assume that
it signifies the researcher conducted research into design, it may have
been research through design into some aspect of the material culture.

This debate has been in train a very long time. I trace it as far back
as Jacques, R. & J. A. Powell (eds.) (1981) Design: Science: Method,
Guildford: Westbury House, and the late Bruce Archer's eloquent
description of 'designerly enquiry' and why it represents a tradition
distinct from but as valid as 'scientific' and 'scholarly' modes of
enquiry (34-5). 

Dr Geoff Matthews 
Museum & Exhibition Design 
Lincoln School of Architecture 
University of Lincoln 

Brayford Pool

Lincoln  UK 

 

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