A 2005 survey of more than 1000 students, faculty, and design practitioners by Metropolis magazine identified 81% of design firms doing research and 65% of academic department chairs describing it as required and integral to curriculum. Yet 90% of the respondents claimed they couldn’t access research findings in schools and perceptions of what constitutes research ranged from picking color swatches to empirical studies.
There are now professional firms devoted exclusively to design research. Opportunities for doctoral study, once only available abroad, now exist in American universities. An AIGA supported-project to develop a “proof of concept” for a design research database is in the works. And research anthologies have reached the market from several publishers. All are evidence of a maturing profession.
So what do we mean by “research”, what is worth doing, and what does it look like? Who is prepared to do it and who uses it when it’s published? What role do PhD programs play in this emerging research culture and how does their presence influence what we do at the master’s level?
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