Dear Birger, 

I am fairly familiar with most of what you are saying, remember?, I have followed the RTD discourse for over a decade. And I appreciate very much your intellectual struggle, I am with you. 

1. I have never written 'the scientific method' in capitals, 2. nor used the word 'isolation' to describe design research, 3. nor suggested that we should get more 'scientific'. So I don't know if there is a disagreement between us. Let me clarify: 

1. I use the word 'scientific method' pretty much the same way as Don Norman has elaborated it  in his post on Thu, 9 Feb 2012 08:18:20 -0800. I have made a habit to use the word 'wissenschaftlich method' if I mean something that includes action research, etc, etc. Besides, is action research a scientific method? Rorty taught us that we don't have to worry about this question. For me, the issue is settled. Science is NOT opposed to design in the same way that coffee is NOT opposed to tea. For me, I feel very comfortable to try coffee now. 

2. I said that in the last decade the design research community needed to be 'insulated' (protected) to explore what they believed. 

3. I hold the same view about science as Don Norman has so clearly described on Thu, 9 Feb 2012 17:28:43 -0800. When I said that perhaps it is a right time to reconcile with science, I meant that we should learn to do science for certain research questions; doing science (for certain research questions) is not the same as being scientific (for everything we do). I am with Don Norman completely. 

Why do I turn to science now? Many reasons but one very particular shocking (to me): Someone called me a positivist and told that I should focus on something more relevant to design when I was talking about how Popper meant by 'falsification'. Is learning how science is done makes me a positivist and a defector of research through design? This cannot be healthy. 

Best, 
Rosan





-----Original Message-----
From: Birger Sevaldson [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Donnerstag, 9. Februar 2012 11:44
Subject: Re: some more questions on research design RE: Is claim/research on 'success' one-sided?

Dear Rosan
I do not mind "scientific methods". I have done my share of reading across the sciences, from hard to soft, and there is no such thing as The Scientific Method. There are many different and contradicting approaches, and many have been used in design research with mixed results. Science is the most dynamic and wonderful rich and contradictive landscape where unimagined things happen, like the application of quantitative methods in parts creativity research. We can lean onto these as long as we know their limitations. Design relates to many fields so it is only natural that we lean onto many different modes of knowledge production.
But when dealing with DESIGNING we have often to break away from what is sufficient in other sciences that mostly are occupied with describing what is found and do not bother with the generative modes of knowledge production.
We cannot pre-formulate research questions for wicked problems. We cannot import cemented prescriptions for research for situations of "thrownness".
This is not something limited to design research. E.g. we do not formulate research questions when doing Grounded Theory.
I support better research and reasoning. But there are no simple unison answers to this. And only few methods from descriptive sciences are relevant for the Making Disciplines.
What we can do is to develop better argumentation. E.g. pro et contra analyses (called "Drøfting" in Norwegian). This simply means to bring forward the counter arguments to your own argumentation and discuss this thoroughly. This is not exactly falsification (which has the big weakness that it is binary) but in a way similar, but allowing for gradients and shades and contextualisation. I agree with Derek that there is too little of that in design research (if this is what he means). But I think his notion of evidence and evidence based design is very blurred and confused. You can't hit a moving target with a fixed gun. So what constitutes evidence in rapidly changing contexts?
BTW I totally disagree with your picture that design research has been isolated and that it needs to come out of this and get more "scientific".
Best
Birger