Five things I didn't know about design research

I thought and assumed a lot of things about research before starting my PhD. I was sceptic to the thought of working only in a theoretic world, and not the practical world (I came from design and art schools) - things I now find a bit strange. I didn't know any researchers before I started this PhD, so a lot of these things were new to me. Maybe this is obvious for those who did masters at the university - but not for me. Though I know I have lots more to learn about research, these things are probably the ones that has surprised me the most since the beginning.

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1) Design research is an argument. In the research traditions I build on, research can be understood as an argument. There are several research traditions, and this is not valid for a lot of researchers within f.ex. medicin (positivistic research traditions deals more with objectivity and truth-searching).
Example: I study social media from a communication perspective and argue that typography, graphics, buttons and "likes" shapes the type of conversation in social media. This does NOT mean that functions and aesthetics DOESN'T shape the conversations, or that it is irrelevant to study the use perspective of social media. It just means that my argument is that a communication perspective is useful when designing social interfaces. As a professor said: "The thesis is not the history of what you've done, but an argument".

2) Research is about critique. Getting critique is valuable stuff, because it forces arguments to be sharpened. It is not so fun in the beginning though, when you've worked your ass off for six months with a hand-in of your proposal, and the only feedback you get is critique and a new date for a revised proposal… I think this aspect of research creates a downside too; academics are generally really bad at giving positive, motivational feedback on what you do. I have never seen worse in any other job!

3) Creating theory is designing. Working with theory does not mean that we're not creating, shaping and designing futures. In fact, that is very much what we do. Research by design is not about knowing theory and history, it is about using theory to get to something new, to move forward, shaping futures.

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4) Use value is not the only interesting thing in research. Designers and students are often very focused on the use value of something. I noticed this in the beginning of my PhD when seeing researchers presenting; I was thinking that I didn't see the use value of it. I've seen this reaction in others. In research you can explore a material, challenge perceptions, demonstrate an argument, or show how something can be used. When exploring a material, you don't know if it will become useful. Maybe it will, maybe it wont. A lot of great things has come out of exploring, and research is the place where this is possible to do. An institution for curiousness. Even though it seems meaningless to some.

5) Knowledge: an ability to answer. Research is about producing knowledge. I create and use designs to learn something. A philosopher described knowledge as the norwegian word "svarevne" (Lindseth 2015), in english it translates to something like "the ability to answer". If building on Lindseth, it broadens the horizon of design too; design can also be an answer to a problem. This meaning that design itself can be seen as research. There are probably other definitions of knowledge too, know any?