oo fs Introduction What is this book about? pr Who should read this book? Why do you need this book? d How to use this book ke Where to find more information Content ar Limitations 2 3 3 4 5 5 8 9 er m Summary 1 at Chapter Objectives w This chapter will help you to better understand: How this book can help you learn more about research in design • How to use this book • Where you can find more resources on other research methods • The contents of this book and its limitations SA G E • The field of design is now entrusted with solving complex and impactful challenges across all social and economic sectors. But in order to make meaningful contributions, designers first need to learn to ask the right questions in order to identify what the real problems are. They also need to learn how to conduct research in order to resolve these problems. In the process, learning to navigate through a range of cross-disciplinary issues in order to understand the broader socio-cultural, political or environmental impact of their work is necessary. Designers aspire to deliver new and innovative solutions to existing problems, or at least to transform less preferred solutions to more desirable ones. While some of the problems that designers try to address are evident, others still need to be detected. In either case, designers need to demonstrate new levels of understanding 01_MURATOVSKI_CH_01.indd 1 15-Nov-21 10:44:00 AM RESEARCH FOR DESIGNERS of what these problems are before they begin to develop solutions. This is a process that always begins with a basic question: What is it that we want to resolve? The answer to this question is rarely straightforward and pursuing it can be best described as a journey through the field of knowledge. This investigative process leads designers not only through the creative industries – where they often look for inspiration – but also through other disciplines where they will need to look for existing knowledge in order to make informed decisions. Once the problem is identified and placed within a given context, the search for gaps in this knowledge and possible resolutions continues. Once this information is gathered, a process of analysis and interpretations begins – and only then should design interventions and solutions follow. oo fs Large and complex design projects tend to transcend disciplinary boundaries and require involvement of teams of diverse experts. In such cases, designers may be required to assemble and lead cross-disciplinary teams, become experts in areas that they never worked in before, and develop briefs and reports on behalf of pr their clients. In order to do so, designers will need to demonstrate management and leadership skills that constantly challenge the limits of the profession itself. This is a lengthy process that may span across one’s entire d career and requires a new kind of education and ongoing professional development. This book can provide some help with that. Below I will explain the aims and the objectives of this book and the nature of the intended ke audience. In addition to this, I will delineate the content of the book – chapter by chapter – and outline the m ar book’s limitations. at er What is this book about? As the title says, this book is a guide to research for designers. The purpose of the book is to introduce design- w ers and emerging design researchers to some fundamental research approaches. The book is written under the premise of cross-disciplinary design research and education, which means that I will introduce a range of E perspectives on using research within this context. G However, I will make no attempt to provide an encyclopaedic or comprehensive collection of all available research methods and research practices out there. I will not venture into highly complex, exper- SA imental or advanced research practices either. Instead, I will mainly focus on introducing some of the most commonly used research approaches in design. As you continue reading this book further, please remember that this book is primarily meant for audiences who are new to research. But regardless of this, I am confident that many experienced designers and researchers will also find this book to be interesting, practical, and informative. If you are a beginning researcher, this book will provide you with information on how to embark on a research path, how to develop a research question, how to select appropriate research methods, how to communicate your research to the relevant stakeholders, and how to convert your research into a professional design brief that will lead to an effective design solution. If you are a seasoned researcher, professional designer, or a senior academic, this book can also provide you with a set of practical applications and insights into the future of the field of design. 2 01_MURATOVSKI_CH_01.indd 2 15-Nov-21 10:44:00 AM INTRODUCTION Who should read this book? Due to its academic complexity and unfamiliar terminology, studying research methods and methodologies can be one of the most challenging areas for designers that embark on a research path. Most of the existing literature is aimed at senior academics, and both students and professional designers often find this type of literature perplexing and difficult to understand. Most academic books on these topics serve as a barrier, instead of a point of entry for individuals who are interested to embark on a research journey. Therefore, the content of this book and the writing style is somewhat different. For a start, the book is not exclusively aimed oo fs at senior academics and experienced researchers, but it doesn’t exclude them as readers either. Perhaps the most suitable audience for this book would be design students enrolled in undergraduate or postgraduate courses on research methods and methodologies; emerging researchers such as PhD students; and early