reshape the limits of design within HCI.

Downplaying design interventions such as Trace simply because they do not produce the kinds of knowledge we are used to would be unfortunate, particularly since the aforementioned approaches have been enhanced by diverse research methods before.

Although the approach and questions posed differ from more conventional research, our criteria for success remain similar. They rest on an engagement with discourse that demonstrates the work’s broader impact. Equally, they call for a capacity to show the legitimacy of the approach in terms of clarity of method and empirical evidence. While potentially providing new directions for design, this process also promises to engage and refine social theory. It enables us to continue coming to grips with how social worlds unfold by shifting the situation of those within them.

Endnotes

1. Frayling, C. Research in art and design.

Royal College of Art, London, 1993.

2. Zimmerman, J., Stolterman, E., and
Forlizzi, J. An analysis and critique of
Research through Design: Towards a
formalization of a research approach.

Proc. of the 8th ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems. ACM, New York, 2010, 310–319.

3. Burawoy, M. The Extended Case Method: Four Countries, Four Decades, Four Great Transformations, and One Theoretical Tradition. Univ. of California Press, 2009.

4. Gaver, W. What should we expect from research through design? Proc. of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, New York, 2012, 937–946.

5. Jiro, Y. Gutai bijutsu sengen (Gutai Art Manifesto). Geijutsu Shinchō 7, 12 (1956); http://web.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/

 

6. http://www.srl.org

7. Gaver, W. H., Hooker, B., Dunne, A., and Farrington, P. The Presence Project. RCA CRD Projects Series, 2001.

8. Suchman, L.A. Practice-based design of information systems: Notes from the hyperdeveloped world. The information Society 18, 2 (2002), 139–144.

9. Gaver, B., and Bowers, J. Annotated portfolios. Interactions 19, 4 (2012), 40–49.

 

Daniela Rosner is an assistant professor of human-centered design and engineering at the University of Washington, where she co-directs the Tactile and Tactical Design Lab (TAT Lab). Her research focuses on how cultural histories are woven into our interactions with things we create.

DOI: 10.1145/2732406 COP YRIGHT HELD BY AUTHOR. PUBLICATION RIGHTS LICENSED TO ACM. $15.00

how circumstances could be changed.

Last, this form of design inquiry contrasts with other approaches to developing new knowledge through design. Bill Gaver and John Bowers, for example, present annotated portfolios as a methodology for communicating process and drawing links within and across design projects [ 9]. Annotated portfolios may help people describe design processes and patterns by abstracting work from particular times and places. We instead reveal the particular contingencies of the design situation, rethinking the conceptual frameworks that change, bend, or break down.

In sum, design inquiry may not quell a possible separation of "design research" and "design practice." The design profession involves clients, socioeconomic constraints, and so on that limit the degree to which one could engage in such interventions.

Instead, design inquiry begins to build bridges with bodies of research (e.g., communication, media studies, science and technology studies) that remain distinct but integral to HCI.

In linking these accounts, empirically and analytically, we may generatively