Research through Design (RtD)¶
Prototype Roles Reflections
“Design has to work, Art does not.” – Donald Judd.
Even though I have never designed, some of the prototype roles sounded familiar. Bellow, I describe how I came in contact with them, even before I knew of their existence.
Role 1: This would have been a useful approach to a project in the third year of my Biology Bachelor’s degree. For a class on population dynamics, I had the idea to test if the color preference of Harmonia axyridis is sex-dependent, meaning if males and females have the same color preference. In nature, that could translate into high probabilities of finding males and females in the same-colored flowers. It ended up being an inconclusive study, due to many factors, but now I see how I should’ve spent more time prototyping different experimental sets. The set for this experiment consisted of a 30x38cm transparent acrylic box and in each corner, there were different colored sticker paper (yellow, green, blue and red). Insects like Harmonia axyridis have apical tendencies (to visit the apex of branches/buds), even though it was not registered this could be a possible non-detected variable: the colors of the stickers on top of the box vs the colors placed at the basis of the acrylic box. Another example of a non-tested variable is the intensity of the colors. For instance, the chosen colors were very bright and rarely observed in a natural environment, so testing with colors in wavelengths closer to those we find in nature would very likely change the results. Prototyping is a game-changer when it comes to the production of knowledge.
Role 4: Often, before new scientific discoveries, there was the development of an instrument or technic that led or allowed the analyses of the phenomena. During my time at a scientific institution, we would recall stories of times when research corroborating a particular hypothesis was highly celebrated vs the development of a new technic. The paradigm has definitely shifted as administration and scientists realized that these technical developments (ex. electric microscopy technics) were as important, enabling meaningful and ground-breaking discoveries by studying a phenomenon with “new lenses”. Concluding that the documentation of a process is as relevant as the result of a certain research project.
If prototypes are designed to capture information relevant to the development of a project, then surveys will serve that purpose, and as someone that worked in science project management, that is something I am familiar with, this relates to Role 2. Also, another role I used before is Role 3, while proposing the construction of a space for visitors at science exhibitions. In order to present a space designed to take time to critically think about what they’ve experienced, read, or seen. I can only conclude that our life and life’s work is a huge design intervention and we are constantly prototyping.
Due to the time I’ve spent around scientists, I can not help but be drawn to Role 1 as my default setting for prototyping. As an avid consumer of anything science fiction, I am curious to see what projects I can place in Role 3 as an insightful exercise into possible realities.
On another note… How much are science and design related to each other? At the beginning of the class, when asked if we had ever used such roles, my immediate response was “Not really, but I guess kind of…”. I was sure science and design were operating on different universes. After taking the time to stop and think about how I used the roles before, I see why I hesitated to firmly answer the question, yet I now recognize these areas of knowledge as complementary with the potential to enrich each other’s research!
Reading:
Verkerke, Gijsbertus J., et al. “Science versus design; comparable, contrastive or conducive?.” journal of the mechanical behavior of biomedical materials. 21 (2013): 195-201.
The Journal of Design and Science (JoDS) was a joint venture of the MIT Media Lab and the MIT Press that forged new connections between science and design, breaking down the barriers between traditional academic disciplines in the process.
https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/designandscience/release/2