Dear Felipe,
My research suggests there are two central characteristics of design research that usefully apply across all design fields.
1. To view the primary focus of all design research as 'improving the prediction of the behavioural changes that result from a design'. This is regardless of whether the design research is about the designed outcome, context, design problem, design process, idea generation, collaboration, intuition, creativity, emotion, etc. Behavioural change is the central issue of concern in design research -whether it is the behavioural changes in objects, people, theories, interventions, organisations or systems.
2. There is a world of difference between design research relating to those design situations that have two or more feedback loops and those design situations that have one or no feedback loops. Most design research, particularly in the Art and Design arena, ONLY applies to design situations with no feedback loops or one feedback loop. A completely different way of looking at design research is necessary for design situations with two or more feedback loops. The main difference is that one cannot understand or predict their behaviour in one's mind - and intuition, feelings, crowd-design etc do not apply.
These two issues result in a different way of seeing design education for design research. They suggest that in many aspects of design education, the historical research concept of 'research for, into and through design' is unhelpful and in some cases false.
Perhaps the greatest benefits of the above two characteristics is they result in a more transparent and purposeful ordering of research theory about design and they identify significant holes and absences of effort in design research. They also help identify where some areas of design education are over-emphasised, for example, communication theory and rhetoric.
Best wishes,
Terence
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Dr. Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM
Director Design-focused Research Group, Design Out Crime Research Centre
Researcher, Digital Ecosystems and Business Intelligence Institute
Associate, Planning and Transport Research Centre
Curtin University, PO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845
Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]
Member of International Scientific Council UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal
Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development
Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
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-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of G. Mauricio Mejia
Sent: Tuesday, 3 August 2010 5:32 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: types of design research
Dear list members,
My colleague Felipe C. Londoño and I are discussing types of design research to create a framework for research education in our design graduate program (PhD in Design). We have reviewed some references but they seem to be contradictory.
First, we checked Frayling that proposes three types: research into design, research for design, and research through design.
Second we read Findelli, Brouillet, Martin, Moineau, and Tarrago that propose also three types: research about design, research for design, and research through design.
Finally we read Forlizzi, Stolterman, and Zimmerman that again propose three types: research on (about) design, research for design and research through design.
Even though these three references have similar categories, they have different interpretations of the types of design research. We wonder which classification has more acceptance in the design research community. We know that there is no single answer to this issue but we would like to hear your comments about types of design research.
Felipe C. Londoño
G. Mauricio Mejía
Faculty members
Universidad de Caldas, Colombia
References:
Findelli, A. (2008) Research trough Design and Transdisciplinarity: A Tentative Contribution to the Methodology of Design Research. In Proceedings of Swiss Design Network Symposium. Berne, Switzerland.
Forlizzi, J., Stolterman, E., and Zimmerman, J. (2009). From Design Research to Theory: Evidence of a Maturing Field. In Proceedings of the International Association of Societies of Design Research. IASDR.
Frayling, C. Research in Art and Design. Royal College of Art Research Papers 1, 1 (1993),1-5.
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