Research-Design, a Dichotomy that Leaves Strategy out of Design

Know that research is just one role of design, and there are other roles to perform in order to complete a design work.

Source: Dubberly et al. ACM Interactions — Volume XV.2 2008

The above picture is called Analysis-Synthesis Bridge model. It describes the three processes of design:

1. Bringing the concrete to the abstract
2. While in the abstract, interpret the current for the future
3. Bringing the abstract to the concrete

Research is process #1, where we study the concrete human data (real human condition), and derive abstract models (insights) out of it.

Prototyping (or I’d rather call it Crafting) is process #3, where we develop a concept into artifacts. This is what is addressed as Design by the proponents of Research-Design dichotomy.

The Research-Design dichotomy is widely known in the digital product industry, where most designers came from technology background. With their engineering mind, they’re very inclined to doing the crafting part of design. When they need human data, they ask the help of researchers, who mostly came from social-humanities background.

Both of them should be called designers, because it’s Research-Craft instead of Research-Design. The researchers are unable to call themselves designers, because the title is already claimed. They’re marginalized by the previous invaders to the design land a.k.a. the technology people (graphic designers as allies).

Even if both of them get to claim the designer title, we still need another designer for process #2. They’re the current-to-future interpreters. Let’s call them strategists.

The strategists don’t just fly out ideas like a drunk guy (tongue-in-cheek), but instead provide a creative systematic space for every insights to be synthesized into ways to transform the (abstract) current into the (abstract) future. They’re the facilitators of multiple sources and contributors.

Before transforming the current into the future, they also need to validate that the abstract current is really a model of the real current. After transforming the current into the future, they also need to find out whether the real future is a good representation of the abstract future. In the business world, they need to come up with success metrics.

In the Analysis-Synthesis Bridge model, the process #2 looks straight and short as the line of “suggest”, but it’s actually a messy process. This process gets overlooked easily by those who entered the design profession from STEM or social-humanities. The STEM minds may have problems adjusting from decision-making (quantitative) to sense-making (qualitative). The social-humanities minds may have problems adjusting from analysis (describing and explaining) to synthesis (envisioning).

With proper training in addition to one’s passion, any researchers or crafters can play a strategist role. It takes design doing to be able to master it, because it’s mostly in the abstract realm. We only know we’re doing it from the feedback we get when our activity interacts with the world.

Let’s conclude this. To complete the picture of design, we need:

1. Design researcher
2. Design strategist
3. Design crafter

All of them are designers. In an environment where only one of them gets to claim as designers, people lose track of what design can contribute. In an industry where only one of them gets the designer title, business owners lose the opportunity to get a substantial help from design.

Let’s break the research-design dichotomy, and concentrate on what roles you can bring to your team as a designer. We’ve got too much ego going on due to many crafters claiming as designers for more $$$. We’ve got too widespread misunderstanding about design due to business-owners trusting these crafter-designers (“I’ve got an expensive designer — everything now looks cool!”). We’ve got too many ignored talents due to the divisiveness of the dichotomy (“I’m a designer — no, you’re a researcher”). We’ve got too many failed design projects due to the missing middle component of design process.

I discovered the missing middle role of design in the digital industry years ago while mentoring a team of product designers. Indeed, they concentrated on either research or craft. They couldn’t explain to their team why their research resulted in the craft, let alone getting their team in the middle process collaboratively.

I’m not alone in this. One of the authors of The Art of Co-Creation highlighted the often skipped middle stage of co-creation in his book. The middle stage is where we deal with the unknown and multiple people in order to download, debate, reflect, and flow into each other’s ideas. Indeed, a messy process.

Let’s promote all three roles equally and have everyone call themselves designer. Don’t we have the privilege of practicing inclusion with design?

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