What constitutes specific design research? And what can be considered quality on the terms of this particular field of research? Those were some of the questions raised in seven presentations by people from the design research environment at the annual DCDR research seminar. Ultimately, the key question was how to define one’s own agenda for specific design research.

By Mads Nygaard Folkmann

Just as the concept of design has recently undergone major changes – design is no longer a narrowly defined concept but a highly expanded concept – design research too is in a very different position than it was only 20 years ago. There is now an awareness of design on the political level, not only with regard to the benefits for the national economy of having a design-driven business sector and/or a design-driven experience economy but also with regard to the role of the educational institutions in relation to the overall build-up in design capacity. Being a designer today not only means creating products and graphic solutions; it also means addressing a wide range of general issues pertaining to design: the social and cultural context of design, the users’ role, developing solutions on an abstract level, etc. Contemporary design is an element of interdisciplinary and strategic processes.

Critics might claim that designers have never actually worked in artistic-aesthetic isolation on strictly concrete solutions. However, there is today a greater awareness of design as a broad field that reaches far and deep into society. The point is that this awareness affects the creative and artistic fields of education too, as a political demand to upgrade and raise the academic aspects. On a pragmatic level, the political demand for a more academic profile in design education is expressed in a desire to turn the Kolding School of Design and The Danish Design School into academic programmes, capable of offering a five-year master’s programme as well as an additional three-year Ph.D. programme in parallel to the existing programmes in the schools of architecture in Denmark: the Aarhus School of Architecture and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture.

That is why research has become such a key topic – the increased emphasis on academic approaches may eventually lead to the import of science and research concepts from other disciplines than design, and it involves a number of related questions concerning the definition of research in design, who does research in design, and what motivates research in design.

The Research Seminar

In addition to facilitating networking among design researchers in Denmark, one of the main purposes of the research seminar that was held by the Danish Centre for Design Research at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture on 27 August 2007 was to go on the offense and discuss what actually constitutes design research as a specific activity, and how quality can be defined on the terms that apply in this distinct field. By proactively defining an agenda for design research as a specific activity the field may avoid winding up in a defensive position in relation to outside concepts of research taken from, say, the natural sciences, the social sciences or the humanities.

At the same time, these knowledge disciplines or fields do have strong relations with design, and there is research in design that is based, for example, on classic elements from the humanities (for example design history as art history) or social studies (for example design in a sociological perspective). Furthermore, many of the staff in the research departments of the creative-artistic institutions have their background in these disciplines. However, the question is how to develop a form of design research that incorporates elements from many sources but whose object is design, and which is anchored in the particular type of educational institution where the students are trained to become actively practicing designers. The question is how to define a field of research that is specific to its discipline and to art education yet is also able to find inspiration and methods from many different discourses of knowledge.

As input for this debate, the afternoon programme at the research seminar included seven brief presentations by people from the design research environment. Together with the two longer presentations in the morning session (se article on Henrik Oxvig’s and Mikkel Bogh’s presentations), the seven presentations formed the basis for a constructive discussion in smaller groups, where the overarching issue of ‘quality in design research’ was the topic of lively debate. The group’s conclusions were then presented in a plenary session. The point of the process with the seven presentations and the subsequent debate was not to nail down a set of incontrovertible premises of design research once and for all but rather to kick off the debate: the meta-discussion about the nature and quality of design research is a key part of being an actively practicing design researcher.

Criteria for Design Research

A recurring element in the day’s presentations and debate was that design research should adhere to “a set of common criteria for any research”, as Associate Professor Ida Engholm of DCDR put it. In his presentation on “the unique and the not unique in good design research” Associate Professor Per Galle of The Danish Design School similarly attempted to narrow down a concept of good research by pointing to a series of general factors that apply to all research.  With inspiration from Nigel Cross’ recently published book Designerly Ways of Knowing (Springer, 2006, p. 102) Galle proposed five criteria for good research:
• purposive: addressing an issue or a problem that is worth studying, and which can be studied
• inquisitive: acquiring new knowledge
• informed: based on awareness of previous, related research
• methodical: planned and executed in a disciplined manner
• communicable: making results available to others.

