Creating design knowledge: from research into practice

5IDATER 2000 Loughborough University

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Creating design knowledge: from research intopractice

Ken FriedmanDepartment of Knowledge Management, Norwegian School of Management

AbstractThis paper considers how we create design knowledge. It examines the ways that researchcontributes to design knowledge in theory and in practice.

The paper will ask seven important questions:

What is the nature of design?How does the nature of design involve knowledge of certain kinds?What are the sources of knowledge?How does research function as a source of knowledge?How does research relate to other sources of knowledge?How do we create design knowledge through research?How does new knowledge move from research into practice?

The paper will outline answers to these questions. It will also provide information and resourcesfor those who want to explore further.

1 Introduction

Design knowledge involves many questions.What is the nature of design? How does thenature of design involve knowledge of certainkinds? What are the sources of knowledge?

Knowledge has many sources. Research is oneof them. Research also involves questions.How does research function as a source ofknowledge? How does research relate to othersources of knowledge? How do we createdesign knowledge through research? Finally,how does new knowledge move from researchinto practice?

In this presentation, I will consider all thesequestions. I promise not to answer them,though! Answering these question is far morethan an hour’s work. My promise is both areality check and guarantee that we will bedone on schedule.

Along with this guarantee, however, I dopromise to unfold a range of rich ideas. I’lloutline issues and answers, I’ll offer a fewconceptual maps, and I’ll present somevaluable sources for those who want to go

further. The main paper is followed by twoendnotes that contain condensed literaturereviews. The first covers the subject ofknowledge. The second deals with innovation.

Now, let’s start with a few basic definitions.

2 A prehistoric prelude on design andevolution

As professions go, design is relatively young.The practice of design as a thing that peopledo predates professions. In fact, the practiceof design – making things with a useful goalin mind – actually predates the human race.Making things is one of the attributes thatmade us human in the first place.

It’s fair to say that design began over two anda half million years ago when homo habilismanufactured the first tools. Human beingswere designing well before we began to walkupright or attend conferences. Four hundredthousand years ago, we began themanufacture of spears. By forty thousand yearsago, we had moved up to specialized tools.

Urban design and architecture came along ten

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IDATER 2000 Loughborough University

thousand years ago in Mesopotamia. Interiorarchitecture and furniture design probablyemerged with them. It was another fivethousand years before graphic design andtypography got their start in Sumeria with thedevelopment of cuneiform. Since then, thingshave picked up speed.

Today, many of us have replaced cuneiformwith ASCII characters. Instead of chippingrock, we download it with Napster or Gnutella.While we haven’t yet replaced our spears withpruning hooks or our swords withploughshares, we do provide a far wider rangeof goods and services than the world hasknown before.

All these goods and services are designed. Theurge to design, to take a situation, imagine abetter situation, and act to create that situationgoes back to those first, pre-human ancestors.

Design, in short, helped to make us human.It did so in several ways. Among the frequentmisunderstandings of evolution theory is thenotion that evolution somehow programmedus to become something or to behave in acertain way. This is not quite so, and the subtledistinctions are significant to how we candevelop further.

The initial stimuli of evolution were random.Biological life on our planet has existed forbillions of years. The many forms of life overthose years shaped a rich enoughenvironment to permit hundreds billions ofdifferent events, manifestations, behaviours,evolutionary streams. Some of thosemanifestations gave the creatures manifestingthem competitive advantage in localenvironments. These creatures survived topass their genes on. When those genespossessed the same traits, they sometimessurvived to pass the genes further. When alarge enough population pool existed topermit the gene-carrying population tospread, these traits sometimes spread furtherstill into larger environments.

In earlier forms of biological evolution, allstimuli were random. Genetic endowmentchanged through chance. Chance arosethrough mutation caused by radioactive

change to the genetic structure, through otherforms of mutation or through some form ofbiological breakdown to a prior geneticstructure. In the infinitely vast majority ofcases, these mutations were not successful,and the creatures went extinct. Over thebillions of years of life on the planet, most lifeforms have died out.

In some few, rare case, mutations conferredadvantage on a specific life form in a specificenvironment. These advantages werepreserved and passed on.

The environment forms the context withinwhich initially random adaptations createsuccessful species. Success, in the sense ofevolutionary development, is not purposeful.It simply means that a species is selected forsurvival by the environment based on itsphysical and behavioural characteristics. Whena mutation proved well suited to theenvironment, the species survived. Thedescendants of creatures whosecharacteristics were defined by beneficialmutations inherited what had once been newgenetic matter. The human species and itspredecessor species emerged in and adaptedto a specific physical world. The physical worldto which we adapted defined us.

Complexity theory (Aida et al 1985; Casti 1995;Waldrop 1992) offers a rich series ofexplanations of how adaptation takes place.One of the salient paradigms of complexitytheory is the notion of the way that complexadaptive systems shape their behaviour withinwhat is known as a “fitness landscape.” Ascomplex adaptive systems fit themselves to thelandscape, the context itself takes on differentshapes and meanings. Complex adaptivesystems include all biological creatures: plants,animals, individual humans. They also includethe communities or societies that thesecreatures create. Their evolutionary pathsmove through time and history. Some vanish,others appear. Either way, there is no goingback.

At some point, life forms became sufficientlyadvanced to capture behavioural adaptationas well as genetic adaptation. Those creaturesthat adapted their behaviour in a way that


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conferred evolutionary advantage did betterthan other creatures. The interaction betweenbehaviour and biology, nature and nurture iscomplex. A creature survives better becauseit possesses a larger brain with a richer brainstructure. The continually improving brainenables the creature’s offspring to do betterstill. New behaviours make survival moresecure. Secure survival preserves the genepool. And so on.

This is how tool making helped us to becomewhat we are. Tool-making probably precededlanguage behaviour. Tool making thereforepreceded conscious imagination, the ability toimagine and to plan. Animals other thanhumans make tools. At the start, our ancestors– homo habilis – weren’t humans. They wereamong the advanced animals that made tools.

In evolutionary terms, we developed themodern brain in the relatively recent past. Thephysical potential of this brain gave rise to ourcurrent habits of mind, the habits that supportour mental world. The forces that give rise tothe modern mind go back over two and a halfmillion years to the unknown moment whenhomo habilis manufactured the first tools(Friedman 1997: 54-55; Ochoa and Corey1995: 1-8).

Our tools and our tool-making behaviourhelped to make us human. As tool-making andtool use became the conscious subject ofwilled imagination, our tools and tool-makingbehaviour helped us to survive and prosperas humans. There is no way to know when orexactly how we began to create consciousmental symbols, and there is no way to knowexactly when symbols became our preeminenttool.

If we don’t know when we began to uselanguage, we do know when we created thefirst external documentation and informationsystems. This took place some 20,000 yearsago (Burke and Ornstein 1997: 29-30).

The externalized representation of knowledgethrough documentation and informationcreated a new kind of human being. The first,rudimentary information tools took the formof what archeologists call the baton, a carved

bone or antler. Even in this primitive form,information tools began to “reshape the waywe think” (Burke and Ornstein 1997: 29-31).This was “the first deliberate use of a devicewhich would serve to extend the memory,because with it, knowledge could be held inrecorded form outside the brain or thesequence of a ritual.” The relationshipbetween these tools and the human mind issignificant, in that “the cognitive facilitiesneeded to make the batons required a braincapable of a complex series of visual andtemporal concepts, demanding both recalland recognition. These are exactly the samemental abilities which are involved in modernreading and writing.”

At this point, and many points like it, therandom workings of natural selection weretaken over by the complex human phenotype– the properties that are caused by theinteraction of genotype and environment.

In our case, this environment includes thedevelopment of culture and all that it entails.Tool making relates to the many qualities thatmake us human, and they all relate to toolmaking. These issues involve a large range ofconceptual tools and symbols.

This may seem like going the long way roundto get to a definition of design, but there is areason for it, and this reason has to do withthe nature of the design profession.

If, on the one hand, design helped to make ushuman, on the other, the act of designing hasin some way been so closely linked to humanculture that we haven’t always given it thethought it deserves. From homo habilis tobaton, product design precedes symbolizationby just under two and a half million years. Tenor twenty thousand years is a sprint in thisgrand marathon. However, in exactly thissense, tool making is more deeply integratedinto our behaviour and our culture thansymbolization.