and ar ke Why do you need this book? d are most welcome and particularly encouraged to read this book. pr mid-level career researchers. However, design professionals interested in applying research to their practice Above all, learning how to do research is a lifelong skill that helps people advance their critical thinking abilities. m Also, research is a major component in many university-based design programmes and large organizations. In addition to teaching design methods, many design schools increasingly teach research methods in order to er help emerging designers make informed design decisions, or help them understand their field better. High- at performing industries are also driven by research. However, it has to be noted that when it comes to design practice, research is not always used as a strategic resource. For example, studio-based designers rarely engage w with research in a way in which this book will describe research, but many corporate designers and design consultants do – and the need for professional designers who understand how research is conducted and applied is E now increasing. Then again, I have to stress that this book is not concerned with the process of making – which G is often examined in the study of design methods. Rather, this book is concerned with the process of (design) thinking – a subject matter often represented in the study of research methods. SA The relationship between design and research is a broad field of enquiry and there are many different ways in which one can examine this field. That being said, there are many divergent views on design and research, and these views may vary from school to school, between design areas, and between design academics and design professionals. Design research is also recognized as an area of its own and this covers everything from investigations into practical design applications to strategic planning and theoretical speculations. Academic design research often differs markedly from research that is commonly found in design practice – even though this should not be the case. Unlike practice-based research, which is often self-reflective in nature and is aimed at improving the practice of the individual or the team, academic design research aims to advance, change or challenge the normative body of the design field and to gather a deeper understanding of the field itself. Overall, design research is informed as much by the theory and practice of design as it is by the repository of scholarly work that comes from other fields as well. As such, design researchers are often attempting to create a balance 3 01_MURATOVSKI_CH_01.indd 3 15-Nov-21 10:44:00 AM RESEARCH FOR DESIGNERS between academic enquiry and practical application, while negotiating a plethora of design and research methods in an increasingly cross-disciplinary field. At the very least, this book will provide you with a structured perspective on what is essentially a very muddled and confusing topic. How to use this book oo fs As most books, you can read this book from beginning to end in order to process the entire information in one go – albeit this may be a daunting task given the amount of information that this book contains. As an alternative, you can also use this book on a section-to-section basis. You do not need to read the whole book in order to make use of it. This book is primarily intended to serve as a practical resource while you are working on pr your research. Depending on your work, there are certain parts that may be relevant to you at a given time, and others may not. This book will give you the freedom to pick and choose what you need to learn, when you need d it. I do, however, recommend at least skimming through the whole book at first, so that you can get a better ke understanding of everything that this book has to offer. However, once you are past this stage, this book can serve you well as a reference book that you can use whenever you need specific information about a particular ar research method or approach. If you are using this book as a teaching resource, then this book can be used in both theory classes and studio m courses. In theory classes, the book serves as a teaching introduction to research methods. As such, the content can be delivered across an entire semester (or two), by introducing a different chapter every week. Some chap- er ters may be broken down over two or three weeks, due to their size. Students can be asked to read a chapter or a at section of the book prior to each class as homework, and then a discussion can take place in class. As an assignment, the students could be asked to write a research proposal draft on a topic of interest, or a research paper. w This approach may work best for graduate-level students who are about to embark on writing a research thesis, and this research proposal could serve as the start of their journey. Following this, the study usually becomes E much more self-directed, and the students could continue using the book by themselves as a guide throughout G their research writing. In addition to this, I recommend that this book be used alongside a reference style guide, e.g., Harvard Referencing Style (2015), Chicago Manual of Style (2010), American Psychological Association (APA) SA Style (2020), The Modern Language Association (MLA) Citation Style (2016) – or whatever may be the preferred choice of your institution. I also strongly recommend using a dictionary and a thesaurus throughout the writing process as well. Choosing the right words when expressing complex ideas can be particularly important. I always use a dictionary to check the exact meaning of certain words, or to identify alternative terms. It doesn’t matter whether you are a native speaker in the language that you are writing in, or not. These are tools that everyone will find helpful in the research