This section describes the research context, methodology and methods used in the research and reflects upon them. It does this by describing and posi- tioning my work within design research and practice, and how this influenced the choice of method. It then describes the research methods utilised. Finally, it critically reflects upon the choice of methodology and method and their relevance.
D E S I G N R E S E A R C H B Y D E S I G N
The work was carried out using a research by design approach (Sevaldson, 2010). This is described by Sevaldson as ‘practice research in action’ and is a methodological approach in which the researcher participates as a designer, involved in the process as part of a team (Fallman, 2008).
Fallman describes different perspectives of design research, and identifies three main research activity types; Design Studies, Design Exploration and Design Practice. He describes how these form a triangle of research perspec- tives, visualised in figure 5, below. Design studies describes design research that takes a distanced, and descriptive approach and which Fallman describes as akin to more traditional academic research. Design Exploration uses de- sign practice to explore and develop knowledge, but does so from a designer perspective rather than in collaboration with industry. The designer explores through one or more pieces of work. Design Practice describes situations where the design researcher participates in “real life” projects as a means to understand the contexts, problems and potential solutions.
Using the framework from Fallman (2008), this research is firmly placed within the area of design practice, and with a strong relation to design studies. I will now describe this in more detail.
Figure 5 : The design research framework presented in Fallman (2008). This research, shown in the blue circle falls clearly within the design practice segment, but with a loop towards design studies. It is grounded in case study projects but identifies elements of theory and generalisable service design conclusions.
Combining design practice and design studies
Fallman describes that the goal of design studies is to “build an intellectual tradition within the discipline, and to contribute to an accumulated body of knowledge”(p. 9). Further, “we note that, unlike design practice, it seeks the general rather than the particular, aims to describe and understand rather than create and change ...” (p. 9).
Fallman argues however that there is great value to be gained from moving in-between activity areas and not from taking a specific position. In this way, research informs research. With reference to interaction design they state “we believe that the most interesting results in interaction design research come not from taking a specific position in the model, but rather from moving or drifting in between different positions” (p. 10).
My work looped between design practice and design studies using the work- shops in the AT-ONE project as a vehicle for this. Research and practice were intertwined and inseparable and moved from explorative to specific research and then through reflection, a discussion of service design. This resulted in the development of both new ways to develop service development projects and an understanding of the materials of service design and the nature of service design itself.
Cumulative, Distancing, and Describing Other disciplines Commercial design organizations Content driven, particular, and synthetic
Design critique, Art, Humanities Idealistic, Societal, and
Subversive Philosophy Design Studies Design Practice Design Exploration This research
Research by Design
I choose to use the term research by design since my research embodies key aspects of the approach as identified by Sevaldson (2009). I will now relate my research to the framework suggested by Sevaldson to make explicit the research by design approach. His work does not stand alone, and it builds upon the historical development of design research, from Frayling (1993); Cross (2001); Rust et al.(2004); Freedman (2003); Saikaly (2005); Yee (2009).
Research by design has two characteristics. Firstly, the research itself is designed. This means that the development of the tools has been framed, planned and carried out as part of a planned and reflective research process. This process will be described in the next section. Secondly, the research has taken a generative approach by designing new tools, using, evaluating and re-designing them in a case-study context. Coupled to this, there is a related analytical perspective that is applied to this ‘design’.
This gives the research an insider perspective. The researcher is within and part of the object of study, in this case, cross functional teams. Sevaldson describes this as follows:
... where the design researcher is also a practitioner and whose inves- tigations are conducted within a ‘first person perspective’ combined with a reflexive mode of inquiry that helps make design knowledge explicit (p. 9).
Sevaldson explains how the design researcher alternates between first, second and third person perspectives and how the research has an output in terms of both designed solutions and communicable knowledge. For Sevaldson, and in my work also, the design process is central to the research itself:
The rich design space becomes especially important when looking into modes of Research by Design where the design process becomes the central device for research (p. 9).
The approach is explorative, combining abductive, deductive and induc- tive reasoning. This is fitting, since when working with wicked problems in service design, the design approach needs to be abductive. This fits well with the design research approach for service design in which there is little or no existing research, and where research solutions exhibit the same characteris- tics of wicked problems. Sevaldson notes:
The notion of the experiment in design is quite different from the tra- ditional scientific experiment. While the scientific experiment is about isolating a limited and fractioned part of the world to create a repeat- able output as validation, the design experiment is about provoking change and iterative imaginative steps forward. The design experiment often has an element of ‘not always knowing what you are doing’, a wicked problem approach and post-rationalisation (p. 9).