Research

2. Research

Research in design

Research vs science

YouTube - Science & research, what is the difference between these two forms of study?

Let’s stop confusing science with scientific research, by Etienne Klein

Research is an organised discussion

Every proposition, every argument must be open to criticism.
Information seeking is structured and discussed.
Research methods are structured and discussed.
Forms of dissemination are identified and discussed.

Specificity of research in design, art and creation

It is situated within a multiplicity of disciplines related to design, art and creation,
It aims to contribute to the improvement of the practices it pertains to.

This explains the relevance of design research in both the academic and industrial worlds. It is intrinsically interdisciplinary, drawing on technical and experiential aspects, systemic and particular. Almost all research groups in these fields are interdisciplinary.

Research approaches in design

1. Research on design (Design studies - analytical approach)

Primarily analytical and descriptive, it takes design as its object of study. It aims to understand how designers think and act, how the discipline evolves, and what the theoretical foundations of design practice and study are. Its work is often theoretical, methodological, historical or philosophical in nature.

Research on design is akin to classical academic research. It primarily aims to build a research tradition, and therefore an orderly accumulation of knowledge and methods useful for research and/or practice.

Research questions

Research on design, often retrospective or observational, primarily addresses the following questions:

What is design?
What is the history of design?
How does it unfold?
What are its impacts?
What is it based on (theory)?
What are the related disciplines, and how are they connected?

Examples of questions:

How does the way experienced industrial designers use sketching to frame “wicked problems” differ from that of novice designers?
What historical sociopolitical factors led to the shift from “industrial design” to “user-centred design” in the 1980s?
How does the introduction of generative AI tools alter the cognitive load and decision-making processes of a design team?

Methods

Research methods are primarily based on observation and interview (of designers in work situations), analysis (sociological, historical, theoretical…), and study in cognitive psychology.

Opportunities

This approach is particularly useful for developing design pedagogy, working with design as an academic subject and university discipline, and for improving the management and processes of design teams.

Key references

Cross, N. (2025). Designerly ways of knowing (Second Edition). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-7541-4
Schön, D. A. (1984). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think In Action (1st ed.). Basic Books.
Simon, H. A. (1996). The sciences of the artificial (3rd ed.). MIT Press.
Archer, L. B. (1979). Design as a discipline. Design Studies, 1(1), 17–20.
Quarante, D. (2001). Éléments de design industriel (3rd ed.). Economica.
Overbeeke, K., & Hummels, C. (n.d.). Industrial Design: The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed. | Interaction Design Foundation. The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/industrial-design

2. Research for design (Design practice - applied/generative approach)

The objective is to provide a body of knowledge useful for design practice (of a product, service or system), most often within a specific design context. The goal is to shed light on information about design and usage contexts and about users, which will translate directly into design requirements and improvements. A significant part of this field is UX design research.

This type of design research, essentially synthetic, is closest to design activity within a classical professional practice framework. Among other things, it enables the involvement of tacit knowledge and know-how in discussions related to both practice and research.

In this approach, the researcher is a project actor who is part of the design team. They contribute to the project’s success and develop their knowledge, often captured through oral communication within the group. They also have access to all stages of the project and can account for its dynamics and complexity. However, this is not a design practice like any other, because it also constitutes a research activity. This practice is therefore accompanied by a research question — whether a programme or an experimental hypothesis. The research question can be proactive or reflexive.

Proactivity often aims at changing an approach or method, and evaluating that change. It can also work to steer the project in relation to the research question being addressed.
Reflexivity often aims at observing and understanding how an approach or technique is used, as close to its treatment as possible (hence the participation, whereas simple observation would place the researcher at a distance).

In France, information and communication sciences (infocom, section 71 of the CNU) contribute significantly to this part of research for design.

Research questions

Research for design primarily addresses the following questions:

What to design? How? In what situation(s)?
For whom? For what use(s)? For what situation(s)?
What are the impacts and implications of design?
How to ensure and validate its effectiveness?

Examples of questions:

What are the main cognitive and physical barriers encountered by elderly users trying to use digital telehealth platforms?
How does the spatial layout of a trauma service influence the speed of communication between triage nurses and surgeons?
What haptic feedback models produce the lowest error rates among drivers using infotainment systems at high speed?

Methods

Research methods are primarily based on ethnography, contextual inquiries, ergonomics and psycho-cognition testing, journey mapping, and cultural probes.

Opportunities

This approach is particularly useful for conducting research in parallel with design in real industrial, associative or institutional situations, for identifying, studying and proposing solutions to design-related friction points or their usage, and for optimising existing systems (particularly in HCI).

