Francois:
Thanks for your interesting contribution on the "triad" of artifact, user, and context as together resulting in a more comprehensive therefore potentially more reliable finding and thus more likely reproducible. I want to think more about those three.
One small quibble. You said:
<SNIP>
"research results on the combined triad above would thus easily lend themselves to replicability by
peer designers..."
<SNIP>
I know you were not meaning to be taken too literally about replicability being easy ("easily") but that thought gets to another reason Design research studies often fail: rigor. In my personal experience I have found that doing good, rigorous research is hard (see my report in Visible Language 49.1 on a flawed study in Togo). Doing it well repeatedly with all details being controlled in each case multiplies the difficulty, especially with research that engages with the very messy and complex world outside of the lab. And in my experience reviewing research manuscripts I find Design to be far behind other disciplines in research study design and rigor of execution. That said, I cannot think right now of more than a couple of design research studies (a few in type readability and icon design) that have been replicated. Design is just not there yet.
Thus, to your triad I might add that Design research needs to be 4. rigorously designed and conducted, and that the users and contexts engage with 4. the reality outside of the lab.
Or so I believe...
Mike Zender
University of Cincinnati
Editor, Visible Language
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