INTERACTIONS.ACM.ORG MARCH–APRIL 2015 INTERACTIONS 67
Daniela K. Rosner, University of Washington
as law and education—seeking to
inform practice through field trials,
for example. Instead, I argue for a
mode of research through design [ 2, 4]
that treats the design as social inquiry
(hereafter referred to as design inquiry).
This positions designed systems
and processes as tools with which to
examine social phenomena. Design
becomes a means rather than an end.
This work is hardly new to strains
of art practice, or to speculative,
adversarial, or critical design. From the
Gutai group [ 5] to Survival Research
Labs [ 6], a long legacy of performance
art has highlighted the meanings forged
through action and intervention, using
technologies to question assumptions
about our social worlds and the place of
the technical within them. Similarly,
cultural probes [ 7] and other forms of
intervention fit comfortably in this form
of inquiry. Here the work of building
serves to extend and restructure the
conceptual frameworks that order daily
practice.
Consider a recent design research
project from my lab, a study on
walking. Today, software developers
typically use GIS-routing (as in Google
Maps) to specify target destinations,
emphasizing geographic precision over
“local improvisation” [ 8]. To rethink
this orientation, I worked with a design
team at the University of Washington
to develop Trace, a mobile application
that generates walking routes based
on digital sketches people create,
annotate, and send to others without
reference to a map. We gave the Trace
application to 16 people to explore how
they took up this form of walking in
their daily lives. During field trials, we
As early as Christopher Frayling’s
discussion of research in art and
design [ 1], concerns for generalizable
knowledge have pervaded design
research. Whether to legitimate design
in the academy or to inform design
pedagogy, such connections between
theory and practice have spawned
attempts to formalize [ 2] and reorient
[ 3] how design projects might improve
or design methods might travel. For
these scholars, research produces design
knowledge in the form of frameworks,
philosophies, or implications for design
[ 2]. Theory generation remains design-oriented and not the other way around.
A few important challenges follow
from this line of reasoning. The
first concerns the analytic reach of
design research. By limiting design
research to the work of informing
design, we generate research
outcomes that contribute little
beyond guidelines, principles, and
so on. Design recommendations
prioritize “improving” technology over
understanding technology in action.
The second issue has to do with our
frame of investigation. Design research
operates within a specific temporal
and geographical scope: namely, the
times and places in which design work
unfolds. This presents challenges
for explicating how a set of design
techniques might work beyond the
site in which they are built or studied.
In this, design research resembles the
ethnographic case study, which is, in
sociologist Michael Burawoy’s words,
“inherently particular” [ 3].
The third issue relates to the
normative character of design. As
designers, we tend to advance (often
unwittingly) our own concerns through
what we build. Though we may aim
to develop a better system, through
prototyping we begin to define what
that “better” means (reusable parts,
learning by doing, guidance for the
vision impaired, etc.). Even as we try to
avoid idealistic or universalist solutions,
our projects build suggestions for a
standard way of living and what “ought”
to be.
To address these concerns, one
might suggest further separating design
scholarship and professional practice.
This could place design departments
alongside professional fields such
Insights
→ Some researchers are using design
as a means to study social
phenomena, rather than as an end
unto itself. I call this design inquiry.
→ Design inquiry relies on provocation.
→ While potentially providing new
directions for design, design inquiry
also promises to engage and refine
social theory.
Reshaping the Limits
of Design in HCI
This forum highlights conversations at the intersection of design methods and social studies of technology. By highlighting
a diversity of perspectives on design interventions and programs, we aim to forge new connections between HCI design and
communication, science and technology studies, and media studies scholarship. — Daniela K. Rosner, Editor
FORUM DESIGN AS INQUIRY