Key references

Norman, D. A. (2013). The Design of Everyday Things. Basic Books.
Suri, J. F. (2005). Thoughtless acts? Observations on intuitive design (1st ed.). Chronicle Books.

3. Research through design (Research-through-design - constructive approach)

The objective is to generate a body of knowledge through design practice. The main goal is therefore to involve design practice in a scientific activity, without necessarily serving design practice in the long term.

Research through design aims to engage design practice — that is, the thinking, processes and artefacts of design — in research as a method of investigation (Bardzell et al., 2016).

In this case, it is most often not possible to answer the question by simply observing the world as it currently exists. Research must create an object — a prototype, a system, a new material — because it is the act of creation and the resulting object that generate the answer.

RtD differs from “hard science” because it deals with wicked problems (Buchanan, 1992), which by definition are not tractable by hard science or engineering research methods. This implies, for example, that the proposed solution is potentially only optimal for the situation addressed (the work is situated) and does not tend to find a general solution or scientific truth. The link with action research used in the social sciences, however, is strong. Koskinen even argues that design researchers have appropriated action research to form RtD (Koskinen, Binder, & Redström, 2008).

Research questions

Research through design primarily addresses the following questions:

What knowledge, method, theoretical framework, or material opportunity can emerge when we design for…?

Examples of questions:

How can the material constraints of growing mycelium (mushroom) structures inform new, sustainable paradigms for temporary architectural pavilions?
What new models of domestic interaction emerge when we design smart-home devices as ‘pet-like’ companions rather than ‘servant-like’ utilities?
How does designing a wearable device that translates ambient electromagnetic fields into thermal feedback change a wearer’s spatial perception of the city?

Research through design is carried out primarily through prototyping activities, material exploration, (auto-)ethnography, and theory creation through analysis of a collection of works (annotated portfolio).

This approach is particularly useful for conducting research aimed at exploring complex problems (wicked problems), generating theories by and for design… when the answer required by the scientific question cannot be elaborated through observation and data structuring, but must be actively constructed.

The specificity of this approach is to use design practice, which is particularly useful for conducting scientific research. The prototypes produced during the inquiry are material hypotheses. The resulting artefact, whether physical, digital or systemic, is not a product. It is the materialisation of theoretical knowledge. The artefacts produced by research through design are themselves an implicit contribution: they materialise and codify the designer’s understanding of the current state, including all the relationships at play, and also describe a preferable state proposed by design as a construction of the artefact.

Design-related research is an activity aimed at producing knowledge directly relevant to the design community, in research or in practice. It can be conducted by a designer or an academic, provided that this activity follows a number of criteria and advances the discussion of design-related research.

Design research is not exclusive to academic activity. It can take place in a professional setting (just as medicine does, for example) provided it can disseminate a critical element potentially capable of evolving the practice or reflection of other practitioners.

The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd edition - Research through Design Buchanan - 1992 - Wicked Problems in Design Thinking Ilpo Koskinen, Thomas Binder, Johan Redström - 2008 - Lab, Field, Gallery, and Beyond

Key references

The main contributors to this approach are John Zimmerman, Jodi Forlizzi, Bill Gaver and William Odom.

Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked problems in design thinking. Design Issues, 8(2), 5–21. https://doi.org/10.2307/1511637

Gaver, W. (2012). What should we expect from research through design? Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 937–946. https://doi.org/10.1145/2207676.2208137

Koskinen, I., Binder, T., & Redström, J. (2008). Lab, field, gallery, and beyond. Artifact, 2(1), 46–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/17493460802303333

Odom, W., Zimmerman, J., & Forlizzi, J. (2014). Materiality and long-term interaction: A conceptual lens for understanding and designing for human-artifact interaction. Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, 767–776. https://doi.org/10.1145/2598510.2598599

Zimmerman, J., Forlizzi, J., & Evenson, S. (2007). Research through design as a method for interaction design research in HCI. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 493–502. https://doi.org/10.1145/1240624.1240704

4. Speculative or critical design (Speculative Design - Provocative)

The primary objective of speculative design is not to address research issues, but rather to raise questions. It proposes artefacts of an alternative present or plausible futures in order to challenge preconceived ideas, spark public debate and shed light on the ethical implications of emerging technologies.

These questions do not aim to solve a problem. They use design to give form to a provocation, forcing the audience to confront disturbing developments in technology, politics or society.