writing process, regardless of the language proficiency. In a studio course, the book can also be used in a similar way, but usually for a part of the semester and not in its full capacity. This book can be used at the start of the project when the research phase takes place. In this capacity, the book can serve as a handbook while completing a set of specific research tasks prior and during the design process. At the beginning of the studio project, an individual – or a team of students – will first need to design their research approach. The same process applies to professional practice as well. To illustrate this better, I will use a quote from the book The Art of Design: A Design Methodology (2009): ‘Before 4 01_MURATOVSKI_CH_01.indd 4 15-Nov-21 10:44:00 AM INTRODUCTION the design team can design a solution, they must first design their own learning system. Getting this learning system right is more important than the initial design product’ (Banach, 2009: 44). While The Art of Design is a textbook intended for military officers specializing in Army Design Thinking methodology at the US Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), this approach also holds true for any professional designer and student alike. In this regard, Research for Designers can be a helpful guide to students in the process of designing their own learning system before they start designing the solutions. In consultation with their studio instructor, the students can decide on a set of research methods and approaches that they will need to use in order to gain a preliminary understanding of their topic of interest and develop a design brief. Then, as the design process goes on, they can continue using research methods to further refine and validate their design oo fs solutions. This book can also come in handy when the students need to prepare their final written reports. The very same process can be applied in professional practice as well. After all, a studio course is intended to create an environment that resembles a professional setting. pr Finally, I strongly believe that an introduction to research methods is not something that should only be brought in at a graduate level. An ability to do research is a fundamental skill that should be introduced at d an undergraduate level, preferably in the first year of the undergraduate studies, as this will help students to develop their critical thinking skills. This can certainly set a much more rigorous tone for the design work that ar ke will ensue from there on. er m Where to find more information at For supplementary and complementary reading, and for information to more advanced research methods, I strongly recommend the use of the SAGE Research Methods collection. The collection is also available online w via methods.sagepub.com. This is the ultimate methods library with more than a thousand books, reference works, journal articles, and instructional videos by world-leading researchers from across the social sciences, E including the largest collection of qualitative methods books available online from any scholarly publisher. The G site is designed to guide users to the content they need to learn a little or a lot about their methods of interest. The research methods collection also provides more than 1,100 case studies, showing the challenges and suc- SA cesses of doing research, written by the researchers themselves. They explain why the researchers chose the methods they did, how they overcame problems in their research, and what they might have done differently with hindsight. While you may probably not need an access to so much information, it is helpful to know where you could go in case you need to find it. Content The content of this book is divided across a Foreword, Preface, 11 chapters, and an Afterword. Each chapter, except the Conclusion, is divided into subsections whose purpose is to engage you further in the topic by following a step-by-step process. Also, each chapter features an expert interview that will provide you 5 01_MURATOVSKI_CH_01.indd 5 15-Nov-21 10:44:01 AM RESEARCH FOR DESIGNERS with a real-world example of how research-driven design work looks like in practice. The first chapter, the Introduction, which you are currently reading, does not require a separate explanation. All books of this type begin with one and the purpose of the introduction is to explain what the book is about, who it is for, and to set the stage for what will follow. Therefore, here I will begin by introducing the content of this book from Chapter 2. In Chapter 2, Human-Centred Design, I will focus on why people need to be placed in the centre of the design process as we fully engage with Industry 4.0. Here, I will also highlight why learning how to do research will become even more important for designers over the next decade. In doing so, I will set the tone for what we can expect to come in the future, and how this will impact design education and practice. I will also reflect on oo fs the need for new skillsets and new models of learning, and on the importance of working across disciplines. Following this, the expert interview in this chapter will discuss the use of design thinking in the military, specifically when used in the service of national security. This interview is a perfect example of how far design has pr evolved as a field that originally started as a profession of decorators. In Chapter 3, Design as Practice, Research and Thinking, I will touch upon some of the problems and d the opportunities associated with the role that research plays in the field of design. In doing so, I will first begin by acknowledging that design is an evolving field that constantly shifts its focus and adapts ke to change. Through a brief historical overview, I will explain how research was introduced to design, and why. Then, I will discuss the complexities of