Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Design Research as the Avant-garde of design

science of design

MVL

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Structure of the presentation

. Briefly about Martin› Research context, › Current activities

› Science of design - design research as a scientific discipline› Conflict or confluence› Design thinking› Design as science

…Design as an experimental approach…Taking part in the big discussion…Relevance vs. rigor

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Research context

Place:. Center for Interactive Spaces, ISIS Katrinebjerg

› Collaborative projects, …designers, computer scientists, engineer

› Working with industrial partners , LEGO, B&O

Field:. Ubiquitous Computing as Interactive Spaces

› Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)› Interaction design› Focus on constellations of technologies and use

…Writing thesis “Designing for Social Interaction”

Context

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Cases and findings

. Future Hybrid Library› iFloor, (with Main public library in Århus)-> Levels of social interaction

. iHome› MediaSurfaces, (with B&O)-> The collective user

. Nomadic Play› DARE! Game, (with LEGO)-> Design as facilitation

Context

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Frameworking

. Presenting the results of the project as conceptual frameworks to enable an increased understanding by designers and more reflected design practice

› Design sensibilities…Ways to make designers think

…TOOLS FOR THOUGHT AND ACTION

Context

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

The projectContext

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Today – 3PART

Working as:Interaction designer andInnovation consultant

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Science of Design

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Conflict and convergence

Design thinking

Design as science Design as experimental inquiry

Taking part in the discussion

Relevance vs. rigor

The easily definable field of design research

Science of design

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Conflict or convergence

. Convergence› Common ground› Constructive sciences, action research› HCI interest in design

Science of design

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

“We have been slow to recognize the peculiar indeterminacy of subject matters in design and its impact on the nature of design thinking. As a consequence, each of the sciences that have come into contact with design has tended to regard design as an “applied” version of its own knowledge, methods, and principles.”

(Buchanan 1995)

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Conflict

› Difference in design thinking…Aesthetic inquiry…Wicked problems…(creativity?)

› Unable or un-interested in fulfilling the (most rigorous) criteria for good science in the wider field of HCI

…A need for an independent and self-confident design science

Science of design

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Design thinking

”everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones”

(Herbert Simon)

Science of design

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Krippendorff

. Design brings forward what does not come natural

. Design proposes realizable artifacts to others

. Design must support the lives of ideally large communities

. Design cannot avoid ethical questions

. [Designed] artifacts must make sense to most, ideally all of those who have a stake in them

(Krippendorff 2006)

Science of design

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

More to design

. Wicked problems› Dealing with the unpredictable human and his social world

. Hermeneutical gap (Hallnäs and Redström, 2006)

› “Jumping” into creation across a gap of certainty

. Aesthetic explorations, taste, talent

Science of design

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Aesthetic inquiryScience of design

Søren Kjørup (1999)

& Alexander Baumgarten (1737)

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Design as Science

. What is science?

. What is a scientific fact?

Science of design

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Bruno Latour

. There should not be a primacy to the natural sciences

. Scientific results should be in the form of good proposition – not statements› Articulate or inarticulate vs. true or false

“The decisive advantage of articulation over accuracy of reference is that there is no end to articulation whereas there is and end to accuracy.”

(Latour 2004)

Science of design

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Falsification

. Based on a framework developed by Stenger and Despret (as reported by Bruno Latour)

› Scientific is a rare ingredient of science› Scientific means interesting › Scientific means risky› Look for recalcitrance in the humans and non-humans that

he investigates › Provide these with occasion to differ at the very base of

the inquiry› Neither distance nor empathy › Good generalizations allows for a multi-verse› Insights to exist in a common world.

Science of design

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Principle

. “(t)he distance to be examined is not that of the observer and the observed (…) but that between the contents of the world before and after the inquiry (…): is there now a distance between the new repertoire of actions and the repertoire with which we started?”

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Types of design research

. Research-on-design› External interest in the product and use of design

. Research-in-design› Methods of design, creativity and innovation

. Research-through-design› Applying design methods as a way of inquiry

Science of design

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Design as an experimental approach

. Testing hypotheses by making them real and putting them into context

> >Hypotheses- Relevant to the design community

Design work- Creating or manifesting the hypotheses

Testing and reflecting- Working scientific with the design, applying critical thought

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Taking part in the discussions

. Design research needs to be in line with the surrounding community› Design community › Technical community› Developmental community› Philosophical community

. Reaching new land – pointing to the next phases of design development

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Relevance vs. rigor

. Defined by the community of peers

. Design is a constructive science› Permitted to work by exemplars

. Design is a discipline that deals with the life of people› “Wicked problems” are inherent in our subject matter› Argyris (on Action Research)

…“seek to attain theory that identifies patterns that, suitably combined, will be useful in many situations”

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Practice and research

. Design research is the avant-garde of design

Science of design

Design Research as the Avant-garde of Design – Martin V. Ludvigsen – 03-10-2007 || [email protected]

Repertoire of actionScience of design