This approach is therefore close to design practice: it also aims to be synthetic and proactive in the realisation of product, system or service design. It differs however in the following respects:

The perspective through which the artefact is designed. Research in design exploration asks the question “What if?”. Pelle Ehn calls this approach a transcendence, in the sense that it “explores possibilities beyond current paradigms, whether those paradigms are about a style, a use, a technology, an economy”.
The objective of this activity is research itself. Fallman indicates that the typical client of this activity is the researcher’s own research programme. It is often initiated by a reflection integral to the research. The goal is therefore not to fit a market or develop one, but rather to see what is possible, what is desirable or not, what is ideal or not, or more simply to propose examples and alternatives. This approach can therefore serve a technological, phenomenological, social, political… discussion and link design to disciplines in the social sciences and humanities.

In the classic cases of this design exploration research, one will find the work of Dunne and Raby on speculative and critical design, as well as that of James Auger on artefacts as triggers for questioning.

Research questions

Speculative design primarily addresses the following questions:

What would happen if … occurred, and what would be its ethical, social or cultural implications?
What world would we live in if … were different, and what would be its ethical, social or cultural implications?

Examples of questions:

What if human DNA were legally commodified as a raw material for consumer products, and what would the accompanying retail ecosystem look like?
How might we visualise the hidden ideological biases in municipal predictive-policing algorithms through the design of alternative ‘smart city’ interfaces?
What are the psychological implications of living in a society where personal memories can be digitally outsourced and curated?

Speculative design essentially uses conceptual fiction, diegetic prototypes, scenario building and counterfactual hypotheses… which allows for debate to be initiated through experience.

Speculative design is most often used to work on policy development, technology ethics and long-term strategic foresight. This approach is relevant when dealing with emerging technologies (AI, synthetic biology, nanotechnologies) that are not yet easily accessible and whose social impact is not yet well understood.

Key references:

Dunne, A. & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. The MIT Press.
Ehn, P. (1988). Work-Oriented Design of Computer Artifacts.
Malpass, M. (2017). Critical design in context: History, theory, and practices (First edition). Zed Books. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474293822
Dunne, A. (1999). Hertzian Tales. Electronic Products, Aesthetic Experience, and Critical Design. RCA Computer Related Design Research.
Bardzell, J., & Bardzell, S. (2013). What is “Critical” About Critical Design? Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI ‘13, 3297–3306. https://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2466451
Mollon, M. (2019). Design pour débattre: Comment créer des artefacts dissonants, et leurs situations de communication, afin d’ouvrir des espaces de contestation mutuelle (agonisme) et d’expression des voix marginales (dissensus). Doctoral thesis, Paris Sciences et Lettres (ComUE). https://www.theses.fr/2019PSLET074

5. Participatory design and co-design (Emancipatory)

Partly stemming from the Scandinavian movements in favour of workplace democracy in the 1970s, these approaches start from the principle that the people who will use a system must play an essential role in its design. The researcher or designer is not an “expert tasked with solving a problem for others”, but one of the actors (sometimes called facilitator) who provides tools enabling non-designers to express their needs. These non-designers are considered experts of their own experience.

These questions focus primarily on facilitation methods and the political dimensions related to the question of who holds the power of action in the design process.

Research questions

Participatory design primarily addresses the following questions:

How can we design a system in collaboration with the people who will live with it?
How can we level the power dynamics during this process?

Examples of questions:

What generative toolkits (e.g., visual boundary objects) best facilitate equal communication between non-verbal autistic children and architects when designing a new sensory classroom?
How can marginalized urban communities be equipped to co-create their own neighborhood zoning proposals, bypassing traditional top-down urban planning?
In what ways do traditional ‘Design Thinking’ workshops unintentionally reinforce corporate hierarchies, and how can co-design methods subvert them?

Co-design primarily uses generative tools (e.g., collages, frescoes, Lego…), co-creation workshops, boundary objects and democratic consensus building tools.

It is mainly used for the design of collective infrastructures, complex systems (e.g., health, urban planning and collaboration with marginalised communities). This is essential when it comes to designing with a population rather than for it.

Key references:

Pelle Ehn, Liz Sanders, Pieter Jan Stappers, Erling Björgvinsson

Co-creation and the New Landscapes of Design by Sanders & Stappers (2008).
Participatory Design: Principles and Practices edited by Schuler & Namioka (1993).

Transversality

These three approaches should not be seen as watertight silos. It is their association and the elaborated passage from one to another that constitute a design research in structure and in time. These movements invite a variety of practices and methods, but also a variety of perspectives. These shifts between perspectives invite critical sense about research and its object. These three types of activity form design research, and a fortiori creation research.

