The Routledge Companion to Design Research

  • 14h 22m
  • Joyce Yee, Paul A. Rodgers
  • Taylor and Francis
  • 2015

The Routledge Companion to Design Research offers a comprehensive examination of design research, celebrating the plurality of design research and the wide range of conceptual, methodological, technological and theoretical approaches evident in contemporary design research.

This volume comprises 39 original and high quality design research chapters from contributors around the world, with offerings from the vast array of disciplines in and around modern design praxis, including areas such as industrial and product design, visual communication, interaction design, fashion design, service design, engineering and architecture.

The Companion is divided into five distinct sections with chapters that examine the nature and process of design research, the purpose of design research, and how one might embark on design research. They also explore how leading design researchers conduct their design research through formulating and asking questions in novel ways, and the creative methods and tools they use to collect and analyse data. The Companion also includes a number of case studies that illustrate how one might best communicate and disseminate design research through contributions that offer techniques for writing and publicising research.

The Routledge Companion to Design Research will have wide appeal to researchers and educators in design and design-related disciplines such as engineering, business, marketing, computing, and will make an invaluable contribution to state-of-the-art design research at postgraduate, doctoral, and post-doctoral levels and teaching across a wide range of different disciplines.

About the Authors

Paul A. Rodgers is Professor of Design Issues at Northumbria University Design School, UK. He holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Design from Middlesex University and a PhD in Product Design Assessment from the University of Westminster. His research explores the discipline of design and how disruptive design interventions can enact positive change in health and social care and elsewhere.

Joyce Yee is a Senior Lecturer at Northumbria University Design School, UK. She holds a BFA in Graphic Design, an MA in Visual Communication and a PhD in Design. Her research focuses on the role, value and impact of design in areas of service design and social innovation. She is also interested in the role of practice as a form of inquiry and the inherent ‘messiness’ of design methods.

In this Book

  • Introduction
  • The Sometimes Uncomfortable Marriages of Design and Research
  • A Cybernetic Model of Design Research—Towards a Trans-Domain of Knowing
  • The Structuring of Design Knowledge
  • Inclusive Design Research and Design's Moral Foundation
  • Mapping Interdisciplinary Design Research as Flow around a Medidisciplinary Sea
  • Exploring Research Space in Fashion—The Fluidity of Knowledge between Designers, Individuals and Society
  • Seeking to Build Graphic Theory from Graphic Design Research
  • Re-Articulating Prevailing Notions of Design—About Designing in the Absence of Sight and other Alternative Design Realities
  • Conducting Design Research in and for a Complex World
  • What is a ‘Research Question’ in Design?
  • Towards the Formulation of a Research Question—Guidance Through the Glass Bead Game of Research Design
  • Navigating the Methodological Mire—Practical Epistemology in Design Research
  • The Role of Prototypes and Frameworks for Structuring Explorations by Research Through Design
  • The Role of Experimental Studies in Design Research
  • Researching the Future by Design
  • A Photograph is Evidence of Nothing but Itself
  • Four Cultures of Analysis in Design Research
  • Hacktivism as Design Research Method
  • Creative Designerly Mapping—Using Scenario Thinking and Co-Design to Inform a Hybrid Approach to Design Research
  • Drawing Out—How Designers Analyse Written Texts in Visual Ways
  • Prototypes and Prototyping in Design Research
  • The Visual Thinking Method—Tools and Approaches for Rapidly Decoding Design Research Data
  • An Interpretation Design Pattern Language
  • Action Research Approach in Design Research
  • Studying Design Cognition in the Real World Using the ‘In Vivo’ Methodology
  • Interdisciplinary Design Research—Questions, Conditions and Interventions
  • Depiction as Theory and Writing by Practice—The Design Process of a Written Thesis
  • The Book as Site—Alternative Modes of Representing and Documenting Architecture
  • Communicating Design Research—Improving the Design of Environments for People with Dementia
  • Making Meaning Happen between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’—Strategies for Bridging Gaps in Understanding between Researchers Who Possess Design Knowledge and Those Working in Disciplines outside Design
  • Meaningful Play—How Playcentric Research Methods are Contributing to New Understanding and Opportunities for Design
  • Examples of Design Research and Their Implications for Design and Designing
  • A Mixed-Methods Approach to Interior and Architectural Design History Research
  • Research on History of Architecture—An Interdisciplinary Approach That Uses Films to Investigate the Discourse of Spaces
  • Drifting Walls—Learning from a Hybrid Design Practice
  • Designing Mobile Diaries—Negotiating Practice-Led Design Research in a Professional Design Setting
  • Probing and Filming with Strategic Results—International Design Research to Validate, Explore and Develop a New Product-Service Concept
  • Streetstarters—Catalysing Social Cohesion at Street Level
  • The 100-Mile Suit Project
  • Celebrating the Plurality of Design Research
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