Reading Responses/Discussion Leadership: Questioning our Questions: The design is as important as our research.

Reading Response

At first glance of this week’s reading title I was interested to read about design research methods that perhaps for brief moment be turned away from technology and the library and what I thought and experienced to methods that looked to questioning, questioning others and what I thought was at the heart and soul of good research, questioning people, observing people and research founded within us, not books or computers.

While shortly into the reading it became clear that I was way off in my original thinking and even a little frustrated at the content of the chapters. They seemed to be talking more about how others conducted some of their design research, none of which seemed to center around the traditional questioning research methods my previous research studies explored: interviewing, surveying, and event observation. Yet, when I finished some major considerations on research and design sparked new excitement.

Frankly, I have never really care much for intense research. I love to read, explore and learn as much as I can. But I’ve never truly enjoyed spending hours following the traditional methods for scholarly research in the library or interviewing dozens of people asking them the same questions (which as the text suggests really only provides interns a data transcription opportunity). And here is where the light finally came on through the readings.

Our very research is design. Systems, methods, questions don’t all need to fall into the trap of systematic research but as important to the research itself is how you design it. For years in grade school, high school and undergraduate college traditional search, question, experience, regurgitate methods of research are beat into our heads. This is the very frustration about research I posted in the Wiki. A frustration where it seems research as taught in primary education is a system where follow set research principals – all focusing around those needed sources, footnotes and bibliography.

But now questioning how I ask questions can become part of the research. The text offered numerous case studies and examples of how to combine research and design into the process of new information discovery. Finally as in Design Writing, the design of the research is as important as the research itself.

Design Writing:

Although all around us, encouraging Design Writing, a written communication that depends as much on verbal content as it does on visible form to convey its full meaning, asks questions about presentation and its contributions to research. As Burdick suggested, what if the design of the page came before the text the occupied it? How would that change the information you put on the page? How would that change what is communicated? I immediately thought of the Internet and how so often design drives content. I served as Web Master for college for several years in the creation of a new Web Site design. Interesting, design elements, how the sight would look was discussed before any content came into play and the design of the site did have a significant effect on the written communication.

So then I questioned my research strategies that often simply include taking a lot of notes using Word in a linear form. What if my research were organized like a Web Page? And then I thought about the class Wiki and how that indeed is moving design research in this very way. What if research design was conducted like the design of a new Web page?

Cinema Constructed as Research and Anomalies:

The questions the text raised about cinema as research made some excellent conclusions. We’ve all thought of the camera as a powerful research tool. It offered irrefutable evidentiary authority. Interviews were recorded, events captured, experiments documented on miles and miles of videotape and film. This seemed a reasonable and good use of such technology. But as Strickland suggested; it is the spontaneous nature of cinema that allowed anomalies to be reduced and as technology became more capable but much larger the impact of a large camera and crew killed spontaneous reaction. Besides could one ever expected to capture “reality” with complete certainty through the lens of a camera.

But Strickland made an excellent point, “film is about something, whereas reality is not.” Good question. What is reality about? Is there a story required in reality? When structuring research around the physical world, what end can be fully predicted or accurately depicted? And if there is no real outcome or conclusion how could a design researcher ever conclude that which the camera in the physical world observes is and will be accurate again today or tomorrow? And perhaps this was the initial attraction to inanimate phenomena (leaves blowing, stream rising from a train, smoke from a fire) because indeed there action/reaction could not be storied in reality?

I also wondered if this was indeed a draw to what many call the best television show of all time- Seinfeld, a show about nothing, a show that celebrated no story (although it did have one). Yet, having seen the show the predictability of the program could not be followed within traditional 3 act story telling. It did have randomness about it. And perhaps that drew people and set the show up to be more reality than cinema.

So then, what if I design my research as a story as cinematic experience? What if I reveal as cinema does rather than tell?

In-Class Presentation

Click here to listen to the in-class presentation of ideas (from Second Life)

Click here to listen to the in-class discussion of ideas (from Second Life)

Lecture Notes

Questioning our Questions:

Designing within space . . . . spatial montage . . .

Additional methods for research . . . designing research is research.
Discovery process, presentation, sensory anomalies -> metaphors, cinematic film,
games, robotics all lead us toward potential questions that have the ultimate goal
of a grand strategy.

