The Design Paradox—and the nature of design research

Speaker
Erik Stolterman
Director, Human-Computer Interaction Design, and Professor of Informatics, Indiana University, Bloomington

When
-

Where
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)

Description

A large part of contemporary HCI research is aimed at supporting interaction design practice. Researchers see as their purpose to develop theories, methods, tools, and techniques that used by practitioners would improve their design ability and design outcome. Lately their have been some serious criticism of these attempts, especially of the more theoretical approaches proposed by researchers. The core of the criticism has been that design practitioners are not using these results since they do not experience them as useful. I will argue that design research in some cases produce results that is even detrimental to design practice. One of the reasons why design research is not always successful in reaching design practice is that the research has not been guided by a sufficient understanding of the nature of design practice. In an attempt to improve design research I will introduce the notion of the design paradox. I will argue that design research with the aim to support design practice must be aware of the design paradox. I will also introduce the notion of rationality resonance as a concept that can be used to describe the relationship between practicing designers and the outcomes produced by design researchers.

Speaker's Bio

Erik Stolterman is Professor and Director of the HCI/design program at School of Informatics, Indiana University, Bloomington. Stolterman’s research is within interaction design, information technology and society, information systems design, philosophy of design, and philosophy of technology. Stolterman has published his work in articles and five books, for instance Thoughtful Interaction Design (2004, MIT Press) and The Design Way (ITP, 2003).

Speaker's Website
http://www.soic.indiana.edu/people/profiles/stolterman-erik.shtml

Host
Jodi Forlizzi