Topic: Design Research
Design Research from time studies to empathy
Design Research
Design Research can have several meanings and connotations. Design Research can imply the use of methods, tools, and data to understand the behavior of people. Design Research has historically referred to the exploration of design practices and approaches. We have also come to use the term to discuss the intersection of design artifacts with contemporary issues of ethics and inclusion. We will discuss all of these topics today, framed from a historical overview of research through the history of design practice. As you will see, research practices have evolved along with the profession.
Image above: Cyclegraph of female seated at gridded table (Smithsonian Institution)
Header image: The Horse in Motion, 1878, Eadweard Muybridge (National Gallery of Art)
Assignments for the Class
Readings & Assignments
The readings for the week include the following:
ASSIGNED READING (Read this!): A View of the Nature of Design ResearchLinks to an external site., Bruce Archer, Royal College of Art, 1981
ASSIGNED READING (Scan for key points): Design AnthropologyLinks to an external site., Christina Wasson, General Anthropology 23(2):1-11, 2016
ADDITIONAL READING (Scan for key points): The Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of ResearchLinks to an external site., Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP), 1979
The assignment for the week is as follows:
Mid-Term Essay
Research with students using two (2) Contextual Inquiry frameworks:
Select an observational framework to understand what goes into design education
Options could include: AEIOU, expert discussions (Peter Zapf), student interviews (guided or collaborative per example in class)
Consider participatory research
What is the context of our class and design education?
You own the board. Make something interesting and think about sharing with others
Ideally work in pairs to reduce work but communicate what you find
We will use the artifacts in class
Design Research: Problem Finding
“Recognizing the need is the primary condition for design.”
Charles Eames
“Example of polar area diagram by Florence Nightingale (1820–1910). This "Diagram of the causes of mortality in the army in the East" was published in Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army and sent to Queen Victoria in 1858. This graphic indicates the annual rate of mortality per 1,000 in each month that occurred from preventable diseases (in blue), those that were the results of wounds (in red), and those due to other causes (in black).” (source: Wikipedia)
Engineers and photographers began to use industrial tools such as the stopwatch and the camera to understand behavior. Frederick Winslow Taylor studied workers in factories before publishing The Principles of Scientific Management in 1911. Eadweard Muybridge created The Horse in Motion chronophotograph in 1878. These examples lead us to the beginnings of Design Research, or at least research tools which designers would begin to use in the future.
Analyzing Housework
Frank and Lillian Gilbreth invented the motion study to help identify wasted motions and challenging maneuvers in work, both industrial and domestic. The Kitchen Work Triangle, which was used to determine kitchen layouts, was an important contribution by Lillian Gilbreth. Early time and motion research commonly focused on improving the efficiency of work. Another researcher with a domestic focus was Christine Frederick. Her book, “The New Housekeeping: Efficiency Studies in Home Management” described efficient approaches to managing the home. Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, the designer of the Frankfurt Kitchen found inspiration in this work.
This early work is not commonly considered to be Design Research, however the implications for the design of domestic environments is clear. Research helps designers and organizations make decisions. Along with the process chart (above), the work described amply demonstrates the study, analysis, and communication that both researchers and designers require to be effective. Such work proved to be very useful to industry.
Image above: process chart for loading rifle grenades from the Gilbreth report.
Image left: Diagram from “Wicked and less wicked problems: A typology and a contingency framework”, Alford and Head, 2017 (Researchgate)
Image: The Pardoe kitchen by the Kitchen Equipment Co. was inspired by Gilbreth’s Kitchen Practical. (Slate)
Researching People
From Moholy-Nagy’s exploratory studies into form at The New Bauhaus, to Henry Dreyfuss’ work identifying the need to move the alphanumeric characters outside the rotary dial, new approaches to researching the needs of people evolved during the pre-WWII period. Understanding how objects fit in the hand empowered makers of hand tools to deliver safer and more effective tools and instruments. With the evolution of the office as a primary place of work, a focus on the ergonomics of office furniture and equipment became a product differentiator in competitive markets.
Henry Dreyfuss published The Measure of Man: Human Factors in Design in 1967, consisting of data collected describing “Joe and Josephine,” his representations of average people. The book was an important resource for industrial designers.
