A curated collection

of Design Research

A multifaceted concept that is part genre, approach, and lens.

It applies and reflects the experiences of people from the African diaspora to speculation and futures thinking.

In the context of Design Research, it is likely to be used as a type of Speculative Design that is empathic to the aesthetics, politics and experiences of the African diaspora.

Bringing together lived experiences of communities and professional expertise in collaborative design processes.

Co-design is closely related to Participatory Design but often seeks to include participants or co-designers directly in decision making.

An approach to Research through Design that is complementary to Speculative Design, Design Fiction and Critical Design but that focuses on functional prototypes that are then deployed in real-world settings.

An approach to Research through Design that uses the process of designing to challenge societal norms, assumptions, and trajectories. Unlike traditional design, which aims to provide solutions, Critical Design aims to ask questions.

A type of Speculative Design that takes inspiration from science fiction.

Design Fiction works by creating a fictional or story world and then putting prototype designs into that world.

This allows the prototype designs to test whether the fictional world makes sense and also for the world to test whether the designs make sense.

Design Fictions are often made up of several artefacts that are viewed together.

Bringing together lived experiences of communities and professional expertise in collaborative design processes.

Co-design is closely related to Participatory Design but often seeks to include participants or co-designers directly in decision making.

An approach to research or knowledge production that is built on the premise that when we go through design processes we often learn things about the world. Often shortened to RtD and can sometimes be used interchangeably with Design Research.

While the underlying premise is simple because Research through Design represents a research method and a theory of knowledge (or epistemology) it can become very complex.

There are many related terms including practice-based research and constructive design research.

Constructionism is a theory of learning. It says that people learn most effectively when they actively construct something (e.g., a model, a computer program, a story, or a sculpture) as part of the learning process.

Constructionism is also used to explain why and how Design Research produces knowledge about the world. Just like the theory of learning, the thinking is that when we make something, we learn better.