In November 2015 present paper was presented at IASDR15 (International Association of Societies of Design Research) in Brisbane, Australia. It is written by Eva Brandt (KADK), Mette Agger Eriksen (Malmö University), Thomas Binder (KADK) and Johan Redström (Umeå University).
Abstract
Design experiments are powerful inquiries, working from the ambiguous and tentative to more firm programmatic statements. In participatory design and codesign, learning and knowing is closely tied to participation − the engagement with and manipulation of shared representations, as participants expose how they become knowledgeable in what they collaboratively make. However, working with codesign as an integral part of knowledge production poses challenges to how we conceive of such inquiries in the practices of research through design. This paper reports from collaborative research where fellow researchers and PhD students carry out a codesign experiment (in the Xlab meta-project). The intention of the paper is twofold but intertwined: to get closer at what it is that people actually do in a codesign experiment situation; and to further investigate the relationship between program and experiments. We will give examples of the considerations and crises faced by the participants and how they try to solve them. In addition, we suggest using the notion of ‘sub-program’ as a way of describing the framing of a specific experiment thus adding to the program-experiment dialectics in the designing and doing of experiments.
Keywords
Designing codesign experiments, research program, experiments/program dialectics, experiment sub-program, meta-reflections, knowledge production.
Other publications within the same area
Bang, A. L., Eriksen, M. A. (2014). Experiments all the way in programmatic design research. In Artifact, 2014, volume III, Issue 2, Pages 4.1 – 4.14.
Binder, T. and Redström, J. (2006). Exemplary Design Research. In Friedman, K., Love, T. and Corte-Real, E. (Eds.) Proceedings of Design Research Society Wonderground International Conference 2006.
Brandt E. & Binder, T. (2007). Experimental Design Research: Genealogy – Intervention – Argument. Proceedings of International Association of Societies of Design Research Conference, Hong Kong 2007.
Brandt, E., Redström, J., Eriksen, M.A., Binder, T. (2011) XLAB. The Danish Design School Press. Denmark.
Redström, J. (2011). Some notes on program/experiment dialectics. In web proceedings of Nordic Design Research Conference 2011, Helsinki. http://www.nordes.org.
Want to read the full paper?
Find the online proceedings at http://iasdr2015.com/ or contact Eva on ebr (at) kadk.dk
