The Things of Design Research

Workshop - The Things of Design Research: Diversity in Objects and Outcomes

7 May 2017
Denver, USA

Design research is a growing mode of research within the HCI community. At the same time, the role of the artifact in generating knowledge outcomes from research through

design (RtD) is ripe for examination. We hope to bring together researchers and practitioners who are interested in exploring how the things of design practice are able to contribute to academic dialogue within HCI and related design fields. By assembling various practitioners and the objects they have designed and produced together in a single room, we seek to be able to discuss the process and practices of research through design and link these closely with material outcomes—design things.

This one-day workshop will provide an opportunity to examine how artifacts can produce and support research outcomes in themselves, and as material bridges to the process through which they emerge. This workshop will combine hands-on examination of design objects, comparison of design experiences, and discussion about qualities of these that are usually necessarily excluded from published academic texts.

Workshop themes include:

• Materiality – What are the material qualities of interactive and physical designed objects?
• Process – What role do material objects during the design the process? In what ways can material outcomes offer insight into the design process from which they emerged?
• Quality of outcomes – In what ways can we judge the quality of designed objects?
• Material knowledge and physical rhetoric – What ways of understanding material outcomes as their own non-verbal or less verbal forms of knowledge or rhetoric are possible?
• Insights into practice – What can a discussion of things teach us about the practice of designing, producing, and presenting them—as research or otherwise?
• Things of design – how is the design thing constituted? What kinds of human and nonhuman perspectives is it assembling?

Interested participants are invited to submit an artifact to bring to this workshop. This should include:

• A position paper in CHI archival format (maximum 2 pages) describing the research object under consideration
• Other digital documentation of the artifact itself (e.g., image, video, website, software application)

Submission deadlines

• Early Acceptance Submission Date: 14 December 2016 / Notification Date: 21 December 2016
• Second Submission Date: 27 January 2017 / Notification Date: 10 February 2017
• Final Camera Ready Submissions: 24 February 2017 / Workshop Sunday, 7th May 2017 (1 day)

More information at the Things of Design Research webpage