Estados operacionales definidos para el estudio

Before I move on to describe the practicalities of my method, I wish to acknowledge other schools of thought about what constitutes RtD. The lack of consensus about RtD is reflected by the diversity of approaches represented at the conference of the same name (cf. Durrant, 2016). The biennial conference, which will run for the fourth time in 2019, revolves around an exhibition of designed things and academic papers written about the process of creating the

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things, and the insights that emerged from them. The intention is to demonstrate how the varied making practices produce domain-specific knowledge but also to explore the nuances of RtD as a research method in its own right. While the conference’s attendees and the submissions exhibit a lot of shared ground— often building on Frayling, making a nod towards Donald Schön, and adopting positions that, in the round, are constructivist (ibid)—in RtD, as with pie, there is a huge variety in size, shape, appearance, and flavour. The approach utilised for this doctoral research adopts Ramirez’s epistemological blueprint, but so as to strengthen that position I include this section to reflect and acknowledge other approaches, and critiques of RtD that have, through either their incorporation or exclusion, helped to inform and contribute to my methodology.

Cal Swann builds an argument that design practice is, in essence, a type of Action Research. To build his case Swann traces the evolution of design from a trade activity closely tied to the industrial revolution, through the emergence of design professions, to the more contemporary realisation that casts design as a distinct field or discipline. Alongside he follows the evolution of theories of design, identifying the positivist to postmodern pivot: “For more than twenty years, the belief that research in design (or serious study of any kind) should be founded in scientific objectivity and positivist formulas went almost unquestioned” transitioned towards “Design is for human consumption”, and it “derives its creative energy form the ambiguities of an intuitive understanding of phenomena”. This shift can also be seen in terms of the more extreme poststructuralist points of view, for example “all discourse contains many meanings” and “interpretation depends as much on the reader as on the writer” (Swann, 2002, pp. 50–51). The end point of Swann’s introductory discussion is Mike Press’s assertion that “A designed artefact is a researched proposition for changing reality” (Press, 1995).

Against this epistemological backdrop Swann makes a compelling argument that there are stark similarities between the structures of design processes and of Action Research processes. First and foremost, amongst these similarities, is that the ‘structure’ of either process is, in fact, a moveable feast and is rarely stable, generalisable or transferrable between contexts. While simplistic models of design processes tend to describe a sort of sequence that involves problem finding, research, analysis, synthesis, production, and evaluation, more sophisticated empirical enquiries reveal more nuance. For example, oftentimes it is necessary to go through several iterations of this cycle as prototypes are slowly refined into finished products, yet, quantifying the ‘right’ number of iterations is a fruitless task. Moreover, it’s perfectly normal for there to traversal back and forth between the layers, or across multiple layers, as new understanding of the problem, materials, and solution develop (cf. Cross, 2011). Turning to Action Research it can be described as “a program for change in a social situation”, a description which bears a striking resemblance to Press’s of design. As with design, the simplistic models of Action Research that reduce it to cycles of plan, act, observe, reflect have been much debated, and in practice are demonstrably not linear or predictable. The similarity is such that “it would require only a few words to be substituted for the theoretical frameworks of action research to make it applicable to design” (Swann, 2002, p. 56). While

Ramirez prefers to build an epistemology from a postmodern Constructivist stance thus reserving Action Research as more of a practical guiding principle, Swann’s argument highlights an independent epistemic leg that RtD could intellectually sustain itself with, if needs be. For the sake of simplicity, and with Adams’ feelings about the moon and Norwegian beaver cheese in mind (see 3.1, p. 37), I prefer to simply align with Ramirez’s overall position, but acknowledge Swann’s argument as an alternate, and as to partly articulate why I do not feel the need to agree with Ramirez’s call for Grounded Theory in his epistemology for RtD.

While serving up their very own type of pie, Frankel and Racine reiterate how literature appears divided about the “ambitious” phrase RtD, but their main contribution is to reword Frayling’s categories:

“By relating Frayling’s terms—design for, about, and through research—to those of contemporary funding bodies—clinical, applied and basic—and of current practice this paper attempts to provide continuity, while sorting out the different points of view.” (Frankel and Racine, 2010)

In their terms ‘basic’ research is research into design, ‘clinical’ research is research for design, and ‘applied’ research is research through design. While their discussion is coherent, there is a potentially ironic issue with their logic— in essence, given a field that is already somewhat fractured, the introduction of new terminology might be counter-productive. In addition to this possible Heffalump trap (cf. p.29), the attempt to map the three terms on two axes (the x-axis going from specific to general and the y-axis going from theoretical to practical) and with a plethora of other terminology overlaid on top (including design methods, design science, theory, epistemology, research-oriented, action-reflection, action research, phenomenology, aesthetics, and wicked problems—to name but a few) results in a monumental conflation of complex ideas. Rather than sorting out the different perspectives, this may well have the opposite effect. While I appreciate the intention, and in fact find the map an interesting visual thought experiment, in terms of arriving at a clearly- communicable and concise methodology, once again Frayling’s categories seen in terms of Ramirez’s notes on epistemology seem far more useful (notwithstanding the fact that, as Frankel and Racine point out, regurgitating the keywords used by funding bodies may be a useful tool for gaining access to research grants!)

