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Immodest Proposals: Research Through Design and Knowledge

Published:18 April 2015Publication History

ABSTRACT

The paper offers theoretical support for research through design (RtD) by arguing that in order to legitimize and make use of research through design as research, HCI researchers need to explore and clarify how RtD objects might contribute to knowledge. Leveraging the tradition of aesthetics in the arts and humanities, we argue that while the intentions of the object's designer are important and while annotations are a good mechanism to articulate them, the critical reception of objects is equally foundational to RtD's broader knowledge impacts within HCI. Such a scholarly critical reception is needed precisely because of the potential inexhaustibility of design objects' meanings; their inability to be paraphrased simply and adequately. Offering a multilevel analysis of the (critical) design fiction Menstruation Machine by Sputniko!, the paper explores how design objects co-produce knowledge, by working through complex design problem spaces in non-reductive ways, proposing new connections and distinctions, and embodying design ideas and processes across time and minds.

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    • Published in

      cover image ACM Conferences
      CHI '15: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
      April 2015
      4290 pages
      ISBN:9781450331456
      DOI:10.1145/2702123

      Copyright © 2015 ACM

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      Publication History

      • Published: 18 April 2015

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      CHI '15 Paper Acceptance Rate486of2,120submissions,23%Overall Acceptance Rate6,199of26,314submissions,24%

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