DESIGN RESEARCH & RESEARCH DESIGN

I met with a design student today and we were talking about research design and the importance of it. Research is a vital part of any design project but is design always part of a research project? I just read a great article by Kevin Walker via Design Observer about research in design and design in research.

Much of design is informed by research of some sort; research, on the other hand, is almost never informed by design. Over the past several months, my students and I have built a curriculum centered around the idea that research and design are two sides of the same coin. We took it for granted that research can inform design; what took us by surprise was the great extent to which design can, in turn, enhance research.

On that very first day of class, we were all handed a complex, real-world design project on airport security — a topic none of us knew anything about (except as travelers). 

Continue Reading at Design Observer.