To describe the relationships between the three poles of “Fallman’s Triangle” (see figure in the “Research approaches in design” section) — design practice, design studies and design exploration — Fallman (2008) distinguishes three types of movement:

A trajectory indicates the subtle shifts that take place during research, from one activity to another. Its determination is particularly useful for evaluating the constraints related to projects participating in research.
The loop is a trajectory between activities without a real starting or ending point. It is therefore essential in the dynamics of research, that is, for the freedom of movement between the different activities.
A dimension is a conceptual subset of the model that establishes a continuum between two activities, along which their respective positions are revealed and tend towards each other. It serves to create semantic tension between the different activities. For example, the financial dimension shows the tension between design practice (remunerated, dependent on the market and the client) and design exploration (classically more critical, often without funding). The real-true dimension — what is actually done versus what is true — creates a tension between design practice and design studies. Other examples of dimensions:
true - real - possible
judgment/intuition/taste - analysis/logic
tradition - transcendence
particular - universal - ideal
create/change - explain/understand - suggest/provoke
client - peer - critic

Reference

Fallman, D. (2008). The interaction design research triangle of design practice and design exploration. Design Issues, 24(3), 4–18. https://doi.org/10.1162/desi.2008.24.3.4

Research programme

This discussion aims not at an epistemological ambition (e.g. on the articulation of knowledge), but at a programmatic project, that is, on the organisation of research activity.

The programme is an overall plan that sets out the objectives and intentions of research. The formal articulation of a research programme makes it possible to structure a long-term research activity, marked by interventions. The programme therefore provides a clear structure for a critical dissemination of knowledge addressing questions related to objects (what) or methods (how).

Examples of programmes

Examples of research programmes in design:

how design practice changes if information and communication technologies are considered as a material for design and no longer as a tool,
what relationships exist between design practice and everyday appropriation,
designing for slow technology (Hallnäs & Redström 2001),
Bauhaus (Gropius 1926, p. 95): The Bauhaus wants to serve in the development of present-day housing, from the simplest household appliances to the finished dwelling. In the conviction that household appliances and furnishings must be rationally related to each other, the Bauhaus is seeking — by systematic practical and theoretical research in the formal, technical and economic fields — to derive the design of an object from its natural functions and relationship. (and in Redström 2011: “Clearly, the strong programmatic statements were not present at this time – but other fundamentals of a design research program certainly were: the creation of an experimental environment, the urge to do things differently, and a substantial openness to what might come out of it.”).

Qualities of the programme

Predictive — The programme is not structured on a certain basis (a set of axioms that would immediately determine its perspective), but on a starting premise that seems pertinent for the subject addressed, and which evolves during research as it corroborates or infirms, dialectically, the perspective taken a priori.
Structured by interventions — Interventions frame and situate the programme (in time, space and culture). They suggest action research through which the researcher engages in a series of interventions with the aim of creating conditions for new observable practices, from which knowledge can be extracted, criticised and discussed.
Normative but not universal — It is at once a proposition, a standpoint and an open question that aims to propose a transformation of practice. It can be complementary or contradictory to other research programmes: even if it aims to be general, it is not global (or universal), and emphasises specific aspects while reducing attention to others. The multitude of programmes that complement, contradict, and critically discuss together is essential to the proper conduct of design research at the level of the research community.
Its relevance takes form in execution — The positioning of the programme and its capacity to participate in the “global discussion” of design research are formed on the basis of the interventions that contribute to the programme. It therefore needs content to be evaluated, whether on theoretical, epistemological, methodological, practical or social aspects. This evaluation passes notably through the way in which the interrogations of the research question and the production of knowledge capable of contributing to its advancement.
Evaluatable, but not scientific in the classical sense — The approach is demanding: the researcher participates actively, practices and environments are transformed, and the programme’s perspective remains unstable. It must remain relevant to practice and subject to evaluation. However, this is not scientific in the classical sense: action research being situated, repetition of an experiment is rarely conceivable, that of an intervention never. It is the clarity of the work, its conditions of execution and its presentation in relation to the research question — experiment or intervention — that allows the dissemination of knowledge that is still open to criticism.
Dynamic — The research question is reformulated and the perspective is progressively reframed through questioning by experiments, interventions and community criticism. This induces cycles, or iterations, between which the perspective, the question, or even the programme itself can be reformulated, and which systematically invite new experiments or interventions — most often when an intervention seems to be running out of steam, or when a new insight significantly impacts the current perspective.
Open to the unexpected — The programme must remain an open object, ready to welcome the unexpected that will be discovered during experiments, which makes it a particular object for research that generally requires precision and testability of the objects it manipulates. It opens up spaces for experimentation, questioning and reflection, and most often points to what it intends to transform, thus giving direction to the experiments to be conducted.
Directive through its capacity for suggestion — The strength of the programme also lies in what it suggests in terms of coherent and effective development or transformation of a practice and its effects on the field targeted by this practice, and in what it proposes in terms of research progress and experiments to be undertaken. There is an apparent contradiction here with its open nature to the unexpected: the programme must be both open to the unexpected while remaining directive so as not to lose its way.

