Hi Emma,
What you say makes sense. A question that springs to mind is about where you
are drawing the boundaries of what you see as design research.
Seems like there are two obvious-ish options:
1. Design research defined as 'research that helps improve design outcomes
and design practices'. This includes the design related research from AI,
Psychology, Math modelling etc etc
2. Design research defined as 'research that designers use in their
practices'.
The problem with using the second one is it results in a tautology -
testing to see whether designers use the research that designers use....
you seem to be heading down this road?
An implication of using 1. Is that it then brings in the way design research
outcomes are embedded in the activity of producing designs outside
designers thinking about them or even being aware of the existence of the
research.
Or is there a way round this dilemma?
Best wishes,
Terence
===
Emma wrote: my PhD ... aims to discover if, how and why professional
designers in Australia engage with research as part of their practice, as
well as whether they value engaging with research, regardless of whether
they are presently able to use it....which as I said, I believe could only
be through personally conducting investigations, or reading research
findings. Employing tools (whether they are the outcome of research or not)
does not constitute engaging with research as far as I can see, but I'd love
to hear if, and if so why, you disagree.
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