The Greek philosophers went to work, theydevoted their attention to the relatively newtools of structured thinking rather than to theold physical tools that seemed so self-evidentin the world around them. It is the everywhere

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and all-the-time nature of tools, so obviouslyself-evident, that has obscured the importanceof design rather than making it clearer.

This self-evident and everywhere, all-the-timequality of design has buried design ineverything that humans think and do. For thatvery reason, design – a conscious professionfocused on the design process – has been along time in development.

Many of the acts of design, especially thephysical acts, have been embodied in craftpractice and guild tradition (Friedman 1997).These slowly evolved into a distinct practiceof design only in the aftermath of the industrialrevolution. The move from a practice to aprofession has been more recent still. Thenotion of a design profession is an innovationof the twentieth century.

The idea of a design discipline is more recentstill. We are still debating whether the arenaof design knowledge constitutes a discipline,a field, or a science. My view is that it is, insome measure, all of these. Design enteredthe university curriculum in most places onlyduring the past half century.

This development has taken different coursesin different nations. In North America, forexample, design courses began to enter thecolleges and universities with art programmes.Most of these began in the late 1940s andsince. Many – perhaps most – university-levelprogrammes with a specific focus on designare innovations of the past two decades, ascontrasted to the occasional design coursesavailable in larger and somewhat older artprogrammes. In other nations, designprogrammes grew within and then grew outfrom architecture schools or technicalcolleges. In the United Kingdom, designentered the university when the colleges ofart and design that had become polytechnicswere merged into the new universities.

All these many changes were rooted in manykinds of transformation. The new location ofdesign education in the university clarified thenature of design as a professional practicerather than a vocation or a trade. Placingdesign in the university also rendered visible

the importance of the design profession as animportant service profession in the post-industrial knowledge economy.

It is significant that design entered theuniversity in a time of economic transition.The years between 1950 and 2000 were theyears in which the economy shifted from anindustrial economy to a post-industrialeconomy to an information society and aknowledge economy [See endnote 1].Contemporary design takes place in this neweconomy – including the process of shapingartifacts through industrial design and productdesign.

At the same time that the development ofuniversity-level design programmes clarifiedthe importance of the design profession, itbegan to make clear the gaps in ourunderstanding of design knowledge. Theemergence of a new professional training wasnot accompanied by the deeperunderstandings of ontology and epistemologythat serve as the foundation of other fields.

The first professional schools located inuniversities were medicine, law, and theology.Admission to these schools presumed afoundation of knowledge developed in thegeneral faculty. The professional faculties weresometimes called the higher faculties, and theywere contrasted with the lower faculties in animportant sense. The higher faculties trainedprofessionals for the services of medicine,church, and state. The lower faculties providedthe basis of understanding and interpretation,reason and knowledge on which society itselfwas established.

When art and design came into the university,they often came in as art and craft schools orprofessional schools. The educationalfoundation they offered was not the basicphilosophical foundation offered foradmission to the other professional schools.It was often a combination of vocationaltraining and pre-professional education. Evencolleges and universities with generaleducation requirements sometimes cutcorners in training students for art and design.In university systems that administerprofessional training from first admission up,


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there were no corners to cut.

We find ourselves, therefore, in strangeterritory. On the one hand, design is anchoredin a range of trades or vocations or crafts.These have never been defined inphilosophical terms because they have had nobasis in the work of definition. Instead, theyare rooted in unspoken assumptionsanchored in the inarticulate nature of apractice going back, not simply to prehistory,but rooted in our prehuman development.

On the other hand, the design profession is acontemporary field growing within theuniversity. Having few historical roots in thephilosophical tradition deeper than the lastfew decades, we have yet to shape a clearunderstanding of the nature of design. We donot agree, therefore, on whether designknowledge constitutes a discipline, a field, ora science, one of these, two or even all three.As I develop my presentation, I will explainwhy I see design knowledge as all three. Atthis point, I will simply point to thedisagreement as evidence of a growing,healthy debate.

3 Defining design

The rich and growing literature in thephilosophy of design makes clear that thereis no longer an apparently tacit consensus onthe undefined nature design that once seemedto obtain. Instead, this literature has begun todevelop a deep concept of design.

This concept is being rendered explicit.Explicit conceptualization permits fruitfulinquiry and reflection.

To understand the nature of designknowledge, we must define what we mean bythe term design. Since there is no commonand well understood definition for design, Iwill offer some definitions and parameters. Aclear definition is vital to the issues I willaddress in this paper.

Design is first of all a process. The verb designdescribes a process of thought and planning.This verb takes precedence over all othermeanings. The word “design” had a place inthe English language by the 1500s. The first

written citation of the verb “design” dates fromthe year 1548. Merriam-Webster (1993: 343)defines the verb design as “to conceive andplan out in the mind; to have as a specificpurpose; to devise for a specific function orend.” Related to these is the act of drawing,with an emphasis on the nature of the drawingas a plan or map, as well as “to draw plans for;to create, fashion, execute or constructaccording to plan.”

Half a century later, the word began to be usedas a noun. The first cited use of the noun“design” occurs in 1588. Merriam-Webster(1993: 343) defines the noun, as “a particularpurpose held in view by an individual orgroup; deliberate, purposive planning; amental project or scheme in which means toan end are laid down.” Here, too, purpose andplanning toward desired outcomes are central.Among these are “a preliminary sketch oroutline showing the main features ofsomething to be executed; an underlyingscheme that governs functioning, developingor unfolding; a plan or protocol for carryingout or accomplishing something; thearrangement of elements or details in aproduct or work of art.” Only at the very enddo we find “a decorative pattern.” Thedefinitions end with a noun describing aprocess: “the creative art of executingaesthetic or functional designs.”

Although the word design refers to processrather than product, it has become popularshorthand for designed artifacts. Thisshorthand covers meaningful artifacts as wellas the merely fashionable or trendy. I will notuse the word design to designate the outcomeof the design process. The outcome of thedesign process may be a product or a service,it may be an artifact or a structure, but theoutcome of the design process is not “design.”

Using the term design as a verb or a processdescription noun frames design as a dynamicprocess (Friedman 1993). This makes clear theontological status of design as a subject ofphilosophical inquiry.

Before asking how design can be the subjectof inquiry, it is useful to identify some of thesalient features of the design process.

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Fuller (1969: 319) describes the process in amodel of the design science event flow. Hedivides the process into two steps. The first isa subjective process of search and research.The second is a generalizable process thatmoves from prototype to practice.

The subjective process of search and research,Fuller outlines a series of steps:

teleology --> intuition --> conception -->apprehension --> comprehension -->experiment --> feedback -->

Under generalization and objectivedevelopment leading to practices, he lists:

prototyping #1--> prototyping #2 -->prototyping #3 --> production design -->production modification --> tooling -->production --> distribution -->installation --> maintenance --> service -->reinstallation --> replacement -->removal --> scrapping --> recirculation

For Fuller, the design process is acomprehensive sequence leading fromteleology to practice and finally toregeneration. This last step, regeneration,creates a new stock of raw material on whichthe designer may again act. While the specificterms may change for process design orservices design, the essential concept remainthe same.

A designer is a thinker whose job it is to movefrom thought to action. A taxonomy of designknowledge domains (Friedman 1992, 2000)describes the frames within which a designermust act. Each domain requires a broad rangeof skills, knowledge, and awareness. Designinvolves more skill and knowledge than onedesigner can provide. Most successful designsolutions require several kinds of expertise. Itis necessary to use expertise without beingexpert in each field.

Understanding the issues these domainsinvolve and the relationships between andamong them offers a useful framework forconsidering design knowledge (See Figure 1).

To work consciously with the relationshipsamong the several domains and areas of

design knowledge requires systemic thinking.The designer is one member of a team ornetwork that generally involves severalelements described by the matrices implicitin the taxonomy. Here arises a difficulty.

When we speak of manufacturing complexindustrial products or shaping complexservices, we necessarily involve a largenetwork of interacting systems. When theprocess works well, nearly every part of thesystem in some way affects every other partof the system. When parts of the system affecteach other adversely, the entire system suffers.Again, this emphasizes the role of designer asthinker and planner. Organization theorysuggests building teams or networks to engagethe talent for each problem. In today’scomplex social and industrial environments,the designer works in teams or heads teams.