Dynamics of the research programme

Formulation

The formulation of the programme obeys a strategic constraint: both the overall objective of the programme and the particular and “pragmatic” objective of the iteration must be clarified, each allowing for discussion and criticism from the research community.

The implementation of a programme most often begins with a critical question about a practice, a state of the art, or a socio-ecological situation. Its object remains an improvement of a design practice: the goal is not, for example, to improve a social situation, but to improve a design practice that itself aims to improve that social situation.

A tradition of the DQI research group at TU/e in the Netherlands was to begin the research programme question with “How to design for…”. It should be noted that the question engages the researcher and does not place them in a purely descriptive position.

Being essentially situated, the programme is inscribed in time and space. It is therefore inscribed in a worldview that focuses on a subject of study potentially relevant both in the state of the art of design practice and research, but also in the industrial, societal and ecological context of the time.

One should always expect an experimental beginning, formless, which will gradually take on a more comprehensible and effective structure through reflexive practice. Moreover, a programme is very rarely primary: it often follows an intuition, an experience, an experiment or a project that opens up reflection and curiosity. It most often requires some additional experimental and discursive efforts to be formed and calibrated. These initial experiments therefore have an important normative effect, a norm that can over time be challenged by other experiments finding value in reflection and the unexpected. It remains that the primacy of the programme is a constant: without its elaboration, the whole of the research is neither unified nor coherent. The programme may not be primary in the course of research, but it is in its formation.

Development

The openness of the programme, the multiplicity of experiments and the formation of the programme during research — executed by experiments based on the perspectives, questions, criticisms and interpretations of the programme — mean that the researcher’s perspective is itself engaged: transformative and reflexive practice. This practice engages the intentions and global project of the researcher in the formation of the programme and in the implementation of experiments, and gives a global direction to the research.

Evaluation

The question remains of what is evaluated for a research programme. The evaluation of a cycle seems more obvious (but differs according to its nature); that of the programme can be done through a variety of criteria, and one will be particularly interested in three contributions: that for design practice, that for design research, and that, of course, for social and ecological contribution.

Conclusion of a research programme

The open and continuously progressing nature of a programme does not make its conclusion easy: it is not intrinsically structured to be concluded, as a hypothesis to which an experiment responds can be.

The termination of a programme often depends on external and practical aspects (e.g. the end of funding or the exhaustion of other resources).

A more programme-centred conclusion focuses on the contribution of the experiments. If this contribution sufficiently addresses the programme’s questions, if the whole seems properly aligned, if the knowledge acquired serves practice and moves it forward, and if further progress would relate more to practice (e.g. acquiring skills through training) than to research, then the programme can be, at least temporarily, concluded: it is “useful” and its result ready to be used in practice in an informed and coherent way.

It can also happen that from one programme emerges another programme potentially of greater value for research and practice, or more current. The first programme can then be stopped to transfer its resources to the second.

Finally, it can happen that the programme runs out of steam: the research question can no longer be reformulated to allow it to go further.

In all these situations, the conclusion of a programme is a researcher’s decision, not an observation or an objective result. This decision is taken for external reasons and in relation to past or emerging programmes.

Interventions - experiments

Interventions in research

The research programme feeds on experiences, and therefore on interventions. One must therefore start somewhere (cf. Sennett).

Some considerations, largely following Redström (2011):

