Summary
Design Research and 
 the New Learning (2001) Richard Buchanan Design theory WinterSemester 2016/2017 Daniela ChavarrĂa Aguilar
What is design?
“Design is the human power of action
conceiving, planning and making goal
products that serve human beings outcome
in the accomplishments of their application scope
individual and collective purposes.” — Richard Buchanan
4 orders of design Symbols
Symbols
Things
Action
Thought
Things
Action
Thought
Graphic Design
Industrial Design
Interaction Design
Environmental Design
Products can be understood from 2 perspectives
External
Internal
20th century —> 1900
21st century —> 2000
form, function, materials, and manner (production and use)
useful, usable, and desirable
Internal new issues and new methods in design research and design knowledge
The new problems of design knowledge How do we know… 1. …how to place a product in the desired situation of use? 2. …how is the interaction of human beings with products?
The new focus of design research Designers employing human sciences to discover specific features of products “What is there in a product that leads someone to identify with it and want it to be part of his or her life?”
Kinds of design research 1 Clinical research (individual cases): 
 gathering data and assembling facts 2 Applied research (general phenomena): establish connections among individual cases 3 Basic research (fundamental principles): establish which are the significant facts and connections in our experience of design
Kinds of design research Researching about an institution to design their new identity
Clinical research
Kinds of design research Edward Tufte’s interesting and popular books on information design provide rules-of-thumb for the designer faced with problems of information design
Applied research
Kinds of design research Galileo’s discovery of a theory of motion from observations of particular cases of design and machine operations as well as observations of natural phenomena
Basic research
Kinds of design research A
The influence of “user experience”, “usability testing” and “user testing” in product development process
B
Identify problems for inquiry in doctoral programs in Design schools
C
Case studies to identify customer-valued quality for product development process
Questions for discussion What kind of research do you use in your design projects? Can you give an example?