Experimental Interaction Design Research

A documentation of student projects from the class Experimental Interaction Design Research can be found on the Digital Media website.

Syllabus

Abstract

in this class we are interested in finding out a thing or two about our own position towards design research, interaction design, art and science and how all that can contribute to an overarching idea of research.

don t panic: artists and designers are fools. while all these concepts and questions might appear to be very intimidating, it is of grave importance to understand and accept a certain role, the one of the fool. Children and fools speak the truth. we will allow ourselves to accept certain values and disregard other. our goal is to find our own voice to look at questions, methods and knowledge through our own filters. design research, design as research, design of research.

Objectives

it is the aim of this class to give you the chance to …

  1. sharpen your position on your ( or our ) discipline
  2. develop and find a position towards the idea of resarch on and more importantly through design or art
  3. conduct your own artistic or designery research in a way you find suitable ( and more importantly can defend as legitimate ).
  4. or comment on exisiting notions of research ( or even science i.e Wissenschaftlichkeit ).

Deliverables

at the end of this class you will be required to deliver two things:

  1. a written contributions ( as paragraph or research paper ) that addresses a questions relevant to the discipline ( see below ).
  2. an exhibitable artistic or design research project or a project that adresses the aesthetics of research or science.

the written contributions will be compiled into a pamphlet, with the intention to contribute and sharpen a possible direction interaction design research ( in this institution ) might take in the near future. the exhibitable research will function as illustrations to the written contributions and might pave the way for .

Modus Operandi

each session is structured in three parts:

  1. discussion of proposed questions
  2. discussion on writings about questions relevant to the discipline
  3. discussion of research projects

we will meet every week and start our session with a discussion on questions relevant to the discipline. we will then move on to read and discuss, in the beginning, relevant contributions from the community and later on your own contributions. in the third part of each session we will then discuss your projects.

after class you are expected to continue working on your text and your projects. it is absolutely necessary that you are working hard to advance text and project every week. a default distribution of attention might yield a 1:3 ration for written contribution and research project ( other ratios are welcome if reasoned for ).

to sharpen the idea of a continuous work you are required to write a paragraph on your project right from the start. this paragraph will be refined ( at least once a week ).

the paragraph on the research project and the written contribution will stored in a supplied git repository. it is required to use git as a versioning software for both contributions.

Questions Relevant to the Discipline

this is a list of suggestions for relevant questions:

  1. what is design research? what is research? a question, a method and a piece of knowledge?
  2. why design research? philosophical ( see björn franke ), economic ( see economical perspective on IxD ), or search for knowledge?
  3. why build artifacts?
  4. how to find a research question?
  5. Critical rationalism
  6. what is design ficition?
  7. what is practice based-research?
  8. what is an experiment? what does it look like?
  9. the aesthetics of science. the aesthetics of experiments ( Wissenschaftsästhetik )

in addition to the proposed questions it is also legitimate to …

  1. propose other question
  2. write about and discuss one of your past works.

Appendix

Information

’'’M-MA-2.md’’’ + ‘'’M-MD’’‘
Media Design
Montag .. 10.00 – 18.00 Uhr
Raum 2 11.080