Classical experiment — In classical research, an experiment works with a hypothesis posited a priori. It most often allows the hypothesis to be confirmed or invalidated, and sometimes to be discussed and reformulated.
Intervention in design research — The intervention advances work that may consist of clarifying or reformulating the programme, defining or qualifying constituents of the programme (e.g. setting up tools to improve the design practice concerned), progressing in a reflection through the action taken during the intervention. It is therefore not a matter of confirming or invalidating a statement, but of discussing the programme and determining what can serve design practice in the field defined by the programme. The intervention provides information about what the programme depends on and what can contribute to improving the practice concerned.
One hypothesis, one experiment; one programme, a multitude of interventions — While a hypothesis can most often be estimated by a single experiment, the programme is composed of a multitude of interventions that form, deform, reform, discuss, test… the programme and show the variety of perspectives and contributions it offers.
An inter-interventionist logic — This implies that a form of inter-interventionist logic must develop during research, a logic that rests on the structure of the programme and on our interpretations of it over time, as well as on our interpretations of the interventions and the results obtained.
Interventions constitute the iterations of the programme — This relationship between interventions and programme comes from the need to materialise the programme, which allows a situating of the worldview that can thus be ’tested’, thought and criticised in a direct and concrete way. The experiment contributes to the programme because it is not just a programme, but a programme for something, and it is this something that requires the materialisation of the experiment (Redström 2011).
The intervention needs an intention — In classical science, it would allow confirming or invalidating a hypothesis. In the case of design research, it can directly address a methodological question: how to do something, with what resources. This question and the work that contributes to it must however maintain the qualities necessary for their criticism and therefore contribute to a research discussion.
The experiment, a moment of the programme — The experiment is a moment of the programme through which the programme is interpreted, and following which it can be reinterpreted or changed. It opens a design space allowing this putting into perspective — Reunkrilerk (2024) explores this mediality through design practices that activate transformation processes through situated gestures and sensitive mediations — allowing certain elements useful for the formation and progress of the programme to be specified.

Qualities of the intervention in design research

It produces generative knowledge;
It is carried out in a situation of incompleteness, and the result cannot be predicted at the start;
Its value is its fecundity.

Three experiment situations

Koskinen, I., Zimmerman, J., Binder, T., Redström, J., & Wensveen, S. A. G. (2011). Design Research through Practice: From the Lab, Field, and Showroom. Elsevier.

Laboratory · A controlled environment to limit noise and ensure a certain experimental stability.
Field · An environment to account for the reality of usage, acceptability and acceptance, a form of appropriation.
Exhibition · An environment of attention allowing temporary experimentation, criticism, debate.

The formulation of the programme follows a strategic constraint: it must both clarify the programme’s overall objective and the specific “pragmatic” objective of the iteration, each of which must allow for discussion and critique from the research community.

The implementation of a programme most often begins with a critical question concerning a practice, a state of the art, or a socio-ecological situation. Its object remains an improvement of a design practice: the goal is not, for example, to improve a social situation, but to improve a design practice that itself aims to improve that social situation.

A tradition of the DQI research group at TU/e in the Netherlands was to begin the research programme question with “How to design for…”. Note that the question engages the researcher and does not place them in a purely descriptive position.

Being essentially situated, the programme is inscribed in time and space. It is therefore situated within a worldview that addresses a subject of study potentially relevant both to the state of the art in design practice and research, and to the contemporary industrial, societal and ecological context.

One should always expect an experimental, formless beginning, which will gradually take on a more comprehensible and effective structure through reflexive practice. Moreover, a programme is very rarely first: it often follows an intuition, an experience, an experiment or a project that opens up reflection and curiosity. It most often requires some additional experimental and discursive effort to be formed and calibrated. These initial experiments therefore have an important normative effect, a norm that may over time be challenged by other experiments finding value in reflection and the unexpected. It remains the case that the primacy of the programme is a constant: without its elaboration, the entirety of the research is neither unified nor coherent. The programme may not be first in the unfolding of the research, but it is first in its formation.

Development

The openness of the programme, the multiplicity of experiments and the formation of the programme during research—carried out through experiments based on the perspectives, questioning, critiques and interpretations of the programme—mean that the researcher’s own perspective is engaged: transformative and reflexive practice. This practice engages the researcher’s intentions and overall project in the formation of the programme and in the implementation of experiments, and gives an overall direction to the research.

Evaluation

The question remains of what is evaluated for a research programme. The evaluation of a cycle seems more evident (but differs according to its nature); that of the programme can be assessed by a variety of criteria, and one will be particularly interested in three contributions: that for design practice, that for design research, and that, of course, for social and ecological contribution.

Conclusion of a research programme

The termination of a programme often depends on external and practical aspects (e.g. the end of funding or the exhaustion of other resources).

A more programme-focused conclusion concerns the contribution of the experiments. If this contribution sufficiently addresses the programme’s questions, if the whole seems properly aligned, if the knowledge acquired serves practice and advances it, and if further progression would be more a matter of practice (e.g. the acquisition of skills through training) than of research, then the programme can be, at least temporarily, concluded: it is “useful” and its result is ready to be used in practice in an informed and coherent manner.

It also happens that from one programme emerges another programme that is potentially of greater value for research and practice, or more current. The first programme may then be stopped to transfer its resources to the second.