design research and the divergent views on this issue ar within the design community. Further on, I will discuss the concepts of design thinking and human-centric m design, and how research helped for these ideas to be formed. Then, I will present an expert interview with one of the leading design executives today, who will reflect on how the design profession has changed that are already taking place. er over the last 100 years. Finally, I will also reflect on some of the new developments in the field of design at In Chapter 4, Research Essentials, I will outline some of the key things that you need to know and do before w you begin your research. Here I will discuss how to frame a research problem and how to produce a statement about your research. Then, I will explain what a research question is and what a hypothesis is – two terms that E you will come across frequently as a researcher. In addition to this, I will discuss what a review of the literature G entails and why every research project needs one. Furthermore, I will outline several different approaches to conducting a literature review; I will discuss what makes a literature review valid and reliable; and I will SA explain saturation in literature reviews – or in other words, how do you know that you have gathered enough information about your topic of interest? Then, I will briefly discuss why you need to compile a glossary of key terms, and perhaps most importantly, I will show what you need to take into consideration when writing a research proposal. Following this, I will explain what research methods and methodologies are and I will introduce you to five key research approaches: ethnographic, qualitative, quantitative, visual, and applied research. In addition to this, I will demonstrate why cross-referencing your findings is important and how you can do that by triangulating your research. In line with this, I will also show how you can combine different research approaches by conducting multi-method research. The importance of ethics in research will also be covered in this chapter. In addition to this, the expert interview will examine the balancing act that takes place when conducing industry-funded research in a university setting. In Chapter 5, Ethnographic Research, I will describe what ethnography is and why this type of research is perhaps the most critical form of research in design today. Following this, I will highlight the key principles that 6 01_MURATOVSKI_CH_01.indd 6 15-Nov-21 10:44:01 AM INTRODUCTION you will need to be aware of when conducting ethnographic research. This will include things such as what type of communication you should expect to have with people, the level of integration you are expected to have within the community you are studying, and the duration of your study. I will also outline the different ways you could gather data, such as talking to people, observing people, spending time with people, and conducting cultural probes. Very importantly, here I will also explain what you need to know in terms of ethical engagement with research participants. The expert interview, in this case, will not focus on ethnography per se. Rather than discussing how we should engage with a community in an ethical and a respectful way, this conversation will examine what happens when we choose to impose ourselves instead. In Chapter 6, Qualitative Research, I will discuss how this type of research is conducted, and why it is rele- oo fs vant to designers. This type of research can be quite detailed, but it is by no means prescriptive. There are no strict rules, formulas, or recipes that you should follow when conducting qualitative research. Therefore, I will only provide you with some general guidelines. In time, as you build up your experience, you will be able to pr develop and refine your own research techniques and strategies and go beyond those discussed in this book. Furthermore, I will introduce to you some of the most commonly used qualitative research approaches that you d can use for data gathering and analysis: case studies, cultural probes, interviews, archival and documentary research, phenomenology, historical research, and grounded theory. If you are a novice researcher, some of the ke research terms may appear quite confusing and intimidating, but as you will see, they all stand for rather simple things. The expert interview in this chapter will reflect on how this kind of research has been implemented ar in a university setting, for the purpose of introducing social change. m In Chapter 7, Quantitative Research, I will explain how this type of research is conducted and what kind of quantitative research is relevant to design. Unlike qualitative research, this type of research is quite structured er and follows strict procedures. Here I will provide you with some general principles that you need to be aware of when conducting quantitative research. A particular focus will be on surveys and experiments. In the section at on surveys, I will list a range of methods that you can use for data collection purposes, such as face-to-face w interviews, telephone interviews, written questionnaires, and online questionnaires. Here I will introduce you to the complex world of asking the right questions and I will outline a range of formats that you can use when E framing a questionnaire. In the section on experimental research I will introduce observation studies as a typ- G ical method for gathering and analysing data – more specifically, user-centred design (UCD) research. I will not cover statistical research as that might be a much too advanced research approach at this stage. The expert SA interview in this chapter will focus on the role that UCD research can play in the medical field by showcasing a highly successful medical device design. In Chapter 8, Visual Research, I will discuss different