Dear Klaus,

This is a quick note to clarify my understanding of the word research.
I write in English, as you do, and I use the English interpretation and
meanings of the word research.

The reason I have mentioned the French origins of the word research is
to clarify a specific issue. In the past, you have suggested that the
term “design research” is an oxymoron on the principle that research
looks backward and design looks forward. That’s the same point that I
have heard in the query, “Where’s the search in research.”

The French etymology of the word suggests that the suffix “re” in
the word “re-search” does not mean “to look backward.” In this
case, the suffix “re” of Middle French seems to be a reinforcing or
an emphatic suffix. 

English suffixes come from different sources and words that use the
same suffix take tones and meanings based on their heritage. The words
resource, respect, and regret all use the same suffix, “re,” yet the
suffix has different functions and meanings in each case. In some cases,
the “re” suffix designates repetition, in others a backward look, in
others still, looking around and comparing.

As a noun, the word research means “careful or diligent search.” 

As a verb, it mans, “to search or investigate exhaustively.” 

It doesn’t mean “to search again” or “to look backward.”

There are many approaches and forms of research. Historical research
looks backward. Mathematical research requires us to invent. Logical
research involves analysis, though some of the new logics required
inventive research to launch the new approaches. Philosophical research
involves a wide range of approaches. Many forms of research in design,
technology, or even science require us to look forward systematically,
though not necessarily to predict. If we could not engage in
forward-looking research, we would not be able to invent. 

Many of the design activities you describe below fall within the senses
of the English word research, at least in relation to significant
applied and clinical research. While there are other senses of the word
than those to which we apply the terms “basic,” “applied,” and
clinical, it is useful to review what these terms mean and to understand
the uses we can make of them.

Basic research involves a search for general principles. These
principles are abstracted and generalized to cover a variety of
situations and cases. Basic research generates theory on several levels.
This may involve macro level theories covering wide areas or fields,
midlevel theories covering specific ranges of issues or micro level
theories focused on narrow questions. Truly general principles often
have broad application beyond their field of original, and their
generative nature sometimes gives them surprising predictive power.

Applied research adapts the findings of basic research to classes of
problems. It may also involve developing and testing theories for these
classes of problems. Applied research tends to be midlevel or micro
level research. At the same time, applied research may develop or
generate questions that become the subject of basic research.

Clinical research involves specific cases. Clinical research applies
the findings of basic research and applied research to specific
situations. It may also generate and test new questions, and it may test
the findings of basic and applied research in a clinical situation.
Clinical research may also develop or generate questions that become the
subject of basic research or applied research.

Any of the three frames of research may generate questions for the
other frames. Each may test the theories and findings of other kinds of
research. It is important to note that clinical research generally
involves specific forms of professional engagement. In the rough and
tumble of daily practice, most design practice is restricted to clinical
research. There isn’t time for anything else. 

In today’s complex environment, a designer must identify problems,
select appropriate goals, and realize solutions. Because so much design
work takes place in teams, a senior designer may also be expected to
assemble and lead a team to realize goals and solutions. Designers work
on several levels. The designer is a seeker who finds problems or an
analyst who discovers problems. The designer is a synthesist who helps
to solve problems and a generalist who understands the range of talents
that must be engaged to realize solutions. The designer is a leader who
organizes teams when one range of talents is not enough. Moreover, the
designer is a critic whose post-solution analysis ensures that the right
problem has been solved. Each of these tasks may involve working with
research questions. All of them involve interpreting or applying some
aspect or element that research discloses.

Because a designer is a thinker whose job it is to move from thought to
action, the designer uses capacities of mind to solve problems for
clients in an appropriate and empathic way. In cases where the client is
not the customer or end-user of the designer’s work, the designer may
also work to meet customer needs, testing design outcomes and following
through on solutions.

This provides the first benefit of research training for the
professional designer. Professional design practice is located in a
specific, professional situation. A broad understanding of general
principles based on research gives the practicing designer a background
stock of knowledge on which to draw. This stock of knowledge includes
principles, facts, and theories. This stock forms a theoretically
comprehensive background that no one person can master. Rather, this
constitutes the knowledge of the field. This knowledge is embodied in
the minds and working practices of millions of people. These people,
their minds, and their practices, are distributed in the social and
organizational memory of tens of thousands of organizations.

At the same time, many forms of research are not generalizable and
cannot be. The specific qualities, tone, and shape of human needs mean
that in some respect, every design project is unique. At the same time,
the fact that we are all human, and all humans bear some relation, great
or small, to other humans means that we can draw and apply ideas by
analogy, metaphor, transfer, and other means from one field, experience,
or problem to another.

To use the term research does not commit anyone to a positivistic
approach. In all the years I’ve been active as a researcher, only one
or two of the many people with whom I have worked approached things from
an openly positivist approach. Admittedly, quite a few are influenced by
hidden forms of positivist epistemology, but for the most part, people
were genuinely opposed to positivist paradigms. There are many forms of
research approaches within a rich range of large-scale traditions and
frames: theoretical, empirical, conceptual, positive, descriptive but
not positivistic, normative, mathematical, logical, philosophical,
historical, textual, exegetical, hermeneutic, interpretive,
phenomenological, and I’m sure others can expand this list.

For me, the physicist and philosopher Mario Bunge (1999: 251) offers an
elegant short definition of research, describing research as the
“methodical search for knowledge.” He continues, “Original
research tackles new problems or checks previous findings. Rigorous
research is the mark of science, technology, and the ‘living’
branches of the humanities” 

Exploration, investigation, and inquiry are useful synonyms for
research, and that’s how I use the word.

Yours,

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS
Professor
Dean

Swinburne Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne, Australia

Reference

Bunge, Mario. 1999. The Dictionary of Philosophy. Amherst, New York:
Prometheus Books.



Klaus Krippendorff wrote:

—snip—

i am somewhat allergic to using the word “research” without much
reflection on what is involved. to me, “re-search” (and i know that
ken prefers the french interpretation of the word while i write in
english) means repeatedly searching for generalizable patterns that
underlie available data. if one takes the task of a science for design
seriously, one would have to SEARCH for (a) what is changeable (not what
persists), (b) who, which stakeholders, resist or support design
interventions and what would need to be done to overcome the obstacles
to a design; (c) what technological, material, individual, social and
political resources are available or recombinable to realize a design.
(d) the sole purpose of (a) through (c) is not to predict or understand
for its own sake but to provide convincing arguments (justifications)
for a design to be acceptable to interested stakeholders (so that they
can take up their stake in it).

—snip—