Hi Luke,
If you look at the purpose of 'through design' research, you find that its
central valid concern is 'changes in behaviour due to the designs being
actualised' - or else the research is off track and not about design.
If you can think of any other valid reason for 'through design' research,
I'd love to hear it.
Best wishes,
Terry
-----Original Message-----
From: Luke Jaaniste [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, 5 August 2010 7:24 AM
To: Terence Love; [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: types of design research
Hi Terry and all
Design research into the efficacy of design solutions/activities, and
predictability of this efficacy, sounds like very worthy research. This
research thus comes alongside and after the design act, as well as helping
to inform future design acts.
But is that all? Many in the in Anglo-commonwealth countries (Uk, Australia,
NZ, etc), Northern Europe, and elsewhere have been arguing that rigorously
pursued and articulated making in art and design is itself a form of
(practical, experimental, embodied, worthy-of-public-funding,
able-to-meet-academic-protocols etc) research.
I know I am not saying anything here that hasn't been argued by many in the
last decade or two,
and I also know that such arguments have not convinced a how lot of other
researchers/academics in art and design schools, let alone the rest of the
higher research community.
This is one of the useful distinctions that Frayling's research 'through'...
category was trying to get out. His paper was short, a bit vague and
contradictory,
but the project of outstanding design making as a modality of research is
certainly one that he helped to crystallise in mid 1990s UK, and that many
of the 'prepositional' arguments (ie, research
as/is/for/through/with/in/about design or art) are seeking to elucidate.
Luke
---
Dr Luke Jaaniste | 0411 016 096 | [log in to unmask] | Brisbane,
Australia
Research Fellow, Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation
(CCI), QUT :: www.cci.edu.au
academic site :: www.creatively.jaaniste.com
artistic site :: www.lukejaaniste.com
________________________________________
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Terence Love
[[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, 5 August 2010 1:06 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: types of design research
Hi Gunnar,
My apologies for being unclear. I'm also guilty of over-brevity by not
distinguishing between design and actualisation.
The purpose of any design activity is to create a design - a set of
instructions to make or do something. This is the difference between design
activity and art activity.
The central reason for creating a design is so that when the set of
instructions that is the design is followed and something is made or done,
then this will have effects in the world that will change the behaviour of
people, objects, systems, organisations etc.
These changes in behaviours that result from the implementation of a design
is its primary function. Behaviour change is the essential functionality
and purpose of any designed outcome. This means behavioural change due to
designed outcomes is the central concern of any design activity.
By implication, this means that the primary professional skill of designers
is the ability to predict the changes in behaviour of people, objects,
systems and organisations that result from any potential design.
Many writing in the design and design research literature have claimed that
the central skill of design is creativity and thinking up new ideas. It is
hard to see how this is so. It appears obviously false because it is
possible to teach anyone to creatively think up large volumes of new ideas
in a day or two. In addition, many designs based on 'creativity' fail and
they fail by failing to produce intended behavioural changes. In terms of
professional competence, it is of concern that designers using only
creativity may be limited in their understanding to predict how and why
particular behavioural changes are likely to result from their designs being
implemented. Being able to predict the changes in behaviours that result
from designs is the basis for choosing between design options generated by
creativity. The creativity needed for generating those options is relatively
routine and potentially trivial if one has the skill of being able to
predict behavioural outcomes of designs being implemented.
From this perspective, it seems obvious the purpose of all design research
is focused around improving this ability to predict the behavioural outcomes
that result from any design being implemented. This seems to apply across
all domains of design from fashion to space engineering, and all categories
of design research from creativity, aesthetics and emotion to kinematics,
collaboration and organisational dynamics.
If you can think of aspects of design research that don't fit this view, I'd
love to hear about them!
Seeing design and design research in terms of behaviour changes leads to a
significant raft of benefits that significantly simplify the mess of design
theory, research and practice. One of these benefits is it helpfully
collapses many of the multiple categories and domains of design research
into a simpler structure. How this happens is the focus of a new journal
paper I'm working on.
This way of viewing design seems obvious to me. If you feel it is way off
target, please let me know.
Best wishes,
Terry
____________________
Dr. Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI
School of Design and Art
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
____________________
-----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 Gunnar
Swanson
Sent: Wednesday, 4 August 2010 11:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: types of design research
Sorry if I'm the only one having trouble with reading comprehension.
Terry--Are you saying that viewing the primary focus of all design
research as "improving the prediction of the behavioral changes that
result from a design" usefully applies across all design fields and
that design research that does not improve such predictions is not
applicable across all fields?
Are you saying that anything that does not have that primary focus is
not design research?
Or are you saying something else that I'm missing?
Gunnar
----------
Gunnar Swanson Design Office
1901 East 6th Street
Greenville NC 27858
USA
[log in to unmask]
+1 252 258 7006
http://www.gunnarswanson.com
On Aug 3, 2010, at 7:37 AM, Terence Love wrote:
> 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
> ____________________
>
> 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
> ____________________
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----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. Londoņo 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. Londoņo
> 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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