ABSTRACT

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.

chapter |8 pages

Introduction

part I|2 pages

What is design research?

chapter 2|15 pages

A cybernetic model of design research

Towards a trans-domain 1 of knowing

chapter 6|15 pages

Exploring research space in fashion

The fluidity of knowledge between designers, individuals and society

part II|3 pages

How do we embark on design research?

chapter 8|13 pages

Re-articulating prevailing notions of design

About designing in the absence of sight and other alternative design realities

chapter 11|9 pages

Towards the formulation of a research question

Guidance through the glass bead game of research design

chapter 12|12 pages

Navigating the methodological mire

Practical epistemology in design research

chapter 15|13 pages

Researching the future by design

part III|2 pages

How do we conduct design research?

chapter 19|12 pages

Creative designerly mapping

Using scenario thinking and co-design to inform a hybrid approach to design research

chapter 20|14 pages

Drawing out

How designers analyse written texts in visual ways

chapter 22|15 pages

The visual thinking method

Tools and approaches for rapidly decoding design research data

part IV|2 pages

How do we communicate design research?

chapter 26|15 pages

Interdisciplinary design research

Questions, conditions and interventions

chapter 27|18 pages

Depiction as theory and writing by practice

The design process of a written thesis

chapter 28|10 pages

The book as site

Alternative modes of representing and documenting architecture

chapter 29|12 pages

Communicating design research

Improving the design of environments for people with dementia

chapter 30|14 pages

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

chapter 31|17 pages

Meaningful play

How playcentric research methods are contributing to new understanding and opportunities for design

part V|2 pages

Examples of design research?

chapter 34|9 pages

Research on history of architecture

An interdisciplinary approach that uses films to investigate the discourse of spaces

chapter 35|11 pages

Drifting walls

Learning from a hybrid design practice

chapter 36|15 pages

Designing Mobile Diaries

Negotiating practice-led design research in a professional design setting

chapter 37|10 pages

Probing and filming with strategic results

International design research to validate, explore and develop a new product-service concept

chapter 38|14 pages

Streetstarters

Catalysing social cohesion at street level

chapter 39|12 pages

The 100-Mile Suit project