Elsewhere Bardzell, Bardzell and Hansen argue that critical analysis, drawing on aesthetics, is a fruitful way generate knowledge from RtD. Their proposal is one that does make sense, and in essence involves reflecting on a piece of work in isolation—there is no particular requirement that the person doing the reflecting was the creator of the work. While the fact that understanding can be gleaned in this way intuitively makes sense, it is also quite clear that this sort of analysis is very different to insights arising from the reflexive practice of an artist or designer. While introducing this HCI research, the authors assert that “what HCI researchers call ‘research through design’ maps more closely on to what Frayling called ‘research for design’ (no clear explanation is given for why

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this assertion is made). The potential to confuse what the paper says about critical analysis with knowledge produced as part of RtD practice, alongside the note that suggests many other researchers’ use of the term RtD is ‘wrong’— mean this paper is another that, although aspiring to clarify how RtD relates to knowledge production, actually confuses them (Bardzell, Bardzell and Hansen, 2015).

Ken Friedman is highly critical of the Frayling-derived conception of RtD. Friedman’s dressing-down of the Frayling categories hinges around the distinct properties of, as he sees them, explicit and tacit knowledge. In essence the position is that all theorising utilises explicit knowledge, whereas some craft and design involves tacit knowledge, hence some descriptions of how crafting and design can produce knowledge are false. Speculating as to how these “category confusions” have become so widespread he suggests many of the scholars citing Schön, have not in fact read the text. Although that, in some cases, may be true, an alternative explanation is that scholars may have read the text, but took it to mean something different to Friedman did. Friedman’s critique is broad, and also describes how Frayling’s categories are the result of an ill-advised interpretation of prior work and that the categories themselves are ambiguous (Friedman, 2014). Although undoubtedly based in some interesting, if ‘academic’ (see 2.5, p. 35), discussions, I find myself unable to incorporate any of Friedman’s points into my methodology as he describes a position which is entirely incompatible with the contrastingly clear and accessible position that Frayling articulates with his three categories of design research. Let’s, for a moment, entertain a thought; what if Friedman is right? What if the categories that Frayling set out, are in fact meaningless, misplaced, and malformed. In this scenario there are many examples of RtD—including doctoral theses, peer- reviewed journal publications and books—that have within them something that is built from an incorrect assumption. Despite having a little bit of ‘wrong’ inside them I’m confident that the findings and the theory that these ‘wrong’ examples of RtD helped to produce will, in many (or, at the very least, ‘some’) cases, continue to have the same sort of relevance that it would have done even if Frayling’s categories were ‘right’. A fictional submission to a fictional conference that I co-authored—Using the Anatidae/Non-Anatidae Algorithm to Quantify the Plausability of Design Fictions—uses the argument that if it quacks like a duck, and it looks like a duck, then it probably is a duck (Coulton, Lindley and Brown, 2016). Although I’m sure the duck point is a deplorable point of view vis-à-vis Friedman’s perspective, what I think is useful to consider is that that if Frayling’s categories looklike they’re useful to RtD practice, and if they look like they help designer-researchers to understand the landscape where design and research co-exist, then they probably are doing both things— regardless of the relationship between theory and explicit or tacit knowledge21_.

There are many more discussions about the nuances of RtD, and academic arguments about what are the best or worst ways to argue for its strengths and

21 _{This is, in essence, a restating of my introductory note to do with Norwegian beaver cheese}

weaknesses. However, given this research’s particular context, I could not identify any that appear to offer tangible benefits. As per Swann, different theoretical frameworks for what design and research are can be compatible, and interesting, but there is little to suggest that in this case employing such frames would help me arrive at a more useful outcome. Alternative terminology, as per Frankel and Racine, may have some instrumental purpose (e.g. obtaining funding) but in a purely academic sense seems to only add a layer of complexity with no other material gain. As per Bardzell, Bardzell and Hansen, there are many nuanced descriptions of RtD that look at it from some other scholarly perspective, and whilst interesting, tend to only be relevant to quite particular circumstances (e.g. analysing somebody else’s artwork). And, as per Friedman, a foundational principle of my approach—Frayling’s categorisation and discussion of research and design—may have some theoretical holes but given the overwhelming weight of evidence that Frayling’s categories and widely adopted approaches to RtD are useful, it seems they almost certainly are. Thus far this chapter has focused exclusively on how ideas fit together theoretically, in the following section I continue to consider RtD literature but work towards combining the theory with the practical elements of doing the research.