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Dear list members,
In my department, we have a PhD program in design and we are always discussing what is and what is not design research. There are several students that hope to use practice as the central part of the research activity and some have been interested in approaches such as “research through design” and “research-creation”. I argue that practice can be part of research when practice activities serve research purposes; in other words, engaging in practice may allow the researcher to answer certain types of questions or provide scenarios or products to test hypotheses. I add that “research through design” and “research-creation” are not, yet, mature approaches to reliably use them in PhD level research. Zimmerman, Stolterman, and Forlizzi (2010) identified three obstacles of research through design: a romantic view of design; theory is not an intended outcome; the need of a standard to document the design process. These are large challenges.
I have seen, with awe, in this list and elsewhere many events and calls for researchers and authors using “research through design” and “research-creation” approaches.
Is the design research community close to deal with Zimmerman and colleagues’ obstacles? Does anyone know of recent and relevant literature on this issue? This has been previously discussed in this list, but it would be interesting to update the discussion or know current developments on design research epistemology and methodology.
Thanks.
G. Mauricio Mejía, PhD
Associate professor University of Caldas, Colombia
@mmejiaramirez
Zimmerman, J., Stolterman, E., & Forlizzi, J. (2010). An Analysis and Critique of Research through Design: towards a formalization of a research approach (pp. 310–319). Presented at the DIS 2010, Aarhus, Denmark: ACM Press.
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