Systemic thinking gives perspective to themodels of design offered here. The designeris neither the entry-point nor pivot of thedesign process. Each designer is thepsychological centre of his own perceptualprocess, not the centre of the design processitself. The design process has no centre. It is anetwork of linked events. Systemic thinkingmakes the nature of networked events clear.No designer succeeds unless an entire teamsucceeds in meeting its goals.

Herbert Simon defines design in terms ofgoals. To design, he writes, is to “[devise]courses of action aimed at changing existingsituations into preferred ones” (Simon 1982:129). Design, properly defined, is the entireprocess across the full range of domainsrequired for any given outcome.

The nature of design as an integrativediscipline places it at the intersection of severallarge fields (See Figure 2). In one regard,design is a field of thinking and pure research.In another, it is a field of practice and appliedresearch. When applications are used to solvespecific problems in a specific setting, it is afield of clinical research.

One model for the field of design is a circle ofsix fields. A horizon bisects the circle into fieldsof theoretical study and fields of practice andapplication.


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Figure 1 Domains of design knowledge

Figure 2 Model of the field of design

The triangles represent six general domainsof design. Moving clockwise from the left-mosttriangle, these domains are (1) naturalsciences, (2) humanities and liberal arts, (3)social and behavioural sciences, (4) humanprofessions and services, (5) creative andapplied arts, and (6) technology andengineering.

Design may involve any or all of thesedomains, in differing aspect and proportiondepending on the nature of the project athand or the problem to be solved.

Domain 1:Skills for Learningand Leading

Problem SolvingInteraction MethodCoachingMind mappingResearch SkillsAnalysisRhetoricLogicMathematicsLanguageEditingWritingPresentation Skills

Public speaking

Small group

Information graphics

Domains of Design Knowledge: a TaxonomyDomain 3:The Artifact

Product DevelopmentMethodology

Market research

Innovation research

Problematics

Product generation

Creating new products

Transforming oldproducts

Product regeneration

Correcting problems

Improving products

Positioning

Re-engineering(lean production)

DesignProduct design

Ergonomics

Product semantics

Product graphics

Functionality

Graphic design

Visual ergonomics

Typography

Corporate design

Behavioral design

Information design

Knowledge design

Process design

ManufacturingTechnology

Operations

Statistical quality control

Logistics

Process management

Domain 2:The Human World

The Human BeingHuman behavior

Information semantics

Knowledge creation

Physiology & ergonomics

Research & methodology

The CompanyOrganizationalmanagement & behavior

Business economics

Company culture

Leadership

Administration

Future planning

Process management

Change management

Process skills

Company functions

Governance

Logistics

Production

Marketing

Finance

SocietyTrends

Legal issues

Media

Social economics

Communication

The WorldWorld trade

European Union

USA

Asia

Cross-culture Issues

Political economics

Theory BasicsCulture theory

Sociology ofknowledge

Reception theory

History of design

Sociology of taste

Content analysis

World history

Paradigm analysis

Models

Domain 4:The Environment

Natural EnvironmentEcology

Evolution

Environment

Impact

Built EnvironmentCityscape

Economy

Social web

Infrastructure

Traffic

Telecommunication

Airports

Food distribution

Human ecology

ArchitectureInformated buildings

Usage

Architecture as idea

Architecture as corporateidentity

Profile architecture

InteriorFurniture

Interior as corporateidentity

Psychology

Function

Social structure

The shape of work

The shape of play

The shape of private life

InstallationPhilosophy of space

Culture theory

Art ideas

Inquiry

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The taxonomy of design knowledge and thegeneric model of design raise implications fordesign research. These also involveunderstanding the kinds of knowledge thatform a foundation for the research act. This,in turn, will reveal how knowledge moves fromresearch into practice.

Before we focus on design research, I willconsider the subject of knowledge itself.

4 What is knowledge?

Merriam-Webster defines knowledge as “2 a(1) : the fact or condition of knowingsomething with familiarity gained throughexperience or association (2) : acquaintancewith or understanding of a science, art ortechnique b (1) : the fact or condition of beingaware of something (2) : the range of one’sinformation or understanding <answered tothe best of my knowledge> c : thecircumstance or condition of apprehendingtruth or fact through reasoning : cognition d :the fact or condition of having information orbeing learned <a man of unusualknowledge> 4 a : the sum of what is known :the body of truth, information and principlesacquired by mankind b (archaic) : a branch oflearning.

“Synonyms: knowledge, learning, erudition,scholarship mean what is or can be known byan individual or by mankind. Knowledgeapplies to facts or ideas acquired by study,investigation, observation or experience <richin the knowledge of human nature>. Learningapplies to knowledge acquired especiallythrough formal, often advanced, schooling <abook that demonstrated vast learning>.Erudition strongly implies the acquiring ofprofound, recondite or bookish learning <anerudition unusual even in a scholar> .Scholarship implies the possession of learningcharacteristic of the advanced scholar in aspecialized field of study or investigation <awork of first-rate literary scholarship>”(Merriam-Webster 1993: 647).

Gregory Bateson (1984: 41) once said that“information is any difference that makes adifference.” In reality, the power to make adifference defines the difference betweeninformation and knowledge. Roger Bacon, the

16th century scholar and a founder of thescientific method, noted this difference in hisReligious Meditations, Of Heresies, where hewrote that, “knowledge itself is power” (inMackay, 1991: 21). Peter Drucker respects thatdifference, too, and describes thetransformation of information intoknowledge: “Knowledge is information thatchanges something or somebody — either bybecoming grounds for action, or by makingan individual (or an institution) capable ofdifferent and more effective action.” (Drucker,1990: 242)

Knowledge embodies agency and purpose. Inthis, it differs from information (Friedman andOlaisen 1999). Information may be stored ininformation systems. Knowledge is embodiedin human beings. Knowledge creation is anintensely human act.

To understand the role of research inknowledge creation, it is ultimately necessaryto reflect on what philosophers call “theproblem of knowledge.” Mario Bunge (1996:104) states that the problem of knowledge is“actually an entire system of problems. Someof the components of this system are: What isknowledge? What can know: minds, brains,computers, or social groups? Can we knoweverything, something, or nothing? How doesone get to know: from experience, reason,action, a combination of two, or all three, ornone of them? What kind of knowledge is best– that is, truest, most comprehensive, deepest,and most reliable and fertile? These fiveproblems constitute the core problematics ofepistemology, or the ‘theory’ if knowledge –which is still to become a theory proper.”

These issues are the cores of an entirediscipline. In a short presentation, it is notpossible to do more than acknowledge the factthat a problematics of knowledge exists. Thisseries of problems has much to do withunderstanding what knowledge is and howknowledge is created. This is a central field ofinquiry for a relatively new research field suchas design. Bunge (1996) and Alvin I. Goldman(1999) have addressed the problem ofknowledge in ways that can be extraordinarilyvaluable to us. Here, I will simply state that itis vital for us to recognize the importance to


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our field of the problem of knowledge. Ourunderstanding of design has grown anddeveloped in recent years. Our understandingof knowledge much become richer still if weare to apply the problem of knowledge todesign. It is through this work that we willdevelop a proper understanding of what willbe required to generate design knowledge.

The definitions of knowledge and design offera basis for definitional reflections on designknowledge that form the foundation of whatfollows.

5 Experiential and reflective knowledge

Design is a process. The design process isrooted in and involves both theoreticaldisciplines and fields of practice. As all fieldsof practice do, design knowledge involvesexplicit knowledge and tacit knowledge.Disciplines are also practices, and they, too,involve explicit knowledge and tacitknowledge both. The challenge of anyevolving field is to bring tacit knowledge intoarticulate focus. This creates the ground ofshared understanding that builds the field. Thecontinual and conscious struggle forarticulation is what distinguishes the work ofa research field from the practical work of aprofession.

Professional excellence requires articulation.This means rendering tacit knowledge explicit.This is the foundation of what Nonaka andTakeuchi (1995) describe as the knowledgecreation cycle. This is also the basis of Schon’sconcept of reflective practice. Reflectivepractice is not a form of silent meditation onwork. In reflective practice, reflection takes theform of bringing unconscious patterns andtacit understandings to consciousunderstanding through articulation. This isrelated to the therapeutic process. It is relatedto the way that therapists work withsupervisors and to the way that teachers workwith master teachers. It is related to thedialogue between professionals in training andtheir mentors.

