Thank you for all the replies to my post on research and practice. I hope that the thread originators, James and Bourgone have found it as interesting as I have.
I just wanted to respond to a few of the direct replies to me:
Karel, thank you for your discussion and link to the Katowice conference's three types of research. I am looking forward to reading them in more detail and they certainly do sound like an interesting approach. Based on your summary, they strike me as similar to the distinction of clinical, applied and basic research that Buchanan (2001, p. 17-19), and Friedman (2000, p. 18; 2003, p.510, which I believe Ken has quoted from in his most recent post, although I note my reference differs from his by year) have discussed, which you might find also interesting if you've not read them.
Terry, thank you too for your thought-provoking suggestions (see snip below to remind everyone of them). I must confess, though, that I don't feel I fully understand the distinction between the two approaches you've outlined (however I'm keen to, so please feel free to respond).
--snip--
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'.
--snip--
From the examples I can think of, the kinds of research that designers engage with could meet either of the definitions you've outlined. So, for example, if I am trying to identify whether the 'online search' that a designer has conducted for their project would qualify as research, or is merely browsing, it could qualify as design research under either of your definitions. But it seems to me that the definition of what research is (as opposed to less rigorous investigation) in the first instance, is still undefined. Also, as Ken has already discussed, I can think of other research about design that is not necessarily related directly to practice, so I'd imagine that the definition of design research would need to be broader than just the research that relates to practice. Or have I perhaps misunderstood your comments?
Tim, I agree with your assessment of how central the definition of research is to the question of if/how designers engage with it and didn't intend to suggest otherwise. I can see how the distinction of 'little r' from 'big R' research can be useful when discussing what practitioners do, but must admit I've not had much success in employing it within my study so far. Colleagues I've discussed it with have suggested that 'little r' research is investigation but does not qualify as research. And when when I've looked for literature previously, I've found virtually nothing that has endorsed this approach to discussing the types of research practiced within design or any other field for that matter. Perhaps this is predictable, as it would be surprising to find 'R'esearch literature that advocates 'r'esearch, but I did expect to find at least one or two papers. One exception was an interesting powerpoint presentation by Rosenthal (2011) that discussed this distinction in the context of Medicine. If you know of other literature that debates the big/little r distinction, I'd be very interested to read it.
Thanks again for all the discussion and suggestions. Very useful for me.
Best wishes,
Emma
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Emma Fisher, BA
PhD Candidate
Faculty of Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne, Australia
www.swinburne.edu.au/design
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Buchanan, R. (2001). Design Research and the New Learning. Design Issues, 17(4), 3-23.
Friedman, K. (2000). Creating design knowledge: from research into practice. Paper presented at the IDATER 2000 Conference, Loughborough University.
Friedman, K. (2003). Theory construction in design research: criteria: approaches, and methods. Design Studies, 24, 507-522. doi: 10.1016/s0142-694x(03)00039-5
Rosenthal, T. C. (2011). Little r, Big R: Aristotle, Osler, and Einstein. online - found in google search.
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