Research vs. Design Klaus Krippendorff Gregory Bateson Professor for Cybernetics, Language, and Culture The Annenberg School for Communication University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Research The necessary reliance on data Data are found not created Searching for patterns within data Re-search = Searching again and again to be sure Other researchers repeat the analysis Reproducibility of “findings” Research  Re-search “Collecting” data “Sampling” data “Discovering” data

Research Pattern “found” are the contingencies of the past Theories extend the past into the future Detached from the data they are analyzing Taking no responsibilities for their data and findings Believing that nature, the real world has caused findings Researchers are outside observers Extending trends Belief that the past continues without human interference Causal explanations

Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. The intellectual activity that produces material artifacts is no different fundamentally from the one that prescribes remedies for a sick patient or the one that devises a new sales plan for a company or a social welfare policy for a state. Design, so construed, is the core of all professional training; it is the principal mark that distinguishes the professions from the sciences. Schools of engineering, as well as schools of architecture, business, education, law, medicine, are all centrally concerned with the process of design. Herbert Simon (1969:55-56) Design / Designers

Envision possible futures Evaluate their desirability with those who could inhabit that future Proposals need to address relevant stakeholders Proposals need to provide possibilities for participation Proposals need to create the incentives for participation Develop possible paths to reach that future Make proposals that enroll stakeholders into the project Search for what is variable

Already Simon (1969) recognized that the disciplines of the sciences are concerned with what exists whereas the disciplines of design are concerned with what, in his words, “ought to be.” In my terms, whereas scientific research can theorize only what was observed prior to an analysis, design concerns artifacts that have not yet been observed, for which data are constitutively lacking, and experiences can at nest be anticipated Incommensurability 1

Whereas predictive theories that arise from scientific research conserve the status quo—constitutively assuming that the patterns observed in the past continue into the future—designers try to brake with the determinisms of the past, proposing novel and untested paths into alternative futures, especially involving the stakeholders in a design Incommensurability 2

Whereas researchers in the natural sciences privilege causal explanations, which exclude scientific observers as the origins of the phenomena they observe, designers intend to affect something by their own actions, something that could not result from natural causes, thus defying the causal explanations of scientific discourse Incommensurability 3

Whereas scientists celebrate generalizations, abstract theories or general laws, supported by evidence in the form of observational data, designers suggest courses of actions that must ultimately work in all of their necessary details and in the future. Artifacts never work in the abstract. This contradiction is also manifest in the preference for mathematical explanations by scientists and figurative models, and prototypes by designers Incommensurability 4

Whereas researchers theorize invariancies, treating unexplained variations as undesirable noise, designers are concerned with variables, conditions that could be changed by design. Something analogue to Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle applies to this contradiction. By focusing on what exists, researchers cannot possibly observe what could be altered; by focusing on what could be altered, designers can care less about what exists in view of what their interventions yield. For these reasons scientific theories are not particularly interesting to designers—unless the theory describes something that designers do not car to alter Incommensurability 5

Whereas researchers are concerned with the truth of their propositions, established by observational evidence, designers are concerned with the plausibility and compellingness of their proposals, which resides in stakeholders ability to rearticulate them in the context of the futures they desire and various paths to reach them Incommensurability 6

Whereas scientific researchers seek knowledge for its own sake, value-free, and without regard to their utility, designers value knowledge that improves the world, at least in the dimensions related to their designs Incommensurability 7

Whereas theories in science describe nature as unable to understand how it is being investigated, theories of design must include its effects on stakeholders of the process. Designers must be able to understand the understanding of others – second-order understanding Researchers need to understand only their subject matter in the researchers' terms – first-order understanding Incommensurability 8

Envisioning alternative futures, including the artifacts designers might be able to bring forth Inquiries supportive of Design Involves creativity, willingness to take risks, questioning prevailing beliefs in obstacles, what cannot be done, questioning knowledge authorities, including deconstructing pertinent scientific findings Identifying stakeholders (by snowballing, for example) Evaluate desirability of futures for stakeholders – second-order understanding Explore or create variables, what can be changed Surveying other situations in which variables have been turned into consequences Evaluate possible ways to get from variables to desirable futures. Feasibility studies, cost benefit analyses for different stakeholders Develop rhetorical support for a proposed design Demonstrating the methods used to develop proposal Pretesting on a small sample or scale – a place for scientific research Gathering commitments from stakeholders