Schon (1983, 1990), Argryis and Schon (1992),and Argyris (1961, 1968, 1982) address theseissues in their books and articles onprofessional development through reflective

practice and rich learning cycles. This is alsothe basis of discussion teaching (Christensen,Garvin and Sweet 1991) and case methodteaching (Barnes, Christensen and Hansen1987).

These issues are subtle and require care. Alldomains of human knowledge embody someform of tacit knowledge. Even the mostarticulate fields involve assumptions, sharedexperience, and personal development. Allthese create a background of tacit knowledgethat can never be fully stated.

In many ways, this tacit knowledge forms acentral basis for any kind of work.

As Bunge (1996: 104-107) suggests,knowledge arises through the interaction ofmany forms of learning. Thinking, experienceand action all play a role. Although the processof learning and the nature of knowledge arenot completely understood, there is wideagreement that knowledge creation requiresexperience. Kolb’s (1984: 38) definition oflearning as “the process whereby knowledgeis created through the transformation ofexperience” offers a useful perspective.

Any kind of experience may, in principle, betransformed into knowledge. Kolb emphasizesthe relationship between experience andknowledge as a dynamic process ofcontinuous reproduction and regeneration. Itcontradicts the static model of learning asacquiring knowledge external to andindependent of the learner. Information andfacts are external to and independent of thelearner. Knowledge inheres in human beingsand the specific form of knowledge is oftencontingent on the learning process.

Because knowledge is human, developingknowledge requires thinking and practice,mind and body both. Mindless recording willnot transform experience into knowledge.Learning requires human agency, a conceptsynonymous with Heidegger’s concept ofcare, the human tendency for each person tocare about his own existence (Heidegger 1993:238). For Heidegger, both practical knowledgeand theoretical knowledge express of humancare in an intimate relationship between action

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and knowledge.

Human knowledge is not only the product ofpast experience, but also the product ofanticipating the future. Knowing thingsinvolves feedforward as well as feedback,anticipating how things may be used,manipulated or acted on in the future. Aschildren, we all discover that anticipatoryknowledge – prediction – is not alwaysaccurate. Politicians and scientists know this,too. It is part of the knowledge cyclenonetheless.

Kolb’s definition of learning fits together withHeidegger’s concept of care to suggest amodel of individual learning that shifts thefocus of learning from the adaptation ofexternal behaviour to the internal process ofknowledge creation. The model outlines theways in which human beings monitor andcontrol knowledge through three humancapacities. These capacities are 1) the abilityto act, 2) the ability to apprehend action andthe environment within which action takesplace, 3) critical comprehension.

Kolb (1984: 107) writes that, “Comprehension... guides our choices of experience and directsour attention to those aspects of apprehendedexperience to be considered relevant.Comprehension is more than a secondaryprocess of representing selected aspects ofapprehended reality. The process of criticalcomprehension is capable of selecting andreshaping apprehended experience in waysthat are more powerful and profound. Thepower of comprehension has led to thediscovery of ever new ways of seeing theworld, the very connection between mind andphysical reality.” Critical comprehension is thepivotal force in learning.

This process integrates experience intoknowledge through cycles of action andfeedback. Knowledge, in turn, supports thehuman capacity to understand presentsituations and shape future action. Experienceis transformed into knowledge in several ways.One is reflection on the past. The other is thestrategic judgment that human agents makeas they design the future. These judgmentslink human beings to the environment by

projecting future possibilities in a complexnetwork of cause and effect. Things areunderstood through their perceived positionsin these networks.

The interaction between experience,anticipation, critical comprehension, andknowledge is only part of the story. Situatedknowledge also relies on generalizedknowledge distinct from – and abstracted from– immediate situations and intentions.

Generalized knowledge guides perceptionand thus it guides action. It is commonknowledge shared among groups of actors.Community among actors depends, in part,on shared common knowledge and the sharednature of general knowledge implies a socialprocess. This social process plays a major rolein knowledge creation. While individual actorsalso create generalized knowledge, everycreator of new knowledge builds in part onwhat has come before. Even the greatestindividual creators see farther because theystand, as Newton famously put it, “on theshoulders of giants.” Even individualknowledge creation is thus a social process.

Two more aspects of human agency driveknowledge creation, habit, and tacitknowledge. Garfinkel’s (1967) experimentsdemonstrate that a general store of knowledgeis essential even to the most mundane activity.This general store of knowledge depends onmany factors. These include habituation, tacitknowledge, and the larger social stock ofgeneralized knowledge, together with learningbased on experience, anticipation, and criticalcomprehension.

One fascinating aspect of habitualization is thefact that it plays a role in many differenttheories of knowledge creation. Berger andLuckman (1971: 70-71) write that, “All humanactivity is subject to habitualization. Any actionthat is repeated frequently becomes cast intoa pattern, which can then be reproduced withan economy of effort and which ipso facto, isapprehended by its performer as that pattern... In terms of the meanings bestowed by manupon his activity, habitualization makes itunnecessary for each situation to be definedanew, step by step. A large variety of situations


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may be subsumed under its predefinitions.”

Habitualization need not prohibit criticalcomprehension. The two processes worktogether in dialectical relationship. They aredistinct yet related dimensions of learning thatdepend intimately on each other. One formof habitualization results from repeated actsof critical comprehension that transformexperience into knowledge. Criticalcomprehension depends on a generalizedstore of knowledge generated byhabitualization. The knowledge spiraldescribes the relationships between theseaspects of knowledge.

The knowledge management frameworkposits knowledge creation as a spiral movingthrough epistemological and ontologicaldimensions (Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995: 70-73). The epistemological dimension can beportrayed as a spectrum running from explicitknowledge to tacit knowledge. Theontological dimension describes levels ofknowledge moving from individual knowledgethrough group knowledge, organizationalknowledge, and inter-organizationalknowledge. One can extend the scale to socialand cultural knowledge.

Human beings shift knowledge from oneframe to another. As they do so, they embraceknowledge, enlarging it, internalizing it,transmitting it, shifting it, recontextualizingand transforming it. Humans create newknowledge by acting on and working withknowledge. Knowledge creation requiressocial context and individual contribution.This involves an effort to render tacit orunknown explicit and known.

6 Theory and research

The difficulty of fitting research into the fieldof design is not rooted in the nature of design.Neither is it rooted in the nature of designknowledge. The great difficulty arises from afield of practice with a huge population ofpractitioners who were trained in the oldvocational and trade traditions of design. Thisis, in part, to be expected in a profession sonew to the university.

This situation is visible in many simple

demographic facts. It is reflected in the factthat few university design teachers have hada broad university background. It is reflectedin the fact that doctoral programs in designare developing at a pace that far surpasses theavailability of trained research faculty – and itis reflected in the shortage of designprofessors and doctoral supervisors who have,themselves, earned a PhD. The demographicsof design programs reveal many similarproblems and challenges. The fact that we arecoming to recognize these challenges asproblems is, in itself, an important stepforward. Diagnosis precedes cure.

These problems are not, however, the fault ofcraft practice. Quite the contrary. Craft practiceis eminently suited to reflective practice. Craftpractice is also well suited to theorydevelopment and research.

We are now seeing an increasing number ofcraft practitioners who also generatesignificant research. Some of the workemerging from this field is so significant thatit is helping to revolutionize research methodstraining in other fields. An important exampleis seen in the work of Pirkko Anttila.

Pirkko Anttila, a professor in craft research,has become central in defining the challengesof research methodology in design. Anttila’s(1996) book promises to revolutionize thelearning and use of research methods bydesigners. The book is rooted in a rich,structural approach that assesses designmethods in terms of challenges, needs, anddesired outcomes. The book enables theindividual reader to locate and begin toexplore a variety of research concepts througha pedagogically sophisticated program ofaccessible self-learning. At the same time, thecomprehensive overview makes this book ahelpful guide to experienced researchers.Researchers in social science, management,and economics as well as in art, craft, anddesign are using the Finnish edition.

The problems that arise in a population of craftpractitioners (Friedman 1997) have to do witheducational traditions rather than subjectmatter. This involves the failure of educatorsand practices in the arts and crafts – including

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design – to keep up with the knowledgerevolution.

