Ah, a chance to try out the ideas for my keynote for the design research
conference in Seoul this coming October.
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I recent contributor to this forum raised a question (below) that indicates
confusion about the nature of research and the distinction between research
publication and professional recognition.

The correspondent asked:
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"the written word is a large part of our communication, but not the only
part. In many situations, mine included, the research has resulted in
manufactured products. Should we design researchers consider these
artefacts as a publication? If so, who will count them?"
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The question confuses several things. One is the unfortunate ambiguity of
the word "research" in the term design research. The other is the
distinction between enhancing the fundamental knowledge about design --
which is what I call design research -- and the recognition one gets for
doing quality work.

Many designers call "research" the act of learning about the customers,
clients, and users of a design. I do not call this research -- I call this
exploration. I'll return to this later. Instead, I will discuss the other
two components: getting recognition for one's work and enhancing the state
of knowledge.

ADVANCING THE STATE OF KNOWLEDGE.

The purpose of research publication is NOT they it be counted. The purpose
of publication in the world of research to develop cumulative, additive
knowledge. In most substantive fields -- and especially in science -- the
work of previous people provides a firm basis of generalizable knowledge
that can be replicated and built upon by others.

I am aware that mentioning the words "Design" and "Science" in the same note
offends some people. It shouldn’t. Science does not mean mathematics.
Science does not mean unimaginative, non-creative, dull, and solely
concentrating upon function. To believe this is not to understand what
science is about.

Science is not a body of knowledge: it is a process of open publication,
replicable results, and oftentimes fierce debate about findings. In the
long-term, the process filters out the bad and irrelevant and yields a
substantive body of agreed-upon results, replicable, and generalizable to
new phenomena and situations. The process, by the way, is often messy,
contentious, and driven by personalities and private feuds. The long-term
result filters out these components.

Workers publish their findings and their methods, allowing others to repeat
the results and build upon them – or fail to replicate, thereby creating the
healthy debate (and fierce arguments) that constitute scientific discourse.
It is not enough to publish one’s results: they must be generalizable,
stated in a way that will aid future people in doing similar – but different
work.

I want the same thing for design. I am interested in determining a firm,
repeatable, sustainable body of knowledge that can be taught, that can be
used to inform designers, and that year and after year, grows, and adds to
itself in a way that enhances and improves the field of design. It is the
role of research to develop these ideas, to publish them in a way that other
people can test them and either build upon them or enhance and modify them.


It is important to publish these results in standard places so others know
where to look. Science journals have established a system of quality control
called “peer reviewing.” This is a critical part of the publication cycle,
even if publication is entirely on-line. The better journals in design --
and Ken Friedman’s recent postings have done an excellent job of describing
and listing them -- are peer reviewed by anonymous reviewers who look for
substance and generalizable results.

The reason we need to publish in peer-reviewed journals is that they
guarantee a level of quality. The reason that we should stick to a small
number of journals is that we want our colleagues to read them -- if a paper
is published but not read, it might as well not be published. The purpose
of publication is communication.

Design has tended to be taught through example, mentorship, and examination
of prior art. “Designer X did this. Design group Y did that.” That is how a
craft advances. It is not how to advance a systematic body of knowledge.

DOING RESEARCH ABOUT THE CLIENT, CUSTOMER, OR USER IS NOT RESEARCH -- IT IS
EXPLORATION

I don’t count this as scientific research and I wish the R word was not used
here. I call this "exploration.". This is gathering the information needed
to do great design. If your aim is to develop new methods for doing this or
to extend and enhance our knowledge of how to do this kind of exploration,
then yes, that qualifies as research. Otherwise, no, it is just the
necessary exploration necessary to the act of designing.

RECOGNITION

Some aspects of design work upon different principles. This is fine -- just
different. What about those wonderful artifacts produced by the world's
many excellent practicitioner of design? How do they get recognized. Ah, now
we are asking about recognition -- this is different than the task of
advancing the state of knowledge.

Practitioners should get recognized. They should present their work in
juried contests, in exhibitions, and in design magazines. The researchers
might very well wish to study those works to derive repeatable generalized
principles.

Researchers also have to be recognized in order to be promoted. The academic
world looks to publication in high-quality, peer-reviewed journals or
conferences. (Only a tiny number of conferences qualify to count in the
world of academics -- the major CHI/HCI conferences do, but these are not
really design conferences. SIGGRAPH does, but it too is not a design
conference. Some engineering design conferences do, but this is not the same
kind of design most of us are interested in. Most design conferences do
not.)

Practitioners in universities can also be promoted through critical reviews
of their works. This is how musicians, actors, artists are promoted. Even
professions such as law, business, and medicine. So too with design. But
don’t confuse this with research. It isn't.

If you call yourself a researcher but your only output is a physical
artifact, then you are deluding yourself. You are a practitioner, not a
researcher. If the work did not enhance our understanding of fundamental
principles, if it is not generalizable to other kinds of work, it should not
be labeled research. It is an example of craft. I am happy to have that work
recognized as important and significant. But until someone determines the
underlying principles that add to our generalizable body of knowledge, it is
not a contribution to research.

There is advancing the state of the art. There is recognition for one’s
works. They are different things.

We publish to advance the state of the art. Although quality publications
also provide recognition, that is not the proper reason to be publishing. It
is a sometimes unfortunate byproduct. Unfortunate because it confuses what
should be the real reason – to advance understanding.

Design today is NOT a cumulative field of study. That is unfortunate. It
needs to change, especially as we enter the era of more complexity in our
artifacts, of the need for different materials, for environmentally healthy
and sustainable materials and manufacturing, where devices have electronics,
microprocessors, motors, and sensors. Where batteries are deployed that use
energy, have limited life which both impacts their ability to do the
required job and also the ability to recycle them appropriately. Our devices
communicate with people and with the environment, with other devices. More
and more they exhibit intelligence, acting of their own volition, with
complex emergent behaviors. To design these properly requires a science.

Don Norman
Nielsen Norman Group
Breed Professor of Design, Northwestern University
Visiting Distinguished Professor. KAIST, Daejeon, Korea
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