This set of criteria implies several interesting issues that were all addressed in the day’s debate, and which are still up for debate:

How should purposive be understood in design research? There was widespread consensus in the debates throughout the seminar that good research cannot necessarily be aimed at an explicit end goal in the form of a particular product; design research, whether it is predominantly theoretical or more practice-oriented, is always experimental in nature: One does not know ahead of time what product or what theoretical understanding the research will lead to.

In his presentation Peter Gall Krogh, an associate professor at the Aarhus School productively used the term open-ended hypothesising about an approach to research that involves having an assumption while maintaining an open process of inquiry (see slide). He used this term in relation to the more practice-oriented “Research Through Design”, that is, the development of new knowledge by developing new design; however, the term can be applied to all types of research. This open-ended approach to research also implies that research is something that takes and requires time. One of the groups in the debate emphasised that research in design generally needs a generous approach to time as well as professional diversity.

Per Galle linked the purposive aspect of design to the possibility of “producing new things in our world”, but the debate repeatedly returned to the point that an important quality in design research is the willingness to take risks and to dare be avant-garde, even if there is no immediate output. Like a product development process in a company, this process implies a necessary dialectic between openness to ideas and the necessity of specificity; as Peter Gall Krogh put it, in relation to the perspective of practice-oriented development processes, any idea is valuable in principle – the challenge lies in scrapping design ideas.

Another key issue is how to relate to one’s chosen method, theory or approach. In regard to this point there was widespread consensus that anyone engaged in a research process should be transparent and argue openly for their choice of method. One should present the premises for one’s actions and play with an open hand. There was some discussion as to whether the open presentation of one’s method and approach are about reproducing or testing a particular research activity; this is an essential criterion in the natural sciences which aim for systematic and reproducible results. That is probably not possible in design research, whether in relation to the development of theories, new models for design solutions, or other activities. People do not think and design in the same way. The aspect of reproducibility has more to do with not concealing the premises of one’s work but laying them bare and reflecting on them. All quality research is self-reflective and meta-reflective. Regardless of the content of one’s research, which is always open to critical debate, there was widespread consensus on this formal research criterion: openly presenting one’s method – which ultimately will also help make research accessible to students and thus live up to the goal of the universities, among others, of providing research-based education.

Research into What?

In his presentation Per Galle further questioned what specifically characterises design research, that is, what is ‘special’ about design research when it lives up to Cross’ requirement of being ‘purposive’. Here, Galle e listed a number of theoretical fields which he believes should be addressed by design research: In direct relation to the creation of design he pointed to a process-oriented theory concerning creativity and reflectivity toward a product-oriented theory concerning, say, product semiotics and aesthetics. Surrounding this field is a theory about the context of design, which has to do with social conditions, cultural history and environment. In addition, there is an overarching meta-theory about criteria for science, ideological paradigm shifts and the ontological basis of design. All these areas are fairly well documented, according to Galle, so in addition he pointed to an area of product-oriented theory that he thought warranted further expansion: an instrumental theory of design to clarify concepts and principles for the organisation of specific design solutions – ultimately a practice-oriented theory of design that is relatively directly applicable.

In extension of Per Galle’s presentation, design research can be said to involve many forms of research into design – and that must be the case, as design today involves many different elements and affects many different contexts. As Ida Engholm put it, design is an interdisciplinary field where many disciplines and positions play a role. In her presentation, Ida Engholm pointed out how research can be viewed from different perspectives. On the one hand we have Frayling’s concepts, which distinguish between research through design, where design is used for development, research for design, which involves establishing models, for example for the development process, and research into design, which includes, for example, the outside perspective of art history or research in the discourses of knowledge that define design. On the other hand, the OECD has established a set of general definitions that apply to all research. Ida Engholm listed the concepts and related them to the field of design. The OECD operates with three types of research:

• Basic research: experimental or theoretical work with the purpose of achieving new insights. In the field of design, for example, this may involve philosophical or conceptual research and theory development. 
• Applied research: investigations undertaken with the purpose of achieving new knowledge and insight – aimed primarily at specific practical goals or objectives. In the field of design this may involve qualitative or quantitative studies of specific topics. 
• Clinical/experimental development: systematic efforts to apply existing theory and generate new knowledge. In relation to design, this may involve, for example, material studies or the development of products and processes.

Ida Engholm pointed out that OECD’s concept of clinical research is close to Frayling’s concept of research for design; however, Frayling’s concept has been used to legitimise a view that equals research with making proposals. To qualify as research in accordance with the OECD definitions, experiments and development efforts must be accompanied by explicit thesis management, documentation of experiments, a written report and verifiability.