This is a sad paradox. Artisans and shop-floorengineers were leading actors in the industrialrevolution. Artisans and artisan engineershelped to develop the foundations ofindustrial practice. Some played importantroles in the birth of new approaches toeducation and learning. A few — such asbookbinder Michael Faraday or printerBenjamin Franklin — even played a role in thebirth of modern science.

The problem we face today is that arts andcrafts training – and design training in the artschools – is rooted neither in the rich crafttradition nor in the research tradition of theuniversities. This gives rise to a culture ofpeople who mistake silence for tacitknowledge and confuses unreflectiveassertion with reflective practice.

The immature state of the academic disciplineand the immature state of the profession in aknowledge economy are two causes of failurein design practice.

Successful design practice requires a richfoundation in experience. Successful designalso requires explanatory principles, models,and paradigms. The design profession hasdeveloped few of these. Achieving desiredchange requires a foundation in theory. Thisdemands a conception of preferred situationsin comparison with other possible situationsand an understanding of the actions that leadfrom a current situation to a preferred one.General principles are required to predict andmeasure the outcome of decisions. This iswhat W. Edwards Deming (1993: 94-118) termsprofound knowledge, comprised of “fourparts, all related to each other: appreciationfor a system; knowledge about variation;theory of knowledge; psychology” (Deming1993: 96).

The fact that design is young poses challengesto the development of a rich theoreticalframework. In order to develop thisframework, a community of researchers mustidentify themselves and enter dialogue. Thisprocess has only recently begun. In the

development of a professional researchcommunity, “...discussion about the scope andcontent of a young field of research helps toform the identity of its scientific community.Internal organization and boundarydefinitions are central means for the socialinstitutionalization of a specialty. Theexchange of opinions and even disputesconcerning the nature and limits of a field helpto construct identity and thus become basesfor social cohesion” (Vakkari 1996: 169).

In this context, “conceptions of the structureand scope of a discipline are social constructsthat include certain objects within that domainand exclude others. Depending on the levelof articulation, the outline of a disciplinedictates what the central objects of inquiry are,how they should be conceptualized, what themost important problems are and how theyshould be studied. It also suggests what kindsof solutions are fruitful. Although articulationis usually general, it shapes the solutions tospecific research projects. This general frameis the toolbox from which researchers picksolutions without necessarily knowing they aredoing so” (Vakkari 1996: 169).

The concept of profound knowledgeestablishes prerequisites for a toolbox ofdesign knowledge that will permit broadunderstanding linked to predictable results.

Some kinds of design function within well-defined domains such as industrial design,graphic design, textile design or furnituredesign. Other forms of design involve severaldesign disciplines and several professions.These include information design, processdesign, product design, interface design,transportation design, urban design, designleadership and design management.

No single factor determines the location of anygiven design practice in a specific domain. Intoday’s knowledge economy, therefore,designers must maintain a broad generalperspective linked to a range of specific skillsin leadership, learning, analysis, knowledgeacquisition, research, and problem solving.[See figure 1] The demands of the knowledgeeconomy distinguish design professionalsfrom the design assistants who execute


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specific applications required by the designprocess.

Intelligent designers are moving beyond craftskill and vocational knowledge to professionalknowledge. They do this by integratingspecific design knowledge with a larger rangeof understandings. This includesunderstanding the human beings whoseneeds the design act serves. This includesunderstanding the social, industrial andeconomic circumstances in which the act ofdesign takes place. This includesunderstanding the human context in whichdesigned artifacts and processes are used.Intelligent designers also develop generalknowledge of industry and business. A broadplatform enables designers to focus onproblems in a rich, systemic way to achievedesired change.

Research is one source of the knowledge thatdesigners require.

7 What is research?

Britannica Webster’s defines research withelegant simplicity. The first definition datesfrom 1577:

“re·search noun Etymology: Middle Frenchrecerche, from recerchier to investigatethoroughly, from Old French, from re- +cerchier to search — more at SEARCHDate: 1577 1 : careful or diligent search 2 :studious inquiry or examination; especially: investigation or experimentation aimedat the discovery and interpretation of facts,revision of accepted theories or laws in thelight of new facts, or practical applicationof such new or revised theories or laws 3 :the collecting of information about aparticular subject” (Britannica Webster’s1999: unpaged).

The second appears only a few years later:

“2 research Date: 1593 transitive senses 1: to search or investigate exhaustively<research a problem> 2 : to do researchfor <research a book> intransitive senses: to engage in research” (BritannicaWebster’s 1999: unpaged).

The discussions of research in design that labelresearch as a purely retrospective practice

have been misleading. Statements thatconflate research with positivism are equallymisleading. So, too, are essays that proclaimsystematic, rigorous research to be inflexibleor uncreative. One recent note askedplaintively, “where’s the search in research?”as though rigorous research involves littlemore than tedious cataloguing of establishedfacts. Many aspects of creative research aretedious, but that’s also true of painting, music,and dance.

Without developing a comprehensivelinguistic analysis of the word research, I willsimply note that the prefix “re” came to thisword from origins outside English. The prefixdoesn’t seem to modify the core word in thedirection of past or retroactive conditions, butit seems, rather, to emphasize or strengthenit in some way.

As the dictionaries note (Merriam-Webster’s1990, 1993: 1002; Britannica Webster’s 1999:unpaged), the meanings of research areclosely linked to the senses of search ingeneral, “Middle English cerchen, from MiddleFrench cerchier to go about, survey, search,from Late Latin circare to go about, from Latincircum round about — more at CIRCUM-Date: 14th century transitive senses 1 : to lookinto or over carefully or thoroughly in an effortto find or discover something: as a : to examinein seeking something <searched the northfield> b : to look through or explore byinspecting possible places of concealment orinvestigating suspicious circumstances c : toread thoroughly : CHECK; especially : toexamine a public record or register forinformation about <search land titles> d : toexamine for articles concealed on the persone : to look at as if to discover or penetrateintention or nature 2 : to uncover, find, orcome to know by inquiry or scrutiny — usuallyused with out intransitive senses 1 : to look orinquire carefully <searched for the papers>2 : to make painstaking investigation orexamination” (Britannica Webster’s 1999:unpaged).”

One can say that many aspects of designinvolve search and research both. Here, I willdraw on Richard Buchanan’s distinctionbetween basic research, applied research and

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clinical research.

Basic research involves a search for generalprinciples. These principles are abstracted andgeneralized to cover a variety of situations andcases. Basic research generates theory onseveral levels. This may involve macroleveltheories covering wide areas or fields, midleveltheories covering specific ranges of issues ormicrolevel theories focused on narrowquestions. Truly general principles often havebroad application beyond their field oforiginal, and they may have surprisingpredictive power arising from their generativenature.

Applied research adapts the findings of basicresearch to classes of problems. It may alsoinvolve developing and testing theories forthese classes of problems. Applied researchtends to be midlevel or microlevel research.At the same time, applied research maydevelop or generate questions that becomethe subject of basic research.

Clinical research involves specific cases.Clinical research applies the findings of basicresearch and applied research to specificsituations. It may also generate and test newquestions, and it may test the findings of basicand applied research in a clinical situation.Clinical research may also develop or generatequestions that become the subject of basicresearch or applied research. In fact, any ofthe three frame of research may generatequestions for the other fields, and each maytest theories and findings from the other kindsof research. It is important, however, to notethat clinical research generally involves specificforms of professional engagement.

In the rough and tumble of daily practice, mostdesign practice is restricted to clinicalresearch. There simply isn’t time for anythingelse.

In today’s complex environment, a designermust identify problems, select appropriategoals, and realize solutions. A designer mayalso assemble and lead a team to realize goalsand solutions. Today’s designer works onseveral levels. The designer is an analyst whodiscovers problems. The designer is a

synthesist who helps to solve problems and ageneralist who understands the range oftalents that must be engaged to realizesolutions. The designer is a leader whoorganizes teams when one range of talents isnot enough. Moreover, the designer is a criticwhose post-solution analysis ensures that theright problem has been solved.

A designer is a thinker whose job it is to movefrom thought to action. The designer uses thecapacities of mind in an appropriate andempathic way to solve problems for clients.Then, the designer works to meet customerneeds, to test the outcomes and to followthrough on solutions.

