Theme 5

Theme 5: Design research

• Lecture (Mon): Design research, Haibo Li.
• Seminar (Wed): Design research in media technology research, Stefan Hrastinski.

Read the following paper, written by Haibo Li with colleagues, who will give a lecture on Monday. Select and reflect on a couple of the following questions below.

• Réhman, S., Sun, J., Liu, L., & Li, H. (2008). Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 10(6), 1022-1033.

1. How can media technologies be evaluated?
2. What role will prototypes play in research?
3. Why could it be necessary to develop a proof of concept prototype?
4. What are characteristics and limitations of prototypes?
5. How can design research be communicated/presented?

Select a high quality media technology research paper that you argue could be described as design research. Please note that many “design papers” do not necessarily use the term “design research”. You are looking for a paper that describes the development and evaluation of some kind of prototype or technology. The following are examples of questions to discuss in your blog posting:

1. How is theory being used to guide the design process?
2. Which research method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?
3. What did you learn about conducting design research from reading the paper?

Publish your reflections before and after the theme is completed in you individual learning portfolio (blog). See the course guide for further instructions.