Dear Ken,
Thanks for sharing.
You said, “It occurs to me that we might learn more about some of the questions or issues we debate in the design field by designing web-based projects for empirical data as well as by considering approaches based on citizen science.”
This is a very interesting idea. Recruiting participants/subjects and collecting data is one of the major challenges for doing quality research in the design field. I have been working on a couple of projects in the last two years to see how some designed prototypes change behaviors of people. Recruiting subjects is a major challenge if one wants to observe the interaction prototype-subject and behaviors more than once. I am collaborating with a senior health science researcher and she said that never had such a challenge recruiting. One of my thoughts is that traditional health research, mostly for quantitative studies and trials usually take advantage of periodic health provider-patient interactions to collect data. In design, designers do not meet with users/people at all. I have also thought that the development of fields such as HCI is supported by technologies that facilitate data collection, although they usually test prototypes with small samples.
Maybe, besides user scientists, we could also develop methods to better use artifacts as scientists or designers as scientists.
Have a good weekend!
G. Mauricio Mejía, PhD
Associate professor and PhD in Design and Creation program director
Universidad de Caldas, Colombia
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|