| NSF Org: |
IIS Division of Information & Intelligent Systems |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 9, 2011 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | May 25, 2012 |
| Award Number: | 1115532 |
| Award Instrument: | Continuing Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Ephraim Glinert
IIS Division of Information & Intelligent Systems CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
| Start Date: | August 1, 2011 |
| End Date: | July 31, 2015 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $467,066.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $467,066.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2012 = $326,542.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
107 S INDIANA AVE BLOOMINGTON IN US 47405-7000 (317)278-3473 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
107 S INDIANA AVE BLOOMINGTON IN US 47405-7000 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | HCC-Human-Centered Computing |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001213DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.070 |
ABSTRACT
Huge efforts and funds are today deployed, in both academia and industry, with the purpose to develop new tools, techniques, and methods to support the design of innovative and creative interactive digital products and services. However, while a large proportion of these attempts lead to research insights, they are not always successfully transformed into design methods that fit the reality that practitioners experience. This lack of understanding of practice has in many cases led to a substantial lack of trust from practitioners towards the value of research contributions, while at the same time leading to frustrated researchers not understanding the lack of enthusiasm from practitioners when it comes to adapting new design methods emanating from research efforts. The proposed research will develop a solid understanding of this unfortunate situation by carefully investigating existing practice from the perspective of practitioners.
The research proposal is made up of five major studies and activities, conducted in parallel over three years. These activities are a combination of analytical studies of design methods and interview studies with practitioners (designers who employ design methods to create products and systems) and researchers (design method developers). The research will lead to insights and principles suitable for practitioners on how to strategize and handle their choice and use of design tools, techniques, and methods, and to insights and principles suitable for organizations for their strategic choices of design methods. Most importantly, the research will lead to educational guidelines suitable for design education on how to professionally think about and handle design methods. With increased knowledge about what constitutes appropriate design methods, these results will increase the probability for more creative and innovative designs of interactive products and systems.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
This project has been primarily focused on an overlooked aspect in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Interaction Design which has to do with the way interaction design practitioners understand, evaluate, select, and adapt design methods (approaches, techniques, and tools) for their design process needs. Even though design as an approach has achieved a lot of attention lately, we found that little has been done to examine what design methods practitioners actually use, why they use them, and how they think about and understand these methods. We also found that the majority of design methods developed by academics with the purpose to improve practice are not adopted by practitioners. A lot of effort and resources are spent based on the argument that the results will be practically useful while in reality the outcomes are not used or practical.
The main goal of this project was to examine the intentions, goals, principles, strategies and thinking among those who develop new design methods, and among those who use design methods, and among those who teach design methods. For each of these groups we have examined how they understand the professional practice in the field of HCI and interaction/UX design, and what they see as essential qualities of a practical and useful design method, and how methods are used in practice.
Our studies has led to the following outcomes:
- a conceptual framework/typology of design methods;
- a theoretical and practical understanding of how designer-practitioners think about, select, and use design methods;
- a theoretical understanding of how design method developers approach method development;
- insights and principles suitable for designer-practitioners on how to strategize and handle their choice and use of design methods;
- insights and principles suitable for organizations on their strategic choices of design methods; and
- educational guidelines suitable for interaction design (and related areas) on how to professionally think about and handle design methods.
There are several aspects when it comes to the broader impact of our research. First of all, our results show that today a lot of research efforts that are aimed at developing new design methods are not successful in changing or impacting practice. The reasons for this is that many of these efforts are not grounded in a developed understanding of design practice. This means that a lot of new methods are developed that are not of interest to practitioners or usable from a practical standpoint. The consequence of this is that a large amount of research efforts and resources are spent without leading to expected impact and results.
Overall, our results and insights shows that there is lot of effort and resources possible to save if method development is better understood. Our findings can help in determining how to set up relevant research that has the purpose to improve professional practice.
Last Modified: 10/27/2015
Modified by: Erik A Stolterman
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