Of Designers and Researchers

Reference: Yee, J. (2017). The researcherly designer/the designerly researcher. In L. Vaughan (Ed.), Practice-based Design Research (pp. 155-164). London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Abstract: A ‘researcherly designer’ is a practising designer trained in research and a ‘designerly researcher’ is a practising researcher trained in design. These terms are used in this chapter to highlight and discuss how design skills contribute to a research practice and similarly how research skills contribute to a design practice. I do this by reflecting primarily on my personal experience through my PhD, my more recent supervision experience of design PhDs, and I ground my situated knowledge with existing literature. I will start by providing a brief background to my practice and discussing how I transitioned from a design practice into a hybrid practice consisting of research, teaching and design. It is worth noting that I have only focused on what I consider to be key skills and attributes, since there are many other skills that benefit both practices

My notes: This book chapter by Joyce Lee is one of the best sources I've come across in the growing literature on "practice-x research" (based, led, oriented, etc). As someone who started as a design professional and then transitioned into an academic researcher, I have had over the years some problems understanding a majority of the people who make claims such as "design methods stand as research methods". One of my core problems with a lot of "practice research" is that it heavily draws from conventional artistic research ideas, which seems to be unquestioned by many in the "art and design" community. I was lucky/unlucky to become a designer in a faculty that didn't include art (or engineering for that matter), so for me to hear people complain about the quant/qual dominance and then blindly adhere to the dogmas of (Western) artistic methods, well doesn't sit well as an argument. This is why I have been more interested in "Research through Design" ideas. But back to Joyce's chapter: a very well-written, insightful and persuasive position which next to Gaver's and Markussen's ideas form the basis of how I approach practice research in all its varieties. For a class on these topics, I assembled this collection of the people that I have learned the most from, so thought it'd be a good image for this post: