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PHD-DESIGN  September 2008

PHD-DESIGN September 2008

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Subject:

Re: Research Into, By, and For Design

From:

Erik Stolterman <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Erik Stolterman <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 11:05:00 +0200

Content-Type:

text/plain

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text/plain (123 lines)

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 Frayling’s (1993) paper or
Read’s (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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