Here, we see the first value of research trainingfor the professional designer. Given thelocation of design practice in a specific, clinicalsituation, a broader understanding of generalprinciples gives the practising designer abackground of principle and theory on whichto draw. This comprehensive background willnever arise in any immediate situation.Developing this background in the field ofpractice takes years. In contrast, a solidfoundation of design knowledge anchored inbroad research traditions gives eachpractitioner the access to the cumulativeresults of many other minds and the overallexperience of a far larger field.

I will consider this issue later in discussing howwe move from research into practice.

Before asking what value research offers topractice, it might be valuable to attempt asummary definition of research.

In the shortest form, research is a way ofasking questions. All forms of research askquestions, basic, applied and clinical. Thedifferent forms and levels of research askquestions in different ways.

What distinguishes research from reflection?Both involve thinking. Both seek to render theunknown explicit. Reflection, however,develops engaged knowledge from individualand group experience. It is a personal act or acommunity act, and it is an existential act.Research, in contrast, addresses the question


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itself, as distinct from the personal orcommunal. The issues and articulations ofreflective practice may become the subject ofresearch, for example. This includes forms ofparticipant research or action research by thesame people who engaged in the reflectionthat became the data. Research may alsoaddress questions beyond or outside theresearcher.

Research asks questions in a systematic way.The systems vary by field and purpose. Thereare many kinds of research: hermeneutic,naturalistic inquiry, statistical, analytical,mathematical, physical, historical, sociological,ethnographic, ethnological, biological,medical, chemical and many more. Themethods and traditions on which they draware many and several. Each has its ownfoundations and values. Nevertheless, allinvolve some form of systematic inquiry, andall involve a formal level of theorizing andinquiry beyond the specific research at hand.

This systemic approach offers a level of robustunderstanding that becomes one foundationof effective practice. To reach from knowingto doing requires practice. To reach fromdoing to knowing, one requires thearticulation and critical inquiry that allows apractitioner to gain reflective insight. W.Edwards Deming’s experience in the appliedindustrial setting and the direct clinical settingconfirms the value of theory to practice.

“Experience alone, without theory, teachesmanagement nothing about what to do toimprove quality and competitive position, norhow to do it” writes Deming (1986: 19). “Ifexperience alone would be a teacher, then onemay well ask why are we in this predicament?Experience will answer a question, and aquestion comes from theory.”

It is not experience, but our interpretation andunderstanding of experience that leads toknowledge. Knowledge, therefore, emergesfrom critical inquiry. Systematic or scientificknowledge arises from the theories that allowus to question and learn from the worldaround us. One of the attributes thatdistinguish the practice of a profession fromthe practice of an art is systematic knowledge.

As artists, we serve ourselves or we serve aninternalized vision that is, for all practicalpurposes, a form of the self. In the professions,we serve others than ourselves. In exploringthe dimensions of design as service, Nelsonand Stolterman (2000) distinguish it from artand science both. My view is that art andscience each contributes to design. Theparadigm of service unites them.

To serve successfully demands an ability tocause change toward desired goals. This, inturn, involves the ability to discern desirablegoals and to create predictable – or reasonablypredicable – changes to reach them. Scienceis a tool for this aspect of design, and researchis the collection of methods that enable us touse the tool.

8 Reasons for research

There are many reasons for research, basic,applied, and clinical. These include: curiosity;the desire to know something; the desire toknow why something is; the desire to knowhow something works; the need to solve aproblem; the desire to serve a client. Thereare also practical reasons for research. Foruniversity faculty, this includes therequirement that we publish. On the surface,this is simply a career requirement. At a deeperlevel, the research requirement is based on asimple fact. Those who create knowledgethrough research have a different and richerrelationship to their subject field than thosewho simply teach the knowledge that otherscreate.

Research has always been closely linked withscience. Simon’s (1982: 129) definition of thegoal of science in general is understanding“things: how they are and how they work.”This is the goal of science in its larger sense ofsystematic knowledge. This is why somecultures use the term “science” to cover manydisciplines or field of inquiry other than naturalor social science. In the sense ofunderstanding how things are and how theywork, literature, history or theology can alsobe seen as sciences.

Campbell, Daft, and Hulin (1982: 97-103)outline the basis for successful research.Successful research requires active research

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practice and lively involvement withcolleagues. Successful research is frequentlymarked by convergence. Ideas, methods,interests, problems and techniques interact inthe work of a researcher. Good research isoften intuitive, based on a sense that the timeis right for an idea. (This criterion, of course,is more easily seen in hindsight, since researchideas for which the time is not right tend tovanish.) Successful research arises fromconcepts and leads to theorization andtheoretical understanding.

Robson (1993: 26) emphasizes the real worldvalue of successful research, with problems“arising from the field and leading to tangibleand useful ideas.”

Here, I will assert the value of free inquiry andbasic research, research that is not alwaysconcerned with immediate results identifiedin terms of the “real world.”

Free inquiry and science have their uses, evenin service professions such as design. They areespecially useful as a foundation forimprovements to practice.

Science – vetenskap, wissenchaft – issystematic, organized inquiry and all thedomain of theory-based thinking on designconstitute some form of science in this largersense. Scientific method in the restricted senseused for natural science has its uses, too. Inthe sense that scientific inquiry can contributeto design, it can, indeed match some of thegoals of the design discipline. No one hassuggested scientific inquiry can meet all thegoals of design. Where science in the largesense or scientific method in the narrow sensecan be used, however, they should be used.

Design is both a making discipline and anintegrated frame of reflection and inquiry. Thismeans, that design inquiry seeks explanationsas well as immediate results.

One way to build better artifacts or causechange in a desired direction is to understandlarger principles. This requires philosophy andtheory of design linked to general explanation.I don’t demand that everyone pursue this kindof research. If design research is to be

restricted to narrow, immediately practicalgoals deemed acceptable to practitioners andjudged only by practitioners, there’s noevident purpose to much of the mostinteresting work in design research today.

But, then, if design research is to be restrictedto narrow, immediately practical goals deemedacceptable to practitioners, there would havebeen no purpose to much of the work ofseveral significant scholars in design, inengineering or industrial practice. Some of thefigures of whom this is true are W. EdwardsDeming, Donald Schon, Buckminster Fuller,Victor Papanek, Henry Petroski and EdwardTufte.

There are powerful theoretical arguments forresearch and explanation. The evidence ofdesign research and design practice alsosupports these ideas.

Explanation is a profound source of betterapplication. While applications lie in the realmof practice, explanation lies in the realm ofscience. To expand the frame of knowledgewithin which better applications emerge, werequire profound explanations and thefreedom to seek them in pure form.

Many design researchers – and some designers– seek to understand the world to explain it.Let’s consider why a robust design processrequires understanding to explain. To useSimon’s (1982: 129) elegant definition, todesign is to “[devise] courses of action aimedat changing existing situations into preferredones.” Why would we require an explanatorydesign science for this to happen? To changeexisting situation into preferred ones, we mustunderstand the nature of preferred situationsand the principles through which we achievethem. This means, in Simon’s (1982: 129)words, understanding “things: how they areand how they work.”

The best argument for the importance ofunderstanding how things are and how theywork is the frequent failure of designoutcomes. Unintended consequences andperformance failures result most often from afailure to understand how things are, how theywork, and – more important – a failure to


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understand the linkages between designedprocesses or artifacts and the larger contextwithin they are created and found.

Design activity involves goals other thannatural, physical, and social science. It alsoinvolves some of the same goals. What isdifferent in design is that the framework ofinquiry is both interdisciplinary andintegrative. The larger frame of design involvesissues that are different from the sciences andit involves issues that are explicitly parallel.Explanation is not our only goal. It is oftenamong our goals. In some forms of designresearch, it may well be the essential goal of aspecific inquiry.

Explanatory power is also the fuel of betterpractice.

Ideas and projects that do not work markevery growing field of inquiry. Methods,theories, even historical accounts, andinterpretative frames begin as proposals.These proposals begin in some form of ideaor inquiry or even in some form of intuitionor inspiration. The professions, technology,the humanities, social science, and naturalscience are all littered with ideas that seemedpromising to someone. Proposing ideas mustalways be free: once proposed, the ideas mustbe subject to critical inspection, applicationand perhaps even testing to see which work.

