This document discusses framing interaction design (IXD) research from three intersecting perspectives: designers, artifacts, and users. It presents an approach for studying these three areas to ensure research yields useful, usable, and desirable outcomes that positively influence design decisions and allow knowledge sharing. The document discusses paradigms, theories, models, and methodologies for conceptualizing and analyzing phenomena in IXD research.

1. Michael R. Gibson
Professor
Communication Design
Graduate Programs Coordinator:
IXD & Design Research
Producer: Dialectic
Keith M. Owens
Associate Professor
Communication Design
Applied Design Research
Managing Editor: Dialectic
https://unt-ixd.com/
workshop
Studying
Designers,
Artifacts
and Users: Learning to Frame
Research (Sometimes
Mislabeled as “Design
Thinking”) that Informs
Interaction Design
from Three Intersecting
Perspectives

2. Michael R. Gibson
Professor
Communication Design
Graduate Programs Coordinator:
IXD & Design Research
Producer: Dialectic
Keith M. Owens
Associate Professor
Communication Design
Applied Design Research
Managing Editor: Dialectic
https://unt-ixd.com/
workshop
frame/
situate
a particular
IXD project/
initiative
critically examine
the designer’s
decision-making
processes
critically
examine how &
why contextual
factors affect/are
affected by a given
artifact/
system
critically
examine how &
why a specific user’s
interaction with a
given artifact/system
affects his/her
reality
Studying Designers, Artifacts and Users
An overview
of our approach
for framing
IXD situations

3. Michael R. Gibson
Professor
Communication Design
Graduate Programs Coordinator:
IXD & Design Research
Producer: Dialectic
Keith M. Owens
Associate Professor
Communication Design
Applied Design Research
Managing Editor: Dialectic
https://unt-ixd.com/
workshop
Studying Designers, Artifacts and Users
It ensures that the research that guides a
wide variety of human + ________________
interactions yields useful, usable and
desirable understandings that:
· positively affect design decision-making
as projects evolve;
· enable other designers, educators,
stakeholders and researchers to learn
from a) each other (on a “project team”)
and b) from the work of others beyond
their project team to construct knowledge
this approach:
Why we use

4. Michael R. Gibson
Professor
Communication Design
Graduate Programs Coordinator:
IXD & Design Research
Producer: Dialectic
Keith M. Owens
Associate Professor
Communication Design
Applied Design Research
Managing Editor: Dialectic
https://unt-ixd.com/
workshop
Studying Designers, Artifacts and Users
Design thinking is a process for guiding
decision-making that evolves iteratively—the
opposite of falling in love with your first idea—
and it’s supposed to be heuristically informed
(rooted in experiences that involve trial-and-
be yet another
“design thinking”
workshop…
This isn’t gonna
error). It is not a kind
of a magical spread that
can be applied to poorly
framed interaction
design projects to
“make them better.”

5. Michael R. Gibson
Professor
Communication Design
Graduate Programs Coordinator:
IXD & Design Research
Producer: Dialectic
Keith M. Owens
Associate Professor
Communication Design
Applied Design Research
Managing Editor: Dialectic
https://unt-ixd.com/
workshop
Studying Designers, Artifacts and Users
For the most part, disciplines organize themselves
a) by virtue of their claimed and settled area of study—
their “domain”—and, often, b) by one or more designated
units of measure.
Some examples:
Sociology > human social order > macro groups
Cultural Anthropology > human culture > meso groups
Physics > matter & motion, space & time > very large
or small objects
Biology > life & living organisms > hierarchical, taxonomically
organized groupings of living things
that we
investigate
are located
within a set of
core domain
boundaries,
thus: “we
study this,
not that”
Most topics

6. Michael R. Gibson
Professor
Communication Design
Graduate Programs Coordinator:
IXD & Design Research
Producer: Dialectic
Keith M. Owens
Associate Professor
Communication Design
Applied Design Research
Managing Editor: Dialectic
https://unt-ixd.com/
workshop
Studying Designers, Artifacts and Users
soft sciences,
investigative
approaches
rooted in specific
disciplines follow
generally settled,
well-recognized
orientations
guided by the
‘scientific method’
In the hard and
Deductive approaches > hypothesis > an investigation
proves or disproves a given theory
Inductive approaches > specific observations > construct
generalizations that account for
and explain broader sets
of phenomena
Abductive approaches > general observations > construct
a hypothesis that best “fits what
has been observed”
· truth or falsity · predictive or explanatory power
· external validity · replicability & generalizability

7. Michael R. Gibson
Professor
Communication Design
Graduate Programs Coordinator:
IXD & Design Research
Producer: Dialectic
Keith M. Owens
Associate Professor
Communication Design
Applied Design Research
Managing Editor: Dialectic
https://unt-ixd.com/
workshop
Studying Designers, Artifacts and Users
affecting &
affected
by change
arti(facts)2
2. K. Krippendorff, H. Simon, V. Margolin
us(ers)3
3. J. Frascara, D. Norman, J. Thackara
design(ers)1
1. N. Cross, B. Archer
What (or who)
should or could
be the subjects,
or phenomena
of study, for
IXD research
& practice?

8. Michael R. Gibson
Professor
Communication Design
Graduate Programs Coordinator:
IXD & Design Research
Producer: Dialectic
Keith M. Owens
Associate Professor
Communication Design
Applied Design Research
Managing Editor: Dialectic
https://unt-ixd.com/
workshop
Studying Designers, Artifacts and Users
Phenomenon,
as articulated
by/within a:
paradigm | theory | model
methodology(ies) leading
to methods…
…that yield: “what counts,”
how it is considered
concerned with:
· usability
· usefulness
· durability
· responsiveness
· delight

9. Michael R. Gibson
Professor
Communication Design
Graduate Programs Coordinator:
IXD & Design Research
Producer: Dialectic
Keith M. Owens
Associate Professor
Communication Design
Applied Design Research
Managing Editor: Dialectic
https://unt-ixd.com/
workshop
Studying Designers, Artifacts and Users
design
designing
designer
A methodology provides the theoretical underpinning for understanding
which particular method, set of methods, or best practices can be most
effectively applied to a specific case or situation (for example, to calculate
a specific result.
Quantitative Methods
Qualitative Methods > Directed/Structured Interviews
Abductive Inference
A critical, theoretical paradigm employs dialogic methods that combine
observation and interviewing with approaches that foster and facilitate
conversation and reflection.
An interpretivist paradigm is rooted in the theoretical belief that reality
is socially constructed. Thus, validity, or truth, cannot be grounded in
any type of objective reality. > Constructivism > Learning Model
A feminist paradigm is informed by research formulated, operated,
analyzed and shared on behalf of women to improve a variety
of aspectsof their lives, and, in some cases, to emancipate them.
A positivist paradigm emerges from the theoretical belief that
there is an objective reality that can be known only to the
researcher IF he/she applies/engages in the proper methods.
A recorded conversation
Field notes
A videotaped conversation
A directed, real-time essay
Text Summaries and Analyses
· Word frequency (creating a list or lists of words or key phrases
and their frequencies)
· Co-location (words that commonly near each other)
· Concordance (the contexts of/for a given word or set of words)
· N-grams (common two- or three- to seven-word phrases)
· Entity recognition (identifying names, places time periods, etc.)
· Dictionary tagging (locating a specific word or set of words
in given texts
Some High-Level Goals for Text Analysis
· Emic (specific human subject-rooted perspectives on a specific topic)
· Document categorization
· Language user over time
Paradigm>Theory>ModelHowconsidered?AnalyticalFramework
Methodology>MethodsWhat‘Counts’>Howis‘X’Counted?>Data