The principle of reflexive practice

Abstract

‘Practice what you preach’ is a phrase occasionally used to refer to those not acting as they want others to act. There are countless opportunities in professional work and daily life to bring such criticism upon ourselves. While the subject is broad, this study focuses on the application of this idea in research practice, and more specifically in design research. One point of departure is the question: ‘how should we practice research if its results are products just like other products?’ The Principle of Reflexive Practice (PRP) states that considering the outcome of design research or research itself as a product, many design principles, tools, methods or knowledge are applicable to design research.A corollary of the principle is that in order to succeed in contemporary research environments, design researchers would gain significant benefit such as improving the success rate of their research projects, if they exercise design methods and tools in designing their research. By exercising these methods, researchers would gain quick and rich feedback about the methods they develop; they would become aware of issues that require users’ perspective that could not be possible without their own practical use.The PRP makes participants in design research aware of the reflexive opportunity in studying design that could be mobilized to advancing their practice and making their research results more effective. Notwithstanding, adopting the PRP is not easy; therefore, it is presented as a challenge to design research. Four examples of using the PRP as a guiding principle in research are presented to demonstrate its importance and benefits.

How graphic designers rely on intuition as an ephemeral facility to support their creative design process

“…Each package and the other interview materials were collected, and the participant was thanked and offered to be informed about future findings. Since the author carrying out the interviews is a graphic designer, we followed Reich's (2017) research proposition, i.e. that design researchers should use design knowledge, methods and tools in designing their research, because such an approach improves outcomes.…”

Design theory: a foundation of a new paradigm for design science and engineering

“…First, the core work on design theory involves designing theories; consequently, if we develop theoretical understanding about design, we should use it ourselves. It will turn out to be that the SIG started and has been evolved to precisely support the key ingredients underlying design that we will subsequently term ontology of design (i.e., generativity, splitting condition, and social spaces); in this way, the SIG has been practicing what we preach (Reich, 2017). Second, and related to the first, the context tells readers which infrastructure is necessary to attempt a comprehensive study of design theory in case they wish to engage in such work.…”

The PSI Network Model for Studying Diverse Complex Design Scenarios

“…The PSI framework (Reich & Subrahmanian, 2015, 2017Meijer et al, 2014) has been developed as a way to represent the richness of design activities in their context. With it, we have a comprehensive theoretical underpinning of designing (Subrahmanian et al, 2019).…”

“…This was reflected by a focus on information management in design (18) and creating a worldview of participation, attitude to learn with industry to address real problems, without presuppositions or ego involved and respect to all participants coming from diverse perspectives (19). This external attitude was equally reflected inside as the mode of operation of the group: no hierarchy, mutual respect, learning attitude and concern to real practice as the criterion for quality researcha clear instance of "practice what you preach" (Reich, 2017). The group was crystalizing in a bottom-up fashion, using the same worldview to create its reflexive mechanisms (20) and ethos (21), gradually making explicit all the cells in the PSI matrix, while making sure they are aligned.…”