The logic of idea generation involves intuitionand deduction as well as induction andabduction. Kepler got to his laws of planetarymotion the long way round, starting withtrying to fit the orbits of the planets toeverything from music scales to a strangePythagorean model of nested Platonic solids.By testing these against observational data, heeventually developed a series of laws thatexplain the model of the solar system we haveused ever since. This, in turn, led to Newton’swork.

The earlier predictions of Ptolemaicastronomy worked perfectly well for thepractitioners of the day. While the Copernicanmodel of the solar system was essentiallybetter than the Ptolemaic model, Copernicusrelied on an Aristotelian doctrine that uses

perfect circles to describe celestial orbits.Since the planetary orbits are not circular, theoriginal Copernican model was less accuratethan the Ptolemaic model with its richcatalogue of documented and preciseobservations. Practitioners found Ptolemaicastronomy far more useful and accurate thanCopernican astronomy. The two systemscompeted for over a century after thepublication of Copernicus’s Revolutions. Manyargued, correctly, that Ptolemaic astronomywas the better system. Despite its lack ofmathematical elegance, it was far superior inpredictive power. That made it superior topractising astronomers and astrologers. (Thelargest group of practitioners usingastronomical observations was astrologers.)

For decades, the Copernican model was astrange theoretical artifact with no practicalvalue. Although the Copernican solar systemis essentially the correct model, it was deeplyflawed in practical terms.

Einstein’s theorizing began with discrepanciesin the implications of theory. Maxwell’s lawsimplied a profound problem regarding theinvariant nature of the speed of lightcontrasted against the position of theobserver. This is the same problem made clearby the Michelson-Morley experiments, thoughEinstein began with the theory and not withthe Michelson-Morley observations.

By taking one or two implications of Maxwell’sequations at face value, Einstein reached astunning new kind of proposal. This proposaltook the form of special relativity. Here,Einstein was clear. Theory and hypothesesarise from intuition and the free play of themind. Theory must then be tested againstempirical data. In Einstein’s case, theorycontradicted what many physics practitionersbelieved to be common sense.

No one denies the important of practice. Imerely assert that in many cases, the researchthat seems to serve practice in the short termoften fails to serve the long-term needs of afield. In failing to serve significant long-termneeds, research restricted to that which seemspractical and applicable in today’s terms failsto serve the best interests of practitioners.

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One of the reasons universities exist — andone of the values of basic research — isgenerating vital knowledge outside theimmediate constraints of practice.

9 When practice doesn’t want research

Even so, there are occasions when practicedoesn’t want research. Sometimes, whetherthings work or not, it doesn’t matter. Many ofPhilippe Starck’s artifacts meet this criterion.The lemon squeezer where the juice runs offdown the legs and the kettle that burns thehand in the act of pouring are good examplesof these. I have now heard that Alessi actuallyoffers a guarantee that some Starck artifactswon’t work. The guarantee of dysfunction issupposedly part of the market appeal. Iimagine that the next item out will be aprefilled water kettle, sealed and guaranteedto explode, destroying the stove and injuringthe cook in the process.

Practitioners sometimes reject vital streams ofresearch while seeking solutions that do work.One of the best known episodes of thisbehaviour comes from medicine rather thandesign.

In the middle of the 19th century, medicalpractitioners believed that research intoantiseptic practice or bacteria had no practicalvalue.

A brief look at the history of antiseptictreatments of different kinds makes the case.Semmelweiss, Lister and Pasteur had roughgoing. Semmelweiss, incidentally, got his initialideas as an intuition that he tested with asimply, rule-of-thumb procedures that wereessentially statistical in nature.

Medical research of that era made smalladvances. These pioneers made the greatestadvance of the era with work that was bitterlyresisted by practitioners. medical practitionersthought this stream of inquiry had no value.It is nevertheless possible that the medicalinnovations arising from this work was themost significant advance of the past twomillennia in terms of numbers of lives savedin medical practice and clinical application.There have been more astonishinginnovations. Many advances have been more

dramatic. No single advance did more forhealth through preventive care than theintroduction of antiseptic procedures andpasteurization of food.

Effective design research must be an act of freechoice. Each researcher is free to decide whatgoals his or her research will serve. Somedesign research ought to serve practice. Notall design research should be required to servepractice.

When a form of research is tied too closely tothe practice of any specific era, it is — bydefinition – often incapable of creating thenew knowledge of the future. It leads toincremental improvements more often thanbreakthrough. Since we do not know whatknowledge may be useful in the future,demanding that we exclusively serve today’sperceived needs will not advance a field.

Campbell, Daft, and Hulin (1982: 102) alsooutlined the reasons that are often associatedwith unsuccessful research. Several of thesereasons involve research done for motivesother than genuine curiosity. Researchundertaken purely for publication, for moneyor funding is among these. A research themeforced on a researcher is generally linked toone of these motives. Nothing is deadlier tothe spirit of discovery.

Fortunately, the world is filled with curiouspeople. As I see it, any robust researchpursued with genuine vigour and the spirit ofdiscovery has value. The immediate values andthe long-term values of any given researchprogramme change and shift with time.

The research dean at a university once toldme that a study of faculty publishing revealedthat it takes nearly one thousand hours ofwork to develop a research article from firstconception to final publication. Clearly, it ishard to pay for the work this requires. Thisleaves curiosity and passion as the mostreliable motives for research.

10 From research into practice

When we began, I promised to address anumber of issues. We have considered thenature of design and reflected on how the


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nature of design involves certain kinds ofknowledge. We have examined the sources ofknowledge. We have considered research as asource of knowledge, and we have consideredresearch in relation to other sources ofknowledge. This has taken us a long way.

Developing a sound line of reasoning takestime. The time it takes can often lead tosurprisingly swift conclusions. To fit thesethoughts in an hour, with time for dialogue,I’m going to consider the last two questionsin summary form. The first involves how wecreate design knowledge through research.The second asks how new knowledge movefrom research into practice.

Creating design knowledge rests open all thesources we’ve considered here. Practicalexperience is only one of these. Practice alonecannot create new knowledge. Not evenreflective practice will generate newknowledge in significant measure. Theinterplay of experience and reflection, inquiryand theorizing generates knowledge. One taskof research is examining the ideas that arisefrom the interplay of these different forms ofknowledge. Research then helps to establishthose forms of knowledge that offer thegreatest potential for further development.

This new knowledge moves into practice inhundreds of ways. The field of innovationstudies examines the ways that new ideas areadopted in practice. [See endnote 2].

Here, I’m going to cheat a little and offer avery brief account of how this knowledgemoves from research into practice.Fortunately, I also promise not to answer allthese questions, so ending with a summationwill keep my promise and meet my guaranteeto be done on time.

In a new field, the greatest need is to build abody of research – and to train a rich networkof researchers and research-orientedpractitioners able to use the knowledge wonin research as a foundation for practice.Research becomes the foundation of practicein many ways. One is the foundation ofconcrete results. The other, perhaps evenmore important, is in the development of

critical thinking and good mental habits. Theseare the reasons that argue for the designscience approach to design education(Friedman 1997).

Concrete research results become visible topractitioners in a myriad of ways. Journalresults, conferences, corridor talk amongcolleagues, knowledge transfer in sharedprojects, Internet discussion groups. Theimportant issue is that a field must grow largeenough and rich enough to shape results andcirculate them. As this happens, thedisciplinary basis of the larger field also growsricher. This leads to a virtuous cycle of basicresults that flow up toward applied researchand to clinical applications. At every stage,knowledge, experience and questions movein both directions.

The goal is a full knowledge creation cycle thatbuilds the field and all that practise in it.Practice tends to embody knowledge.Research tends to articulate knowledge. Theknowledge creation cycle generates newknowledge through theorizing and reflectionboth.

I’m going to end by proposing the kinds ofresearch that we need to build our field andthe kinds of research that we must undertaketo build the discipline that supports the fieldwe build.

Not long ago, Tore Kristensen (1999: unpaged)raised an issue of stunning importance fordesign research in addressing the notion of aprogressive research programme. The minuteI heard him propose the idea, I realized thatthis concept was so evident to those of us whowork in other fields that we had somehowoverlooked the fact that no similar notion hadyet been proposed in the field of design.