Finally, it happens that the programme runs out of steam: the research question can no longer be reformulated to allow it to go further.

In all these situations, the conclusion of a programme is a decision by the researcher, not an observation or an objective result. This decision is made based on external factors and in relation to other past or emerging programmes.

Interventions - experiments

Interventions in research

The research programme is nourished by experiences, and therefore by interventions. One must therefore start somewhere (cf. Sennett).

Some considerations, largely after Redström (2011):

Classical experiment — In classical research, an experiment works with an a priori hypothesis. It most often allows one to confirm or invalidate the hypothesis, and sometimes to discuss and reformulate it.
Intervention in design research — The intervention allows one to advance work that may consist of clarifying or reformulating the programme, defining or qualifying components of the programme (e.g. the implementation of tools to improve the relevant design practice), progressing in reflection through the action carried out during the intervention. It is not a matter of confirming or invalidating an assertion, but of discussing the programme and determining what can serve design practice in the field defined by the programme. The intervention informs about what the programme holds to and what can contribute to an improvement of the relevant practice.
One hypothesis, one experiment; one programme, a multitude of interventions — While a hypothesis can most often be assessed by a single experiment, the programme is composed of a multitude of interventions that form, deform, reform, discuss, test… the programme and show the variety of perspectives and contributions it proposes.
An inter-interventional logic — This implies that a form of inter-interventional logic must develop during the research, a logic that rests on the structure of the programme and on our interpretations of it over time, as well as on our interpretations of the interventions and the results obtained.
Interventions constitute the iterations of the programme — This relationship between interventions and programme comes from the need for materialisation of the programme, which allows a situating of the worldview that can thus be ’tested’, thought and criticised in a direct and concrete way. The experiment contributes to the programme because it is not just a programme, but a programme for something, and it is this something that necessitates the materialisation of the experiment (Redström 2011).
The intervention needs an intention — In classical science, it would allow one to confirm or invalidate a hypothesis. In the case of design research, it can directly respond to a methodological question: how to do something, with what resources. This question and the work that contributes to it must however retain the qualities necessary for their critique and thus contribute to a research discussion.
The experiment, a moment of the programme — The experiment is a moment of the programme through which the programme is interpreted, and following which it can be reinterpreted or changed. It opens a design space allowing this putting into perspective — Reunkrilerk (2024) explores this mediality through design practices that activate transformation processes through situated gestures and sensitive mediations — allowing the specification of certain elements useful for the formation and progress of the programme.

Qualities of the intervention in design research

It produces generative knowledge;
It is carried out in a situation of incompleteness, and the result cannot be predicted at the outset;
Its value is its fecundity.

Three experimental situations

Koskinen, I., Zimmerman, J., Binder, T., Redström, J., & Wensveen, S. A. G. (2011). Design Research through Practice: From the Lab, Field, and Showroom. Elsevier.

Laboratory · A controlled environment to limit noise and ensure a certain experimental stability.
Field · An environment to account for the reality of use, acceptability and acceptance, a form of appropriation.
Exhibition · An attention environment allowing temporary experimentation, critique, debate.

Contemporary issues

Design research is traversed by several contemporary issues that question and transform its practices, objects, and responsibilities.

Artificial intelligence and design research

The emergence of generative AI is profoundly transforming design research. AI tools (image, text, code, and 3D model generation) introduce new methodological possibilities but also raise fundamental challenges for design research.

Opportunities

New design methods — AI allows rapid exploration of a large solution space, generation of variants, or combination of elements in novel ways.
Rapid prototyping — AI-assisted generation accelerates the production of prototypes and research artefacts.
Augmented analysis — AI tools facilitate the analysis of large corpora (images, texts, qualitative data) and can reveal patterns invisible to the human eye.

Research questions

How is AI transforming the designer’s creativity and design process?
What is the place of human intention in AI-generated design?
How can one evaluate the ethical and aesthetic quality of AI-produced designs?
What new roles are emerging for the designer in the AI era (curator, editor, critic)?

Ethical issues

Bias — AI models reproduce and amplify the biases in their training data.
Intellectual property — Who is the author of an AI-generated design?
Transparency — How should one document and evaluate the use of AI in the research process?
Environmental impact — Training and using AI models has a considerable energy cost.

References

Foth, M., & Paulos, E. (2023). AI and the future of design research. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Business, & Society, 9(1), 1–12.
Koskinen, I. (2023). Design research in the age of AI. Design Issues, 39(2), 5–17. https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00698

Design for sustainability and Transition Design

Contemporary ecological and social crises invite design research to rethink its objects, methods and purposes. Transition Design proposes a framework for designing transitions towards more sustainable socio-technical systems.

