On 12 May 2009, at 8:18 am, Ben Matthews wrote:
> Incidentally, I recall Nigel Cross wrote (in Design Studies) an
> uncharacteristically ranting review of Brenda Laurel's edited book
> "Design
> Research Methods" for stealing the title of his (and our) field of
> research,
> and then reappropriating it to refer to the 'ordinary' practices of
> (user)
> inquiry that are requisite to designing products and services that
> work for
> people.
I remember the review well, but I thought that Nigel's main point was
that the research outlined by Laurel was the type that should be
conducted by designers anyway, if they are to have any evidence to
understand users and move beyond intuitive approaches.
That aside, I do have a lot of sympathy with those designer/
researchers who are near market and working direct with users in
whatever way. However, this cannot be irrespective of the rigour with
which that research is conducted. It has long seemed to me that, too
often, claims for generalisation beyond the individual narrow study
are overblown. I'm sure we have all seen the kinds of results of
interviewing a couple of people and then claiming generalisation to a
whole population. Or the kinds of analysis where the reporting of
'facts' as just percentages are both naive and misleading, and where a
better understanding of statistical methods would provide a richer
description of what had been discovered.
David
.........................................................................
David Durling FDRS PhD http://durling.tel
.........................................................................
|