Carnegie Mellon University
Research Showcase
Human-Computer Interaction Institute School of Computer Science
1-1-2007
Research Through Design as a Method for
Interaction Design Research in HCI
John Zimmerman
Carnegie Mellon University
Jodi Forlizzi
Carnegie Mellon University
Shelley Evenson
Carnegie Mellon University
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Recommended Citation
Zimmerman, John; Forlizzi, Jodi; and Evenson, Shelley, "Research Through Design as a Method for Interaction Design Research in
HCI" (2007). Human-Computer Interaction Institute. Paper 41.
http://repository.cmu.edu/hcii/41

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Research through design as a method for interaction design research in HCI John Zimmerman, Jodi Forlizzi, Shelley Evenson Human-Computer Interaction Institute and The School of Design Carnegie Mellon University {johnz, forlizzi, evenson}@andrew.cmu.edu ABSTRACT For years the HCI community has struggled to integrate design in research and practice. While design has gained a strong foothold in practice, it has had much less impact on the HCI research community. In this paper we propose a new model for interaction design research within HCI. Following a research through design approach, designers produce novel integrations of HCI research in an attempt to make the right thing: a product that transforms the world from its current state to a preferred state. This model allows interaction designers to make research contributions based on their strength in addressing under-constrained problems. To formalize this model, we provide a set of four lenses for evaluating the research contribution and a set of three examples to illustrate the benefits of this type of research. Author Keywords design, interaction design, interaction design research, HCI research, research through design, wicked problems, design theory, design method ACM Classification Keywords H5.2. User Interfaces: Theory and methods. INTRODUCTION In recent years we have both witnessed and participated in the struggle as several academic institutions have attempted to integrate design, with technology and behavioral science in support of HCI education and research. While there has been great excitement about the benefits integrating design can bring, we quickly realized that no agreed upon research model existed for interaction designers to make research contributions other than the development and evaluation of new design methods. Over the last two years we have undertaken a research project to (i) understand the nature of the relationship between interaction design and the HCI research community, and (ii) to discover and invent methods for interaction design researchers to more
effectively participate in HCI research. Through our inquiry we learned that many HCI researchers commonly view design as providing surface structure or decoration. In addition, we lack a unified vision of what design researchers can contribute to HCI research. This lack of a vision for interaction design research represents a lost opportunity for the HCI research community to benefit from the added perspective of design thinking in a collaborative research environment. The research community has much to gain from an added design perspective that takes a holistic approach to addressing under-constrained problems. To address this situation, this paper makes two contributions: (i) a model of interaction design research designed to benefit the HCI research and practice communities, and (ii) a set of criteria for evaluating the quality of an interaction design research contribution. The model is based on Frayling’s research through design [14], and it stresses how interaction designers can engage “wicked problems” [21]. What is unique to this approach to interaction design research is that it stresses design artifacts as outcomes that can transform the world from its current state to a preferred state. The artifacts produced in this type of research become design exemplars, providing an appropriate conduit for research findings to easily transfer to the HCI research and practice communities. While we in no way intend for this to be the only type of research contribution interaction designers can make, we view it as an important contribution in that it allows designers to employ their strongest skills in making a research contribution and in that it fits well within the current collaborative and interdisciplinary structure of HCI research. Definitions As we conducted this inquiry, we quickly realized that within both the HCI and design communities there is an inconsistent and confusing use of the following terms. Therefore, below we provide a set of definitions for these terms with respect to this paper. Designer. Using such a generic term is a challenge at best. At CHI 2006’s SIG: “The CHI Design Community”, Bill Buxton sarcastically claimed that if everyone is a designer because they select their own clothes, then everyone is also a mathematician, because we all count our change. His