Design for Sustainability Design for sustainability research explores how design can contribute to the ecological transition: eco-design, circular design, regenerative design, sober design. It involves designing artefacts, services and systems that minimise their environmental impact and maximise their contribution to wellbeing.

Transition Design Proposed by Irwin, Tonkinwise and Kossoff (2020), Transition Design is an approach that aims to facilitate transitions to sustainable societies. It is characterised by:

A systemic vision — Design is thought at the scale of systems (mobility, food, energy) and not only of artefacts.
A long-term orientation — Transitions unfold over decades, not months.
A stakeholder-oriented approach — All stakeholders are involved in the co-construction of transitions.
An integration of knowledge — Local, traditional and scientific knowledge are combined.

Design for Social Innovation Manzini (2015) proposes a vision of design as a lever for social innovation, where citizens become co-designers of solutions to social and environmental problems. Makerspaces, fablabs and community gardens are spaces where this vision is realised.

Transforming Practices The transition to sustainable ways of life involves a deep transformation of everyday practices. The research programme Transforming Practices (Hummels, Trotto & Lévy) explores how design can facilitate this transformation by drawing on the minor keys of everyday life. Rather than prescribing behaviours or developing disruptive technologies, this approach values ordinary practices, everyday gestures and forms of appropriation as levers for change. The transformation of practices proceeds through a phenomenological attention to lived experience, a recognition of situated knowledges and a design that accompanies rather than imposes.

References

Hummels, C., Trotto, A., & Lévy, P. (2023). Transforming practices: A minor key approach to everyday life transformation. Design Research Society.
Irwin, T., Tonkinwise, C., & Kossoff, G. (2020). Transition design: An educational framework for advancing the study and design of sustainable transitions. Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación, (105), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.18682/cdc.vi105.4188
Manzini, E. (2015). Design, when everybody designs: An introduction to design for social innovation. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9873.001.0001

Post-colonial and decolonial design research

Design research has long been dominated by Western perspectives, considered universal. Post-colonial and decolonial approaches invite us to decenter design, to recognise the plurality of epistemologies and to value marginalised knowledges.

Critique of Western design Modern design was built on Western presuppositions: universalism, rationalism, individualism, linear progress. These presuppositions were imposed as universal norms, marginalising other design traditions (indigenous, Asian, African, Latin American).

Pluriversal approaches Escobar (2018) proposes the concept of the pluriverse—a world where many worlds coexist. Pluriversal design recognises the diversity of forms of life, knowledges and design practices. It involves designing with communities, not for them, respecting their cosmologies and practices.

Epistemologies of the South The epistemologies of the South (de Oliveira Martins, 2020) refer to knowledge produced in the margins of the modern/colonial world-system. They include indigenous, peasant, Afro-descendant, and feminist knowledges. Decolonial design research values these knowledges and integrates them into co-design processes.

Issues for design research

Cultural decentring — How to design beyond Western categories (beauty, function, use)?
Epistemic justice — How to recognise and value non-Western knowledges in research?
Historical responsibility — How can design contribute to repairing colonial violence?
Situated methodologies — How to develop research methods rooted in specific contexts?

References

de Oliveira Martins, L. (2020). Decolonizing design: A pluriversal approach. Design Issues, 36(4), 6–18. https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00615
Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the pluriverse: Radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822371816

Research communities and societies

Design, art and creation research takes place within scientific communities structured by scholarly societies, conferences and networks. These communities define quality standards, organise scientific discussion and offer spaces for dissemination.

Main scholarly societies

Design Research Society (DRS) — International design research society, founded in 1966. Organises the biennial DRS conference and publishes the journal Design Science. https://www.designresearchsociety.org
SIGCHI — Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction of the ACM. Organises the CHI conference and structures human-computer interaction research. https://sigchi.org
European Academy of Design (EAD) — European network of design schools. Organises the biennial EAD conference. https://europeancademy.org
Cumulus Association — International network of art and design universities. https://cumulusassociation.org

Main conferences in design research

DRS (Design Research Society) — Biennial, covering the entirety of design research
DIS (Designing Interactive Systems) — Annual ACM conference on interactive design
CHI (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems) — Main HCI conference
EAD (European Academy of Design) — European biennial
IASDR (International Association of Societies of Design Research) — International conference

These communities are essential spaces for the dissemination of results, networking and building collaborations. Participation in one or more of these communities is recommended for any design researcher.