Ida Engholm also demonstrated how the various types of design theory all have their specific historical traditions and links to different academic disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, semiotics, philosophy, phenomenology, etc. She pointed to the British Design Methods tradition (1962-) and the American Design Studies tradition (1980-) as two important paradigms in design research. The former is associated with the practical field of design (determining which methods can be applied in design), while the latter casts the field of design research as an open field where many types of knowledge can be exchanged. The point is that to clarify one’s own design research method one must be aware of existing methods and paradigms of knowledge.

Anders Brix and Peter Gall Krogh also reflected on the subject matter in design research; their reflections revolved more around the field of practical design. Peter Gall Krogh spoke about remaining “true to the nature of the discipline” and offered reflections anchored in research through design, based on the premise that design can be a force for changing culture, and that design knowledge should be present in the product. Anders Brix stated that “design research should develop the discipline of design” and thus invited further debate about what exactly it is that is being developed.

Anders Brix’ main focus was on the design solutions themselves in the sense of practical design work informed by research. He offered a definition of design as the “summation of complex conditions into a convincing form”, where good design refers to an indivisible whole. Since the word ‘design’ is currently applied to just about anything (he mentioned that the Iraq war had been referred to as design), he appealed for a more discipline-specific, practical approach to design.

He further proposed a definition of research as “an issue pertaining to a discipline that is bigger than a case but smaller than the discipline as a whole” and pointed to the Dutch architectural firm MVRDV’s book FAR MAX (FAR = Floor Area Ratio) (1999), which tests a variety of models experimentally through drawings, sketches, form reflections, and statistics in order to create an architecture that can accommodate growing population density. This is a project whose investigation goes beyond the case but which is less than the discipline as a whole. Anders Brix said that in design one has to apply the same research criteria as in other disciplines: originality, relevance and robustness. In relation to this discussion, Anders Brix emphasised that the meaning of robustness differs depending on the subject matter, research tradition, etc. – and that the particular form of art research that takes place in the field of design must rest on a different set of criteria than scientific research, that is, research that deals with science.

At the same time, the expanded concept of design implies certain requirements to the topic of research, which ultimately relate to the key discussion about research relevance. Design cannot be perceived in a manner detached from form and the act of giving shape to things, but today’s design also includes general problem-solving and concepts and pertain to many contexts in society and in economy, and consequently today’s designers have to be able to navigate in this field. Thus, we need the full range of research into, for and through design. In this respect, the main point of the research seminar was that a field that is as interdisciplinary as design requires new knowledge throughout the entire field – from practice-based, experimental studies of practical design methods, new materials etc. to more theoretical knowledge about the space of cultural, social and economic meaning that surrounds design.

The Field of Design Research

To use a pragmatic statement from the debate, the point is that a design researcher is someone who studies something in relation to design, and on that basis the key is to discover how we can all benefit from the knowledge produced within the common field. This in turn relates to the issue of the applicability and relevance of the knowledge that is produced, and one of the key points in the debate was that there must be a distinction between design research and design practice, but that research must be linked to practice. However, research can be linked to practice in many ways and more or less directly. For example, a project on the aesthetic-communicative aspects of design may in time prove useful for future designers’ understanding of their own way of working and the context within which they are designing.

Within the broad field of design research, which covers design, art history, philosophy, engineering, cultural studies, business studies, sociology, architecture, anthropology and other disciplines, Julie Sommerlund, an assistant professor at The Danish Design School, emphasised the need within this interdisciplinary field to develop new methodologies. Her example from design research lies in the cross-field of aesthetics and sociology, where aesthetics – roughly put – has focused on the meaning that only exists in an immanent form in the aesthetic object, thus ignoring all context, and where sociology – equally roughly put – has focused exclusively on the social context, eliminating aesthetics. Thus, the two branches of knowledge have mutually excluded each other, and Julie Sommerlund’s constructive point was to try to integrate them in a new, common methodology that considers factors “that are able to combine and relate these two, otherwise opposing forces”. This sort of new construction is not something that is developed overnight; it requires a long-term effort in an ongoing dialogue with related research environments both in Denmark and abroad. Julie Sommerlund said that a creative combination of the “concepts, methods and methodologies” of traditional fields of research might offer input both to empirically based design research and more theoretical design research.

