Hi Kari,
Why do we need a fixed methodology for doing research through design
activity? What we look for is its validity, isn't it?
There are rigourous methodologies in previous work by other researchers
who have conducted research while designing ( widely known as practice-led
research) since late 90s. Some are below. There are other examples,
especially from the UK. These are what I have studied well in the past.
Allen, J. (2002). Some problems of designing for augmentative and
alternative communication users: an enquiry through practical design
activity.Ph.D. thesis. Loughborough University.
Pedgley, O. (1999). Industrial designers? attention to materials and
manufacturing processes: analyses at macroscopic and microscopic
levels.Ph.D. thesis. Loughborough University.
Pedgley, O., & Wormald P. (2007). Integration of design projects within
a Ph.D.Design Issues, 23(3), 70-85.
Whiteley, G. (2000). An articulated skeletal analogy of the human
upper-limb.Ph.D. thesis.Department of Medical Physics and Clinical
Engineering, Sheffield Hallam University and The University of Sheffield.
Wood, N. (2006). Transmitting craft knowledge: designing interactive
media to support tacit skills learning.Ph.D. thesis.Sheffield Hallam
University.
Hope it helps.
Best,
Cigdem
Ms. Cigdem Kaya
Assistant Professor, MFA, PhD
Istanbul Technical University
Department of Industrial Product Design
Taskisla, Istanbul 34437, Turkey
t. 0212 2931300 x 2824
f. 0212 2514895
w. www.tasarim.itu.edu.tr[1]
www.cigdemkaya.net[2]
Alinti Kari Kuutti <[log in to unmask]>
> Marianne Markowski asked,
> how to apply 'constructive research' or 'research through design'
> correctly. This is an acute and important question ? although pretty
> difficult to answer. Let's ponder the 'research through design' part
> a bit further.
>
> 'Research through design' is rather high on the list of current
> hot buzzwords, and it is used for a wide variety of ways and for
> different purposes, and quite often with such a flavor as if there
> would already exist a well-defined stepwise *method* of 'research
> through design', so any confusion is understandable.
>
> The term or phrase itself has been criticized and indeed it is no
> good, but with respect to design research as academical discipline
> there is a healthy core concept hiding under it: an approach to do
> academical research where design, development, and use of an
> artifact is utilized for creation of data for that research. In the
> "pure" form the developed artifact has no other use; it is a
> research prototype that has fulfilled its purpose when the data has
> been extracted. In the "piggyback" form the research effort is
> sitting on the shoulders of a real development project that tries to
> create something useful for real world.
>
> ('Academical' is here just an index to such research where the
> goal is the communication of results to a research community.)
>
> Now this is probably the "native" form of doing academical design
> research, and our core strength when compared to other disciplines:
> instead of taking an outsider observer position, we go "in" and
> purposefully change our research subject, and by that changing have
> much better possibilities to see also the hidden connections. And in
> the end of the day a considerable part of our new knowledge is
> condensed and crystallized in the form of the new artifact ? in
> principle much more easily analyzable and generalizable than, for
> instance, what action researchers in organizations (who also go
> "in") have in their hands: changed attitudes, work habits, forms of
> interaction.
>
> So far so good: we have an unique foundation any discipline could
> be proud of; if there were a solid methodology for 'research through
> design', our disciplinary turf would be secure forever. (We are
> anyway going to need a bunch of different methods, say, one for
> studying development processes, other for artifacts in use, and so
> on, and a discussion about their coverage and validity, and a
> justification why they work ? and the totality of such bunch and
> discussions is called a methodology...). But then there is the
> problem that we do not yet have such methodology ? in fact, we do
> not yet really have the particular methods either... Of course such
> work has been practiced since long, and various experiences have
> been collected and recorded, but honestly: nobody has yet an idea
> how to 'correctly' do 'research through design'.
>
> I think that there is now a general awareness that
> operationalizing 'research through design' would be a good idea, and
> most astute members of the community, such as John Zimmerman, Jodi
> Forlizzi and Erik Stolterman (as cited in previous messages) have
> been already a while outlining a research program to start such
> work. The development of a methodology, however, is not a work of a
> single researcher but the whole community. And it is not an armchair
> job either; the empirical experience of doing research has be
> brought to bear in all phases of the community discussion. This
> discussion has started, but it could be more prominent and more
> systematical, a persistent subtheme whenever design researchers
> publicly (or privately) meet.
>
> Method development is not enough alone: the eyeglasses we have
> inherited from arts, human and social sciences or technology
> development are probably not sufficient for the new purpose. When we
> do 'research through design', we need a point of our own, where to
> look at, and how to conceptualize what we see. Our current
> understanding of the artifact-practice relationship is not yet
> distinctive enough. In this respect there already has been
> interesting recent openings, for example John Bowers' and Bill
> Gaver's trilogy of papers on 'annotated portfolios' is an attempt to
> generate a new way to discuss about and evaluate artifacts.
>
> So, Marianne, your question is excellent; my apologies that the
> answer is no better ? as a research community we should just work
> harder to get there... :-)
>
> --Kari Kuutti
> Univ. Oulu, Finland
>
> PS. There is in fact a very illustrative example on "research
> through design" practiced by a research community over decades, and
> that is Artificial Intelligence research, where building new
> computer programs capable to do some novel trick has been always the
> major device for research. People have used artifacts as a way of
> elaborating their questions and answering them, and the scientific
> discussion took place around the artifacts. Phil Agre (an AI
> researcher that later become a social scientist) has written a
> couple of insightful pieces about that. Contentwise, I dare not
> suggest AI as the role model, but ? mutatis mutandis ? something a
> bit similar might happen in DR, and at least in HCI as well.
>
> Gaver, W. W. (2012). What should we expect from research through
> design? CHI?12 (pp. 937 ? 946). Austin, Texas.
> Bowers, John {2012} The logic of annotated portfolios:
> communicating the value of 'research through design'. Proceedings
> of DIS'12: Designing Interactive Systems, 68--77
> Gaver, Bill & Bowers, John (2012) Annotated Portfolios.
> interactions vol19. no 4 pp.40-49
>
> Agre, Phil: The Soul Gained and Lost: Artificial Intelligence as a
> Philosophical Project, Stanford Humanities Review 4(2), 1995, pages
> 1-19. http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/shr.html
> Agre, Phil: Toward a Critical Technical Practice: Lessons Learned
> in Trying to Reform AI
> in Geoffrey C. Bowker, Susan Leigh Star, William Turner, and Les
> Gasser, eds, Social Science, Technical Systems and Cooperative Work:
> Beyond the Great Divide, Erlbaum, 1997.
> http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/critical.html
>
>
>
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Y.Doç.Dr. Çi?dem Kaya
?stanbul Teknik Üniversitesi
Endüstri Ürünleri Tasar?m? Bölümü
Ta?k??la, ?stanbul 34437
t. 0212 2931300 x 2824
f. 0212 2514895
w. www.tasarim.itu.edu.tr[3]
Ms. Cigdem Kaya
Assistant Professor, MFA, PhD
Istanbul Technical University
Department of Industrial Product Design
Taskisla, Istanbul 34437, Turkey
t. 0212 2931300 x 2824
f. 0212 2514895
w. www.tasarim.itu.edu.tr[3]
Bağlantılar:
------------
[1] http://www.tasarim.itu.edu.tr/
[2] http://www.cigdemkaya.net/
[3] http://www.tasarim.itu.edu.tr
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