Abstract:

With the growing acceptance that research-through-design can elicit a form of design knowing, this study considers how design research might be engaged with by the community of practice the research seeks to inform. Academic literature on dissemination might usually privilege the word findings with words like verifiable, credible or quantifiable; but for future-oriented practices like design, might it be more productive to frame research findings in terms of potential and possibilities?

This paper proposes that if we understand that the realm of design is about 'possibilities' then the question becomes not just what form to adopt for disseminating design knowing, but asks the more elemental question: what is productive to disseminate? This led to questioning whether accounts of design research can be about more than retrospectively describing what happened, but rather seeking to provoke a discursive designerly engagement in another practitioners design knowing. Given the nature of design inquiry and the expertise of designers, could dissemination artifacts be designed to engage individuals within the practice community to question the potential of the design knowing for future situations.