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Book Review: Design Research

Book | Author | Review

By & Gerd Waloszek, SAP AG, SAP User Experience – May 13, 2004

In this review, Mandana Samii takes a personal look at the book Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel. The review is introduced by Gerd Waloszek. Please note that there is also another review of the book on this site.

Book

Brenda Laurel (Ed.)
Design Research: Methods and Perspectives
MIT Press, 2003
ISBN: 0262122634

Design: General

Author

Brenda Laurel's career in human-computer interaction spans over twenty-five years. She has worked as a software designer, producer, and researcher for companies including Atari, Activision, and Apple. Laurel has published extensively on topics including interactive fiction, computer games, autonomous agents, virtual reality, and political and artistic issues in interactive media.

Review

According to the book cover, the goal of the book Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel, is "to introduce designers to the many research tools that can be used to inform design as well as to ideas about how and when to deploy them effectively." Somehow, this goal sounds like a contradiction to me: Aren't design and research two very distinct domains that have nothing in common? Obviously, the editor and the authors did not think so. In four sections People, Form, Design, and Action, authors from research institutions and enterprises, thus, covering a wide range of backgrounds, present their perspectives on the role in of research in the design field and its possible contributions to design. Such contributions comprise qualitative approaches, such as ethnographic and cultural studies, but also include quantitative and more formal practices. In packaging all these approaches together, the book wants to demonstrate that there is a path from design theory to a design practice – one that is successful and more reliable than without basing design on research methods and results.

All in all, the contributions to the book comprise 36 articles. For a better overview, these articles are presented in a matrix with the above-mentioned content categories on one dimension. The other dimension is defined by the categories "domains," "subjects," "contexts," and "research methodologies," each of which is split into several subcategories. As an example, in the domain "Brand" you will find just one article for the content category "form," the article Speculation, Serendipity, and Studio Anybody by Lisa Grocott. This matrix alone should suffice for demonstrating the wide range of topics covered under the common denominator "design research."

As graphic design is not my "home domain," I handed the book over to Mandana Samii, our group's product designer (who is an artist as well) who was willing to and interested in reviewing the book. Here are her impressions after diving deeply into the book:

The book title made me feel uncertain. Was this a book for designers or one for researchers only? Isn't research a part of all serious design work? The aesthetics of the cover and the promisingly rich table of contents urged me to stop working and begin reading at once. However, with its 334 pages of rather small type, Design Research is not the kind of book you would expect people to read from cover to cover in one direction. It took several attempts to figure out how to connect to the book. I wondered where to begin. Even after reading a few pieces, despite the book's good visual structure and the elaborate diagram of content categories, it wasn't easy to understand the purpose of the book. Because of that, I found it hard to concentrate on one piece at a time.

It was worth it, though. As an anthology of very recent writings, it gave me a chance to sample the writings of many design professionals and researchers, and see which I would like to read more from. It qualifies as a good starting point to wander through the vast territory of design. Covering so many disciplines and aspects of design, this book is like a jam-packed treasure case which will remain interesting beyond trends and fashions, but one that requires the willingness to take each part out and take time to examine it, before you can say what it's good for.

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