Types of Research

Generally research and design are separate activities. You can do Research For Design, for example, collecting user data and then the data analysis and interpretation informing what and how you design. Or Research Into Design looks at the effects of particular designs, or, for example, a researcher goes into a design studio and researches the people doing the designs. This is the bulk of research and has been done since the Renaissance - historians, psychologists, economists, looking at design from outside the discipline.

If you are doing research "for" or "into" design, you are probably not doing design at the same time!

Research Through Design (RtD) is performing the discipline of research while doing the design. Or as Dr. Mehmet Aydın Baytaş (2022) puts it, "RtD is a way to materialise and express the knowledge and insights that you get by doing hands on design work."

RtD - A Brief History

Christopher Frayling was the first person to start to talk about RtD as an academic discipline.

Some interesting highlights from this video:

• Need to perform a style of research that actually maps onto how designers really think in a complicated, unpredictable and messy world.
• RtD is taking design as a particular way of thinking and a particular approach to knowledge which helps you to understand certain things which exist outside design.
• The problem with it is that design is added at the end, not the beginning. It's rare that projects begin with design. Usually it begins with something else and then design comes into it.
• "Design should be generating research and then you've got research through design and not design as a bolt-on."

What is Research?

This is a good question. According to Dr. Mehmet Aydın Baytaş (2022), research is writing! It means writing articles (in English predominantly), these articles are subject to peer review, they are published in journals, read at universities, and refer or inform theory. This provides access to academic community, affords awarding of degrees, which translates in jobs, funding, and credibility. RtD is a way to get design work accepted into the academic world. This is a departure away from using the methods of anthropology, sociology, psychology, i.e. Research Into Design, where RtD allowed research while doing design.

Research is also a methodology. RtD methodology can be based on design thinking or double diamond or lean start-up. Taking a process that is intended for new products or business or business innovations and using this as a research method.

Why Engage in RtD?

An extrinsic reason is to conform to academia so that one can apply for grants, achieve degrees, prestige, etc.

An intrinsic reason for engaging in RtD is that one actually needs to achieve something, to produce something. Here we can make a distinction:

How to Design... with a new material, a new technology, a novel process? Actually working with these things provides new insights, generates new questions, uncovers unknown unknowns! Helps us figure out how to design, understand the impact of our designs, that only building the actual designs will tell us. You may only get to these things by actually doing design!

How do people... behave and think in particular situations or when engaging with a particular design? Answers to these questions are useful in practice because it tells us about our customers, materials, and processes. RtD deals with issues in psychology, people's habits, experiences, social norms, and institutions.

RtD allows you to deal with these questions by way of doing design! It brings together design and scientific research. It tells us about design and people. It is useful for academic and commercial work.

Unique Amongst Research

RtD allows us to see things change when we intervene by inserting new design into peoples lives. Social science research is concerned with how things are, where RtD looks at the effect that we have on the world as designers - how things could or should or might be! Engineering research looks at certain technologies and materials, but the impact of this on peoples lives is not within the scope of their questions. RtD allows us to translate the direct experience of building designs and interacting with them into scientific knowledge. It's not really a research method, but it allows us to store knowledge in the recordings of scientific literature.

An Example

In the early 1980's Xerox wanted to design printers that everyone could use. They employed psychologists and anthropologists to test and observe the use of prototype machines. It turned out to be pioneering work in design and design systems, using for example differing colours to signify different printer functions and user engagement.

Challenges Facing RtD

RtD is a complex area, it's breadth covers new materials, technologies, businesses, processes, etc. It is an idea that has been developed in an academic environment and is thus subject to the rigours, processes, methods, mental models, goals, documentation, publishing, language and criteria of academia. Part of the challenges facing RtD is balancing the demands and flow of design with conforming to the rigours of academia.

Besides being clear about the purposes of RtD, other topics which require clarity are the methods of RtD, quality, deliverables, publishing, and practice of RtD. More clarity leads to more engagement and the ability to communicate its value.

Prof. Grayling (see video above) sates that the challenge of RtD is for design to lead the process. Design is not a bolt-on added at the end to make something look good.

Looking Forward in the MA Course

This current module is UX Research. It is expected to define some research topic, an area of interest, develop an artifact and perform research about that artifact. Basically the expectation is to perform RtD. It is not possible t know everything, to be in the position of the unknown, to engage in an activity of design creation while at the same time researching processes, methods, and outcomes.

References

Baytaş, Mehmet Aydın. 2022. The Origin and Purpose of Research through Design [E13]. Available at: https://youtu.be/wLcz8GTDFYI [accessed 23 Sept 2022].