Research for Whose Benefit?

A question underlying much of the debate was for whose benefit the research was carried out – to whom is the research relevant, and who is going to use the research? These questions can be difficult to escape, particularly in an educational field that trains practitioners – and furthermore it may be difficult to argue for the necessity of research without a beneficiary or a user somewhere at some point in time.

In her presentation “Forskningsmerit eller samfundets egentlige behov?” (Research credit or society’s actual needs?) Assistant Professor Louise Mazanti from The Danish Design School hit the nail on the head with a look at the needs and criteria of various recipients/users of research. On the one hand, there is a community of researchers who communicate with each other in journals through peer-reviewed articles. This is the type of research publication channel that offers the highest credit – researchers are assessed by their peers with ‘quality’ as the yardstick – but the review process often takes place in closed circles of tiny journal communities. On the other hand, there is a group of recipients made up by practicing designers, whose main need is for theoretical instruments and for a sideways perspective. Louise Mazanti called this the “horizontal orientation”, toward other practitioners’ practice, communicated through catalogues, trade journals, etc. The problem is that this dissemination of knowledge and research despite its large and hungry audience does not offer nearly as much credit as, say, an American design journal – in which case one’s future career in the academic institution may be jeopardised. A third type of recipient is society at large, which has certain requirements for the exercise of design critique, communication, etc. According to Louise Mazanti, this situation may produce a bias in relation to a form of research that aims to place an experimental practice on a scientific footing, when the academic institutions’ science logic (“scientific quality” = peer-reviewed publication) means that researchers are not rewarded for disseminating new knowledge to certain groups of recipients.

Thus, Louise Mazanti introduced a discussion about dissemination forms that could not be fully expanded within the timeframe of the seminar. Generally, however, the key point – ideally – must be to be able to define the target group that one wants to address and then to identify the most appropriate channels for the task. That may be anything from esoteric journals in German over general trade journals to the teaching situation itself, where research theses and findings can be both tested and shared with future generations of designers.

Research Policy: How Do We (Really) Get Started?

There is no doubt that design research is a vital field with plenty of room for activity and achievements in the years to come and for the many related disciplines to enrich each other. Design research in Denmark is a developing field with tremendous potential.

Merete Ahnfeldt-Mollerup, associate professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, drew attention to the extensive system of research consultancy and the various forms of support it offers. Design researchers in particular should know about the strategic research funds where the funds for “Creativity and innovation, new forms of production and the experience economy”, and “User-driven innovation” are obvious sources for design researchers in addition to “Cultural understanding” and “Individually oriented health initiatives”. The strategic funds are allocated according to a different set of principles than the free funds, and it is worthwhile to visit the website of the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, www.fist.dk , to get acquainted with the possibilities. It is also possible to apply for network funds for facilitating Danish participation in large-scale EU-projects.

As part of the preparations for the EU-project “Creativity and Innovation in the Humanities” Merete Ahnfeldt-Mollerup went to London to attend the presentation of a model for selecting, developing and assessing innovative and interdisciplinary research projects. Here the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council had joined forces and allocated £6.5 million for research programmes over a period of five years within a strategic framework. The British programme committee had developed a method based on design practice where the application procedure itself unfolded as a series of workshops, where Phase 1 involved identifying key projects, narrowing the 129 original projects down to 21, further developing these projects, and – most importantly – setting up an interdisciplinary forum where the 21 selected projects could meet and exchange experiences. In Phase 2 the plan is to continue elaborating the final projects, which at that stage will all have developed far enough to make it easier to meet the ambition of delivering projects that offer radical innovation.

In between the presentations an ongoing debate unfolded about how the field of design research might be facilitated politically. Peter Gall Krogh fielded a far-reaching proposal of establishing a design research council that would not only involve the specific field of design but all the fields, from theology to the natural sciences, that deal with designing and with designerly thinking. This would include academic fields at the Technical University of Denmark, the IT University of Copenhagen, and computer studies at Aarhus and Aalborg Universities, which according to Peter Gall Krogh currently have trouble matching the existing research councils. The inherent challenge here is to define what constitutes designerly thinking, who should make the determination, and, in a broader sense, whether this leads to an understanding of design that is so broad that the concept is watered down.

Mind Design #1, 2007