Dear Ken and list,
[warning, long post]
Thanks Ken for an excellent post. And for the close reading of
Frayling as an entry into the complexities of the issue in question. I
fully agree with your analysis and believe this is the kind of
reasoning that can and will develop the notions around design and
research. Inspired by your post, I do want to make a couple of comments.
As I read your post, the overall message is what you summarize at the
end as
"I merely point to the fact that explicit and articulate statements
are the basis of all
theoretical activities, all theorizing, and all theory
construction." [from Ken's post]
and I basically agree with this. It is however possible to develop the
argument a bit (which you also do in your post).
The basic argument for the "explicit and articulate" is that
theoretical knowledge is all about communication, so, knowledge has to
be explicit and articulated to be possible to be communicated,
analyzed, tested, criticized, etc., and of course, to be something
"objective" that others can build upon. And again, the reason for this
is the idea that nothing is knowledge until we (or as many as
possible) find the knowledge proposal to be trustworthy and
believable. This is where the highly refined methods of scientific
research (in all areas) fill their purpose and have been extremely
successful.
If we focus on this overall quality of trustworthiness, it means that
it is possible to imagine new and other forms of knowledge (that don't
fall into the category of being 'explicit and articulated' in the
traditional fashion) that could have the same qualities (that is,
possible to communicate, analyze, critique, test, etc). BUT, these new
forms of knowledge must have to pass the most crucial quality test:
they must be able to evoke trustworthiness, that is, people will
actually have to believe in the results. And this is the hardest test
of them all.
People or researchers only believe in others research if it has
certain qualities, and we all know how hard we are as judges of others
research :-) So, even though it is possible to argue for and develop a
rationale for non-explicit and non-articulated knowledge as a 'true'
form of knowledge, the test is if research results in that form will
convince people about its truthfulness. The power of traditional
scientific research is a result of centuries of developments and
refinements of the process, the methodology, and of a philosophical
foundation around what makes scientific results believable. When it
comes to design in research, we have nothing of that in place yet.
To summarize this point: the idea that there might exist other forms
of knowledge, that don't comply with the rule of being "explicit and
articulated", is not necessarily a dead idea, it might be a
possibility, but it is extremely difficult and can not be solved by
argumentation only. It is only when people actually do believe in
results presented in these new forms that it can be said to be valid
form of knowledge. So, the resistance to new forms of knowledge
production is not (only) a consequence of not good enough arguments,
it is in most cases a consequence of the fact that the results in
themselves are not convincing, trustworthy and believable.
My other comment is about the notion of "research by design". I agree
with Ken's statement:
"While the phrase research by design has been widely used by many
people, it has not been defined. I suspect, in fact, that those who use
the phrase have not bothered to read either Fraylings (1993) paper or
Reads (1944, 1974) book. Instead, they adopt a misunderstood term for
its sound bite quality, linking it to an ill-defined series of notions
that equate tacit knowledge with design knowledge, proposing tacit
knowledge and design practice as a new form of theorizing. "
I do believe that "research by design" is a possibility. And I relate
this to my first comment above. Any kind of research can and will be
accepted and valued if the results are trustworthy. But, it is
extremely important to carefully respect the intention of the activity
in question.
The purpose of design is to create new designs.
The purpose of research is to produce new knowledge.
This means that research can be done "by design" (or "by" any other
process for that matter), but, it will always be judged and evaluated
as research, not as design. That is, the final evaluation is if the
process has produced new and agreed upon knowledge, and as such is has
to live up to the expectations that I discussed earlier in this post.
This means that research can "use" design within or under the umbrella
of research. But it is not possible to substitute research with
design, since it also means that the overall 'measure of success' is
substituted!
In my own field, Human Computer Interaction or Interaction design,
there is at the moment several attempts where researchers (usually
with a design background) are trying to carefully develop frameworks,
methods, and principles for how research in the field can "use" and
"exploit" the strengths of design (not making research into design).
This means that these strengths have to be incorporated into a larger
framework of knowledge production, with all its requirements and
limitations, while carefully keeping the specific values of designerly
inquiry and action. One interesting reflection from these attempts is
that this is a delicate task, it takes a lot of "homework", a serious
understanding of the scientific tradition AND of what the core
qualities of a designerly approach are, combined with real concrete
attempts where researchers actually show how this can be done. If done
in a careful and reflective way, there might be exciting opportunities
with this approach.
Ok, that is it for now.
Erik
Erik Stolterman
Professor of Informatics Director of HCI/design
School of Informatics Indiana University
web: http://hcid.informatics.indiana.edu/eriksite/
blog: http://transground.blogspot.com/
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