What is a progressive research programme?Drawing on Kristensen (1999: unpaged), Ihave identified eight characteristics of aprogressive research program. These are:1 building a body of generalized knowledge,2 improving problem solving capacity,3 generalizing knowledge into new areas,4 identifying value creation and cost effects,5 explaining differences in design strategies

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Figure 3 A progressive research program for design knowledge

Philosophy and theory ofdesign

Philosophy of designOntology of designEpistemology of design

Philosophy of designscienceTheory construction

Knowledge creation

Design education

Philosophy of designeducation

Education based onresearch

Education oriented topractice

Rethinking undergraduateeducation

Undergraduate focus onintellectual skills forknowledge economy

Undergraduate focus onpractice skills forprofessional training

Undergraduate focus onfoundations forprofessional development

Rethinking professionaldegrees

Professional degreesoriented aroundintellectual skillsProfessional degreesoriented around practicalskillsProfessional degreesoriented aroundprofessional development

Research educationUndergraduate andprofessional backgroundfor research educationResearch master’sdegrees

Doctoral educationPostgraduate training

Continuing educationLifelong learning

Partnership with designfirms

Partnership withprofessional associationsPartnership with industry

Partnership with govt

Research methods andresearch practices

Research methodsResearch issuesexplorationProgressive researchprograms

Development fromresearch to practice

Design practice

Comprehensive practiceProfound knowledgePractice linked to solidfoundations in educationand researchProfessional develop-ment lifelong learning

and their risks or benefits,6 learning on the individual level,7 collective learning,8 meta-learning.

Four areas of design research must beconsidered in creating the foundation ofprogressive research programmes within andacross the fields of design:1 Philosophy and theory of design2 Research methods and research practices3 Design education4 Design practice.

Each field of concern involves a range ofconcerns. (See Figure 3)

In 1900, David Hilbert gave a famous speechin which he outlined a progressive researchprogramme for mathematical knowledge. Inthe years after Hilbert proposed a progressiveresearch programme, mathematicians solvedfundamental theoretical and philosophicalproblems. They contributed to richdevelopments in physics and the naturalsciences. They even shaped applications thatmake it possible for all of us to live a betterdaily life. What I hope for in design researchis many streams of work leading to newandimportant kinds of knowledge.

These will serve the field of practice inmanyways. Research serves the field through


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generating direct, concrete applications.Research serves the field by solving problemsthat arise from the field itself. Research servesthe field by considering basic questions andissues that will help to shape disciplinaryinquiry and fields of practice both. Researchserves the field by opening inquiry into basicquestions that we haven’t yet begun to ask.

All of these are part of the knowledge creationcycle. The important moment has come inwhich research joins practice to build acommunity of design inquiry suited to thechallenges and demands of a knowledgeeconomy.

Thank you.

Endnotes

(1)

A consideration of design knowledge is notthe forum for a detailed discussion of theseissues. Nevertheless, design knowledge mustbe considered against the background of thelarge cultural, social and economic trendsthese issues define. Those who wish a richerpicture of my views on the social and culturaltransformations of the past century will find adeeper discussion elsewhere (Friedman 1998;Friedman and Olaisen 1999a). Those who wishto go deeper still will find a massive body ofbooks and articles. Among these, a few standout, framing the issues of the new society in acomprehensive philosophical, scientific orsocioeconomic frame (f.ex., Bell 1976; Berget al. 2000; Borgmann 1984, 1992; Castells1996a, 1996b, 1996c; Castells and Hall 1994;Drucker 1990, 1998; Flichy 1991, 1995; Innis1950, 1951, 1995a, 1995b; Machlup 1962, 1979,1983; Mitchell 1995; Nye and Owens 1996;Olaisen et al. 1996; Paik 1974; Sassen 1991,1996)

(2)

Innovation studies comprise a broad field ofinquiry (Damanpour 1991). Authorsdistinguish between the “diffusion” and“adoption” of innovations (Kimberly 1981: 85)as well as between studies of “innovating” and“innovativeness” (Van de Ven and Rogers 1988:636). The primary purpose of most innovationstudies has been to demonstrate the existence

of empirically distinguishable dimensions ofinnovation and identify their associateddeterminants (Damanpour 1991).

Much of the work on innovation has been inthe context of organization theory. Given thefact that design is generally an organizationalprocess, these studies can readily be adaptedto understand how design research can leadto improved practice in the context of designfirms and the industries they serve. Whilesome innovation studies examineorganizations well beyond the scope or scaleof most design firms, the ideas they developcan be fruitfully pursed in the context ofdesign.

The propensity to innovate is a stablecharacteristic of organizations over time (Milesand Snow 1978; Miller and Friesen 1982;Mintzberg 1973). It depends on organizationalsize, structure and leadership (Burns andStalker 1966; Daft 1982; Damanpour 1992;Damanpour and Evan 1984; Hage and Dewar1973; Kimberly and Evanisko 1981; Lawrenceand Lorsh 1967; Mohr 1969; Tushman andRomanelli 1985; Wilson 1966).

There are several kinds of innovation. Theseinclude technological innovation andadministrative innovation (Daft 1978;Kimberly and Evanisko 1981; Damanpour1987). Administrative and technicalinnovations do not relate to the samepredictor variables (Aiken, Bacharach andFrench 1981; Evan and Black 1967; Kimberlyand Evanisko 1981). In the “dual-core-model”of organizational innovation, lowprofessionalism, high formalization, and highcentralization facilitate administrativeinnovation. Inverse conditions facilitatetechnical innovation (Daft 1978: 206). The“ambidextrous model” of innovation suggeststhat high structural complexity, lowformalization, and low centralization facilitatethe initiation of innovations while inverseconditions facilitates their implementation(Duncan 1976: 179).

There are a number of distinctions to be madeconcerning the quality and character ofinnovation. Innovation can be either radicalor incremental (Dewar and Dutton 1986;

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Ettlie, Bridges, and O’Keefe 1984; Nord andTucker 1987). In addition, there are importantdifferences the govern the initiation andimplementation stages of adopting ofinnovation (Marino 1982; Zmud 1982). Thereare also different organizational levels involvedin innovation (Aiken, Bacharach, and French1981).

Some investigators have found thatsubstandard performance causesdysfunctional behaviour and diminishedinnovation (Caldwell and O’Reilly 1982;Cameron, Kim and Whetten 1987; Hall 1976;Manns and March 1978; McKinley 1987; Smartand Vertinsky 1977; Starbuck, Greve andHedberg 1978; Staw, Sanadelands and Dutton1981).

Others argue that poor performance is actuallynecessary as a catalyst of the search for newpractices in an organization (Argyris and Schon1978; Bowman 1982; Chandler 1962; Cyert andMarch 1963; Meyer 1982; McKinley 1987;Singh 1986; Wilson 1966;).

Organizations tend to act inconsistently. Theycan lead their industries with innovativepractices in one period, while lagging behindtheir peers as late-adopters at other times(Mansfield 1968).

An alternative view claims that the propensityto innovate will vary over time, following acompany’s performance level (Bolton 1993;Mansfield 1968).

A growing body of literature (Tushman andRomanelli 1985; Tushman and Anderson 1986)suggests that organizations evolve throughconvergent periods punctuated byreorientation or major innovations whichreconfigure the organization’s path into thenext lengthy period of incremental adaptationand adjustment (Miller and Friesen 1984).

Contingency theorists and strategyresearchers also provide affirmativetheoretical supportive for a positiverelationship between substandardorganizational performance and innovation.One stream of contingency research assertsthat changing environments may lead to

declining performance if prompt realignmentof the fit between strategy and structure failsto occur (Burns and Stalker 1966; Chandler1962; Lawrence and Lorsch 1969). Firmsexperiencing declining performance maytherefore change strategies (Miles andCameron 1982) and ultimately developorganizational structures to respond moreeffectively to new environmentalcontingencies. Indeed, one might argue thatthe increase in “hybrid” organizations,strategic alliances and other novel cooperativearrangements between firms (Borys andJemison 1989; Powell 1987) constituteswidespread organizational innovation inresponse to declining performance stemmingfrom environmental change.

There is now a growing body of overviewliterature in the field, including conceptualarticles and reviews Daft 1982; Damanpour1988; : Kimberly 1981; Tornatzky and Klein1982; Van de Ven 1986; Wolfe 1994.

Together with two colleagues (Friedman,Djupvik and Blindheim 1995) I reviewed theseissues at greater length in relation toprofessional education and in relation to thespecific issues involved in innovation as aresearch field.

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Creating design knowledge: from research into practice

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