Design as a research tool (as several of you have identified)

The design of the research is as important as the research, many times it is the research? I think in the case of the book it was, which might have led to some of the confusion on purpose, but clearly here I think the design was the research being presented and that got me thinking about Kristy’s blog and questions where she desires to blend experimental art and research. Are there ways questions about the design of experimental art against media theory could become a design research questions and the design be the research.

Speculation, Serendipity, and Studio Anybody

We live within an outcome based society. Freeing the producer from the produced – prisoner of time, economy and the deadline. Internet projects can be used to better understand design research and build up methods. Education/Professional – all have jobs (masters degree is becoming yesterdays’ BA) is higher education becoming the means by which most of us develop the methods? Companies who do community service projects to develop such abilities and methods.

Creativity unleashed is essential to build up a mental bank -> but then does design become predictable does design (become pre-determined

Developing design research strategies through freedom of the client and the outcome.

Design Writing

Design writing is defined as written communication that depends as much on verbal content as it odes on visible form to convey the full breadth of its meaning.

What If we wrote around a design?

As Burdick suggested, what if the design of the page came before the text the occupied it?

Information gathering and presentation. How do we represent our research. And I see the key importance of designing while researching.

What are some examples of design writing you have come across? How has it impacted the effect of the communication? At first glance did you consider it design research?

Sensory Anomalies:

“The biggest difference between first-hand and meditated experience is whether sensory anomalies exist – virtual reality seeks to merge the feeling of first-hand experience with the freedom from the physical world with a primary goal of consistency.” We create the anomalies that we experience. The control of our senses combined with technology allow us to remove the rules of the world and experience an alternate reality that we create and as Naimark mentioned – one we know is not real, but one we enjoy none the less

Anomalous Space: Changing the space something is viewed on, experienced: globe, wall projections and 3-D

Anomalous Time: speed and direction a film is viewed from -> The Aspen Movie Map. Problems that arise that must be discovered and tackled. Issues with moving sun, people and other objects moving – when you change the speed of the playback or go in reverse problems arise. The problems of a painting. Obviously you don’t just look out the window and everything works with the people and arrangements. Yet rather different people are placed over time – Be Here- Now experience

Anomalous Interactions: When creating interactive work the mentality of the artist does need to evolve. The traditional view of artists is that the operate on an internal drive. When an artist invites the audience to participate, audience behaviors must be taken into account. – Again going back to some of the things Kristy wanted to explore -> What must an experimental artist adjust when creating installation or interactive art forms?

This audience interaction has some recent and profound impacts on current media systems: Time shifting video – commercial advertisers – advertising research. Suddenly the audience could interact with the media they could fast forward, skip, rewind, pause the television and media viewing experience.

Naimark mentions that mediated spaces offer different ways to experience space and one might consider these mediated spaces superior to unmediated spaces. How and can you think of examples where this is/might be true? Are these violations or metaphors? Metaphor to some is violation to others

Cinema as Design practice:

Discourse: Drawings and photos do not do anything to say things about how a place works, how people react and respond, how the weather and environment play a role in human interaction. – cinema verite – documentary form which favored spontaneous observation of everyday life over the reenactment of events. – “Isn’t a place just a container for stories?” Portable effects -> the study of how we take things with us from environment to environment.

The questions the text raised about cinema as research made some excellent conclusions. We’ve all thought of the camera as a powerful research tool. It offered irrefutable evidentiary authority. Interviews were recorded, events captured, experiments documented on miles and miles of videotape and film. This seemed a reasonable and good use of such technology. But as Strickland suggested; it is the spontaneous nature of cinema that allowed anomalies to be reduced and as technology became more capable but much larger the impact of a large camera and crew killed spontaneous reaction. Besides could one ever expected to capture “reality” with complete certainty through the lens of a camera.

So then, what if I design my research as a story as cinematic experience? What if I reveal as cinema does rather than tell? Can we reveal information to people through design research and allow them discovery on their own?

Questions for discussion:

What are some examples of design writing you have come across? How has it impacted the effect of the communication? At first glance did you consider it design research?

Christopher Johnson’s Weblog