Design Research Building the Knowledge Base Charles L. OWEN Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology 350 North Lasalle Street, Chicago, Illinois 60610 USA Tel: 312 595 4909 Fax: 312 595 4901 E-mail: [email protected] Adapted from a speech to a research symposium at the Royal College of Art, London, England. Published in Design Studies 19, No. 1 (J anuary 1998): 9-20. Published also as Understanding Design R esearch. Toward an Achievem ent of Balance. Journal of the Japanese Society for the Science of Design Special issue, 5 No. 2 (1997): 36-45. INTRODUCTION is that it behooves countries, industries and "Research" in design has a long but not very companies to develop high-quality designers robust history. Individuals have published on and equip them with high-quality design tools: the subject almost from the time design was theory, methods and processes. recognized as something to be taught (engineer- Thus, design research. And thus, among design ing and architectural design theories have been educators, new interest in the nature of design in the literature since Roman times). Yet, de- research—especially as it may extend under- spite exceptional efforts by some individuals, standing beyond definitions of classic research the degree of interest in research among the used by the sciences and scholarly disciplines. design disciplines has been quite uneven, rang- In fields where the thrust of work is synthetic ing from more than a little in engineering de- rather than analytic, this questioning is not sign, to some in architectural and product naive. There is value in serious reflection on the design, to not very much in the fields of design most basic questions concerning research. What most closely associated with the arts and crafts. follows should be interpreted as such an In sum, in comparison to what is normally en- exploration—an attempt to abstract from what countered in the sciences, humanities and other we know in the hope of finding new models that scholarly disciplines, there has been precious little interest in what might be thought of as may shed light on what we can do in design. "classic" research. Symbolic But change is afoot. Events are propelling in- dustries and countries into new economic rela- Mathematics tionships, and design is being recognized as a critical factor for business success. The result is Statutory Law new interest in the quality of design available, Painting and—more fundamentally—interest in how de- Analytic Synthetic sign can be improved. As export strength com- Product Design mands more attention as an economic indicator, the improvement question becomes very impor- Mechanical Engineering tant, its answer imperative. Chemistry For developed and developing countries alike, high-quality design is the most cost-effective re- Real source available to improve trade balances. A Figure 1. A Map of Disciplines. few good designers using advanced design pro- cesses can have dramatic impact on the success of products and services. The obvious inference 1 THE PROBLEM chanical engineering and chemistry deal with Design, as a discipline, is still young (or, per- real world phenomena. Mathematics, painting haps, is a slow learner). At any rate, it has not and chemistry are primarily analytic in proce- developed the internal structures and under- dure; product design is almost entirely synthet- standing that older disciplines have. Design is ic; and statutory law and mechanical engi- not science, and it is not art—or any other dis- neering achieve something of a balance. cipline. It has its own purposes, values, meas- The positionings are, of course, subjective and ures and procedures. These become evident relative, but they provide a means for gross com- through comparisons, but they have not been parisons on the basis of two very fundamental extensively investigated, formalized, codified or ideas about content and procedure. even thought much about in literature created for the field. In short, there is little to point to The map is also a means for examining other as a theoretical knowledge base for design. As a relationships. Mechanical engineering seems result, those who seek to work more rigorously nicely centered between the analytic and syn- look to scientific and scholarly models for guid- thetic domains, but it is a discipline with sub- ance, and we find references to "design science" disciplines. Engineering science, as one of these, and examples of "design research" that would would be located on the analytic side; engineer- seem to fit more appropriately in other fields. ing design would be more on the synthetic side. Hierarchical decompositions such as this afford Yet, it is reasonable to think that there are opportunities for leveling or sharpening descrip- areas of knowledge and ways of proceeding that tions. Merging usually levels, moving the result are very special to design, and it seems sensible of composition toward the center; decomposing that there should be ways of building knowledge sharpens, disseminating new elements into the that are especially suited to the way design is studied and practiced. To approach these ques- quadrants. tions, it is probably best to abandon the term Movements of disciplines over time can also be "research" for a time and, instead, look at how tracked. Through much of its history, painting knowledge is used and accumulated—since was concerned with commissioned applications building knowledge, after all, is the goal of re- for clients. The trends of the last century moved search. it radically to the left, and it has become con- As a context for thinking about specialized siderably more analytical and exploratory in in- knowledge acquisition and use, a Map of Disci- tent and procedure. plines reveals interesting differences among tra- No matter where they are on the map or how ditional fields of study and practice. Two axes they move, merge or diverge, all disciplines define the map in Figure 1. Separating the map build knowledge bases. How they do this is im- into left and right halves is an Ana lytic/ Syn- portant because it sheds light on the process and thetic axis. Disciplines positioned to the left of offers analogies for design. There is no single center are more concerned with "finding" or dis- means, and the multiplicity strengthens the re- covering; disciplines to the right are oriented sults. toward "making" and inventing. A Symbol- ic/Rea l axis divides the map again into CHARACTERIZING THE PROCESS halves—vertically this time, according to the Knowledge is generated and accumulated nature of the subjects of interest. Disciplines in through action. Doing something and judging the upper half of the map are more concerned the results is the general model. In Figure 2, with the abstract world and the institutions and the process is shown as a cycle in which knowl- communications that allow people to live and edge is used to create works, and works are work together. Disciplines in the lower half evaluated to build knowledge. work with the real world and the artifacts and Knowledge using and knowledge building are systems that enable us to operate in the physi- not unstructured processes. They are controlled cal, not always friendly, environment. by channels that direct the procedures that are A sample of disciplines illustrates how the map used to do and judge the work. These channels discriminates. In the upper half, mathematics, are the systems of conventions and rules under statutory law and painting work with abstract, which the discipline operates. They embody the symbolic subjects; below, product design, me- measures and values that have been empirically 2 developed as "ways of knowing" as the discipline for their worth as additions to the knowledge has matured. They may borrow from or emulate base using the criteria of the discipline. aspects of other disciplines’ channels, but, in the Proposals and works also benefit from and con- end, they are special to the discipline and are tribute to ideas in other disciplines. A more com- products of its evolution. plex diagram would show interdisciplinary relationships. Figure 3 suggests these as dashed arrows entering and leaving proposals and knowledge building process works. Channel Some Examples To test the model, Figure 4 shows the sample disciplines of Figure 1 fitted with titles more Knowledge paradigm Works expressive of their special characters. The dark- ness of the background suggests the skew of their primary activity to either the realm of the- Channel ory or realm of practice—darker meaning more commitment. knowledge using process It is hard to find a set of words that optimally fits a discipline—clearly fits it better than any Figure 2. A general model for generating and other set of words—and differentiates it dis- accumulating knowledge. tinctly from other disciplines. Such nuance re- The general model of Figure 2 can be extended quires considerable variety and subtlety. to a model that fits the dual nature of actions Fortunately, both are available in English, and suggested by the analytic/synthetic dimension at least an attempt can be made. As an example, of the map of disciplines. In Figure 3, this is mathematics, for a paradigm of inquiry, postu- done with an additional specialization of labels. lates propositions using axiom atic theory and proves them with reason to build knowledge. In On the left side of the diagram, the realm of application, m odels are built with mathematical theory, the model is a paradigm for inquiry. principles and verified with the laws of mathe- Existing knowledge, under the direction of the- matics to add to applied knowledge. For better ory, is used to generate proposals. Proposals are or worse, the other examples in Figure 4 simi- tested with m easures that verify or refute con- larly attempt to distinguish differences in pro- clusions to build knowledge.