DESIGN IN THE “REAL WORLD”
SITUATING ACADEMIC CONCEPTIONS OF ID PRACTICE
COLIN M. GRAY
IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
ELIZABETH BOLING
INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Photo
courtesy
of
Marcus
Spiske
https://www.flickr.com/photos/125167502@N02/

SO WHAT IF WE HAD A THEORY
FOR EVERY SITUATION?
WE WOULD HAVE
MILLIONS OF THEORIES

RESEARCHER DESIGNER
THEORY ENACTED IN
PRACTICE
DESIGNER-PROOF

RESEARCHER DESIGNER
OPPORTUNISTICALLY
THEORY PRACTICE
DRAW FROM
UTILITY OF THEORY
FOR PRACTICE

WE NEED TO DIVORCE
THEORY
FROM
METHOD

THEORY V. METHOD
4C/ID MODEL
(VAN MERRIËNBOER & KIRSCHNER
PERFORMANCE
FUNCTIONAL
DECOMPOSITION
PRODUCT/SYSTEM

RESEARCHER DESIGNER
METHOD ALLOWS
THE DESIGNER
THEORY PRACTICE
TO USE
METHODS ARE TOOLS

WHAT IS “DESIGN THEORY”

WHAT IS “DESIGN THEORY”
• Theory and method are separate (Friedman, 2003)
• Theory and tacit knowledge about use are
separate issues (Dunne, 1997; Polanyi, 1966)
• Theory can tell us how phenomena occur, but it
cannot tell us when we should do one thing over
another, such as how to prioritize or deal with
constraints in a particular design context (Lawson &
Dorst, 2009; Nelson & Stolterman, 2012)

HOW DOES IDT DESCRIBE
DESIGN THEORY?
• Describe
• Explain
• Generative (and often prescriptive)
• Describes “methods and how to use them”
(Reigeluth & Carr-Chellman, p. 7, emphasis in original)

HOW DOES IDT DESCRIBE
DESIGN THEORY?
“[instructional design
theory is] a set of design
theories that pertain to
various aspects of
instruction”
(Reigeluth & Carr-Chellman, p. 8)
DESIGN THEORY
Instructional
Design Theory

(Gray, Stolterman, & Siegel, 2014)
ALL IS NOT AS IT SEEMS

“We refer here to the unarticulated and
unexamined means by which eclectic practices
unfold in design work; or stated differently, we
are concerned that merely claiming one’s
practices to be eclectic, and assuming that this
admission satisfactorily clarifies one’s modus
operandi in the design process, obscures
fundamental issues regarding the nature of one’s
design decisions in a given situation and masks—
often unintentionally—the values, assumptions,
and judgments that guide such choices…
(Yanchar & Gabbitas, 2011, p. 385)

…Put more bluntly, we are concerned that, in the
name of eclecticism, little or no careful attention
need be paid to the underlying means by which
diverse techniques are selected and employed,
and, by extension, little or no attention need be
paid to the means by which design is
actually produced.”
(Yanchar & Gabbitas, 2011, p. 385)

EXAMPLES OF DESIGN THEORY
DARKE PRIMARY GENERATOR
(Darke, 1979)
DORST & CROSS CO-EVOLUTION
OF PROBLEM AND SOLUTION
(Dorst & Cross, 2001)

Design activity is fueled by theoretical
and philosophical understanding,
enacted in ways that are unique to the
individual designer,
representing a generative/
non-deterministic use of
theory and method.

METHODS AREN'T MERELY
ENACTED IN PRACTICE
(Fortney & Yamagata-Lynch, 2013;
Schwier, Campbell, & Kenny, 2009)
WE DON'T STUDY
DESIGN PRACTICE (IN GENERAL)
(Rowland, 1992; Stolterman, 2008)

DESIGN METHODS

WHAT'S NEXT?
• Partnering with practitioners and generating/
legitimating design and practical knowledge
• Deconstruction of orthodoxy within IDT
scholarship
• Knowledge-building within theory and method
epistemologies

THANK YOU
COLINGRAY.ME

• This prescriptionist stance favors the research
community in a hegemonic way, causing
practitioners to feel cynicism or guilt toward the
research literature (Boling et al. 2011)

THE NATURE OF THE TOOL IS
INAPPROPRIATE TO THE TASK
AND
WE HAVE NOT EXAMINED
THE TASK

• krippendorf - designer-proof system? pointing at
the issue of not just designer or teacher proofing
things