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Dear Nic, Birger, Ben, and All, When Nic posed his question to the list on distinctions between different types of design research, a colleague was visiting from Finland. We spent a bit of time discussing the thread over dinner. One topic of conversation was the odd fact that people are still discussing the Frayling (1993) proposal discussed so often and so earnestly so many years after Frayling floated the idea. After mentioning the idea in passing, Frayling never bothered to explain it or to follow it up. This is not a situation like that of Fermat’s Last Theorem where it takes the rest of us three centuries of earnest work to find out whether the conjecture was right or wrong – it was an idea that the still-living author has not bothered to pursue in the two decades since first mooting it. There are reasonable arguments against the notion. I stated my version of these arguments in Friedman (2002: 22-24). You can locate the full paper here: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/41967 Nigel Cross (1993) challenged Frayling’s notion two decades ago, soon after Frayling first proposed it, revisiting the problem again (Cross 1995, 1999). No one has yet answered Cross’s objections, nor mine. At a certain point, revisiting the “into, for and through” proposal is like a chemist revisiting phlogiston theory. Of course, the fact is that the notion of phlogiston made a certain kind of sense from the 1670s through a century of empirical experiments until Lavoisier explained combustion with a theory that contained “fewer forced explanations and fewer contradictions.” These are the kinds of explanations we require to make sense of “into, for and through.” Birger Sevaldson (2010) makes a good beginning to a new approach by asking what kinds of issues are at stake in addressing design. This approach considers issues, frames, and the appropriate methods we need to address them. If I were to address this today, I’d be starting with a taxonomy of issues, frames, and methods. An example of a taxonomy on domains of design knowledge appears in Friedman (2001: 38) http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/41897 While I’d make a different taxonomy today, the idea remains the same. At the end of the day, we are describing different forms of research that allow us to address, work in, understand, and create improvements to design practice, outcomes, and artifacts. The rubric of “design research” was valuable at a time when only a few of us in the design field engaged in research. Today, I’m beginning to wonder if it may be time for something different. We don’t speak of “chemistry research,” “physics research,” “engineering research,” or “psychology research.” There are fields of chemistry, physics, engineering, and psychology and different forms of research that support those who address, work in, understand, and create improvements to practice, outcomes, and – where appropriate – to artifacts in those fields. For the moment, we have some confusions to sort out. One of these involves recognizing that research supports every field of advanced professional practice. Nevertheless, practice is not research. Move past the confusion over “into, for and through” will help us take the next step. Yours, Ken Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia -- References Cross. Nigel. 1993. Editorial. Design Studies. Vol. 14, No. 3, 1993, pp. 226-227. Cross. Nigel. 1995. Editorial. Design Studies. Vol. 16, No. 1, 1995, pp. 2-3. Cross. Nigel. 1999. “Subject: Re: Research into, for and through designs.” DRS. Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 13:43:18 +0000. Frayling, Christopher. 1993. Research in Art and Design. RCA Research Papers, vol. 1, no. 1. London: Royal College of Art. Friedman, Ken. 2001. “Creating design knowledge : from research into practice.” Design and Technology Educational Research and Development. The merging International Research Agenda. E. W. L. Norman and P. H. Roberts, eds., pp. 31-69. URL: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/41897 Friedman, Ken. 2002. “Theory Construction in Design Research. Criteria, Approaches, and Methods.” Common Ground. Proceedings of the Design Research Society International Conference, Brunel University, September 5-7, 2002. David Durling and John Shackleton, Editors. Stoke on Trent, UK: Staffordshire University Press. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/41967 Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent. 1777. “Memoir on Combustion in General.” Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences 1777, 592-600. URL: http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/lavoisier1.html Sevaldson, Birger. 2010. “Discussions and Movements in Design Research: A Systems Approach to Practice Research in Design.” FORMakademisk, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 8-35. URL: http://www.formakademisk.org/index.php/formakademisk/article/view/62/85 --