I agree with Karel's suggestions of some topics worthy of research (1 role of mediator, 2 professional planning, 3 extension of graphic design skills into more complex projects, 4 measurement of effects, and 5 evaluation.) It's worth noting that, in contrast to Terry's assumptions, they seem to mainly reside in the worlds of social science and business rather than mathematical calculation. Although work that goes into the next version of InDesign may be "design research" in some sense, not very damned much of it is graphic design research and graphic designers are more likely to serve well as research subjects than as researchers in the effort.

All of this has me thinking about David Ricardo. As someone who stands out as a generalist in a generalist field, I should probably be indicted and convicted for repeated and consistent violation of Ricardo's Law. (An over-simplified version: specialization and commerce is to everyone's economic advantage; if you do x better than you do y and I do y better than I do x, even if you do y better than I do, everyone is better off economically if you stick to x and I stick to y.)

My first meeting this morning was with someone who does eye tracking and related work. Cool toys; I want some. I wonder, however, how much eye tracking I'd have to do before it wouldn't be a better idea for me to learn enough to avoid research design pitfalls but leave the minutia of machine operation to someone else. In the odd economy of the university, I'd get rewarded for writing a successful grant for getting my own equipment that wouldn't be used to capacity even though his equipment (paid for by the same tax payers) would sit idle because of my having my own. But, being a self-centered twit, I worry more about the time and attention it would take to master the mechanics of the testing equipment, time better spent on activities that the eye tracking guy can't do.

Which leads me back to the claim that designers should be researchers. In what cases wouldn't a graphic designer be better off hiring a researcher than she would by becoming a researcher? 

If the point is that research should be done then, yeah, sure. Who's going to argue against knowledge in general or against answering any set of interesting or useful questions? Especially, who would argue against learning about the very useful topics Karel raised?

But two questions arise: Why should the research be done by graphic designers? Why should graphic design education be dominated by researchers? I'll start to tackle the first:

It might seem like professional planning (subject 2) might be better done with the help of business consultants. There are several notable ones in the US who specialize in the graphic design business. (A couple of them are friends of mine.) One of the more prominent graphic design business consultants gives what I believe to be good business advice. He doesn't evoke David Ricardo (I don't even know if he knows who Ricardo was) but he does make a clear business case for technical and market specialties. He scolds designers for acting like ADD five year olds and tells us to settle down and be serious businessfolk.

The big problem is that he assumes we got into the graphic design biz to make a lot of money. A simple syllogism would lead us to believe that he thinks graphic designers are idiots. He clearly doesn't know what actually motivates most of us. Maybe research on what motivates us with the conclusions delivered to our consultants makes sense.

There are, however, various research subjects that might better be handled by someone with graphic design knowledge. Typographic research like Terry alludes to probably should be handled by people with a sophisticated relationship with type to avoid the research result being inane and/or misleading "rules of thumb."

On the other hand, the idea that some graphic designers would make better researchers for some subjects doesn't imply that all graphic designers should become researchers. Terry's claim strikes me as absurd on the face of it.

Gunnar
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