The spiral of applied research: a methodological view on integrated design research.

Engineering Design Centre, University of CambridgeDesign covers a wide range of human activities. It is inherently multi-facetted, multi-layered and complex. Design research serves the dual purpose of understanding the phenomenon of design and improving particular aspects of design. Understanding design requires multi-disciplinary research drawing on such diverse fields as psychology, sociology and computer science. This paper proposes a framework in which design research can be carried out in big research teams. It contains eight major stages. Four fundamental research efforts drawing on different domains (Empirical studies of design behaviour, Development of theory, Development of tools and procedures, Introduction of tools and procedures). It emphasises the importance of separate evaluation after each stage. Individual projects can contain any number of these stages, provided the researchers are aware of the bigger picture. The paper concludes with a comparison with DRM.EPSR