types of research that can be described as visual. For example, some types of research that are often used in ethnographic studies use participatory visual research methods such as photography or video as ways of recording data or eliciting information from participants. Other types of visual research that will be specifically discussed in this chapter focus on the analysis of found images and objects. In line with this, I will introduce you to visual and material culture studies. These studies examine how images and objects provide information, meaning, function, or pleasure. Here I will present three research methods that you can use to conduct a systematic and empirical study of images and objects: compositional interpretation, content analysis, and semiotics. These research methods can be brought together in a sequential order, or can be used individually – depending on the nature of your research project. The expert interview here will provide you with an example of how visual research can be used to help people to learn 7 01_MURATOVSKI_CH_01.indd 7 15-Nov-21 10:44:01 AM RESEARCH FOR DESIGNERS to read. Also, this interview will show that design research can provide you with a platform on which design entrepreneurship can be built. In Chapter 9, Applied Research, I will discuss one of the most popular research approaches in design, and I will explain how this type of research is quite different from the previous research approaches. While the other types of research were focused on understanding the problem and identifying the solution, this research places emphasis on developing the solution and refining the result. In that sense, this is a practice-driven research rather than a theory-driven one. Here I will focus on two key aspects of applied research – practice-based research (where a creative artefact is the basis of the investigation) and practice-led research (which leads to new understandings about the design practice itself). The main applied research method that I will discuss oo fs here is action research. The expert interview in this chapter will reflect on how action research has been an integral part of one company’s endeavour to design products that could function in an extreme environment such as outer space. pr In Chapter 10, Presenting Your Research, I will discuss how you can present your research in the form of a report and an executive summary, and how to use your research in preparing a design brief and design report. d In addition to this, I will provide you with information on how to disseminate your research better by preparing a well-structured abstract accompanied by appropriate keywords. The expert interview in this chapter will ke discuss how research insights are translated into practice, and how design insights are shared within a large multinational corporation. ar In Chapter 11, Conclusion, I will reiterate the need for this book, and I will provide a final reflection on m where design is going as a field. At the end, I will finish the book with an expert interview that will reflect on the unprecedented role that designers could play in governments and influence people’s lives like never er before in the history of design. This will be followed by a brief summary highlighting the importance of G E Limitations w at research in design. The review of the literature that I have conducted in the course of writing this book implies that there is no SA one definitive position about what design research should include. Even in the field of research – in general terms – there are a number of positions for many of the things discussed in this book. Nonetheless, I have selected an assortment of some of the most commonly used research approaches within the field of design, and I have tried to interpret them objectively by using a range of academic sources. Then again, as this is not a definitive book on the topic but only a guide, not everything has been included. For example, I have not gone into the examination of design methods as I believe that this should be covered in a book on design practice, and not in a book on design research. Also, I have to stress again that both design and research are very broad topics. In an attempt to keep things as simple as possible, I have omitted certain things and I have not represented some aspects in sufficient depth. That is why I would like to encourage readers to use this book in conjunction with other books that deal with specific research approaches in greater depth. As I have mentioned above, for a more extensive reading list on a broad range of research methods you can visit the SAGE Research Methods library (methods.sagepub.com). 8 01_MURATOVSKI_CH_01.indd 8 15-Nov-21 10:44:01 AM INTRODUCTION Summary The purpose of conducting research in the context of design is either to inform designers about their practice, or to help them make informed design decisions. Research for Designers: A Guide to Methods and Practice is a book that transcends design disciplines and aims to introduce basic research practices to designers across the entire spectrum of the field. The concepts presented in this book also go beyond the traditional boundaries of the design field, which is why I have looked at other fields as well in order to bring some of the best research practices together within the context of design. However, it has to be clarified that this book is neither a defin- oo fs itive work on the subject of research nor one on design, but only a guide that offers a ‘how to’ approach to research. The book can be useful to all designers who are engaged in research, whether that might be within a university framework or in professional practice. The book is also suitable for most university courses on SA G E w at er m ar ke d pr research methods and methodologies taught to designers. 9 01_MURATOVSKI_CH_01.indd 9 15-Nov-21 10:44:01 AM