Image right: The Measure of Man (1967)
Psychoacoustics
World War II and The Cold War created a need for new tools such as Operations Research, as well as the need to generate knowledge that could be applied to the battlefield. JCR Licklider conducted research into psychoacoustics writing influential papers on pitch perception. As Director of ARPA, he funded foundational work in computing, including Douglas Engelbart’s work on the Graphical User Interface (GUI). Adjacently, Claude Shannon developed his theory of communication, which is foundational to our understanding of telecommunication. The term “bit” originates in his theory.
Applied psychology, including industrial and organizational psychology, extended the study of people and their problems in the context of work and communication. The domain, particularly at Xerox PARC, was an important environment from which to launch a new form of Design Research — Anthropology.
Image left: From A Mathematical Theory of Communication
Design Research
Coinciding with the emergence of The Design Methods Movement, Design Research was formulated as a practice. Bruce Archer led a team of designers to explore the needs of nurses in the hospital. Observation of nurses and prototype testing was conducted at Chase Farm Hospital, resulting in innovative approaches to meeting ergonomic needs. The Kings Fund hospital Bed was a specification rather than a single physical product.
This example, in conjunction with the theoretical frameworks introduced to the practice of design, highlights the emergence of research-based design practices. While slow to emerge through the subsequent decades, Design Research is a central part of most design efforts.
Image right: The Kings Fund Hospital Bed (1962)
Human-centeredness
“Human-centered design is a philosophy... that assumes that innovation should start by getting close to users and observing their activities”
Diagram: The Design Thinking Process (Stanford d.School)
Anthropology
Lucy Suchman arrived at Xerox PARC in 1979 as a PhD student to study life in the office. “While at PARC, she conducted an influential ethnographic study, using video, of office workers and research scientists struggling to use a copy machine.” Her book, Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-machine Communication (1987), describes this study. Suchman’s central argument is that people do not approach technologies with plans, but dynamically create context-specific interactions based on the real world.
Sources: Wikipedia; Lucy Suchmanin Conversation with Ana Gross, Ana Grossa and Lucy Suchman, Sociologica (2021)
Image left: From A Mathematical Theory of Communication
User Research
Don Norman, a psychologist by training, joined Apple in 1993 as a User Experience Architect. He spearheaded user-centered design principles to improve product usability, helping Apple’s technology remain intuitive and accessible. His approach was to identify the user’s needs from a product and use them as the primary driver of product design.
Image right: Don Norman at Apple in 1994 (San Diego Reader)
Research Through Design
Christopher Frayling “proposed three models for design research: Research for Design (using knowledge to inform design), Research into Design (critically analyzing design), and Research through Design (using the design/making process to create knowledge) in his seminal paper, Research in Art and Design (1993). Research through art and design has several important characteristics:
“materials research - such as the titanium sputtering or colorization of metals projects successfully completed in the metalwork and jewellery departments at the College and Camberwell, in association with Imperial College of Science & Technology (partner- ships are very useful, in this area of research).
development work - for example, customising a piece of technology to do something no- one had considered before, and communicating the results. A recent example: the Canon colour photocopier at the Royal College of Art, successfully used by some postgraduate illustration students, who have both exhibited and written up the results.
• action research - where a research diary tells, in a step-by-step way, of a practical experiment in the studios, and the resulting report aims to contextualise it. Both the diary and the report are there to communicate the results, which is what separates research.”
Examples of research through design abound. Artifacts are often the end result. Understanding the path to a conclusion and a suitable artifact can be elusive in such projects. One might say that your class project is research through design. It is exploration without a clear outcome at the beginning. As the materials and artifacts are refined, clarity results. Designing a class in a collaborative manner will be an activity in one of our readings.
Image right: The Action Research Methodology (IxDF)
Diagram: The Design Thinking Process (NNGroup)
Thoughts to Consider
Consider how problem size impacts Design Thinking approaches.
Image left: Co-design work session (Nicholas Paredes Studio)
Connecting cybernetics with the computing counter-culture and design, Dubberly & Pangaro (2015)