A Methodology for Design Research:

Module 11: Research Clarification (RC) stage and process

Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing

Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
Teaching Course, NPTEL 2013

Amaresh Chakrabarti
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Resources used in this course
• The course is based on the DRM framework developed by Amaresh Chakrabarti, author of this course, jointly with Lucienne Blessing and
Ken Wallace. Where not specifically cited, the main reference material used is the following book (highlighted in red) and papers (in red):
• Blessing, LTM, Chakrabarti, A. DRM A Design Research Methodology, Springer-Verlag, London, 2009
• Harivardhini, S., and Chakrabarti, A.: Expanding DRM Framework to Formulate Supreme Causal Models from Research Articles in the Area of Product Disassembly. Chakrabarti, A.
(Ed.) ICoRD15: – Research into Design Across Boundaries Volume 1, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies Series Vol. 34, Springer-Verlag, India, ISBN 978-81-322-2232-3, pp
109-120, 2015
• Chakrabarti, A. and Blessing, L.T.M. (Editors): An Anthology of Theories and Models of Design: Philosophy, Approaches and Empirical Explorations, Springer-Verlag, London, UK,
ISBN: 9781447163374, 2014
• Chakrabarti, A. Towards a Taxonomy of Design Research Areas, Herbert Birkhofer (Editor), The Future of Design Methodology, Springer, pp 249-260, ISBN 978 0 85729 614 6, 2011
• Chakrabarti, A. A Course for Teaching DRM - A Methodology for Design Research, Special Issue on Design Pedagogy: Representations and Processes, Dan Frey, Bill Birmingham and
Clive Dym (Eds.), AI EDAM Vol.24, No.3, 317-334, 2010
• Chakrabarti, A. A Postgraduate Course on DRM – A Methodology for Design Research, in Proceedings of the Indo-US Workshop on Design Engineering, Chakrabarti and
Subrahmanian (Eds.), Allied Publishing, Bangalore, 2008
• Blessing, L.T.M., and Chakrabarti, A. DRM: A Design Research Methodology, in International Conference on The Science of Design - The Scientific Challenge for the 21st Century,
INSA, Lyon, France, 15-16, 2002
• Blessing, L.T.M., Chakrabarti A. and Wallace, K.M. An Overview of Design Studies in Relation to a Design Research Methodology, Designers: the Key to Successful Product
Development, E. Frankenberger, P. Badke-Schaub and H. Birkhofer (Eds.), Springer-Verlag, 1998
• Blessing, L.T.M, Chakrabarti, A., and Wallace, K.M. A Design Research Methodology, Proc. of the Intl Conf. in Engineering Design, Prague, Vol.1, pp50-55, 1995
• Blessing, L.T.M., Chakrabarti, A., and Wallace, K.M. Some Issues in Engineering Design Research, Open University / S.E.R.C. “Design Methods” Workshop, The Open University, UK,
18 November 1992

• Other reference materials used (where specifically cited but not given full reference):
• AIAA (1998) Guide for the verification and validation of computational fluid dynamics simulations. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics AIAA G-077-1998
• Frankfort-Nachmias C, Nachmias D (1996) Research methods in the social sciences, 5th edn. St. Martin Press, Inc., London
• Denzin NK (1978) The research act: a theoretical introduction to sociological methods, 2nd edn. McGraw-Hill, New York
• Cook TD, Campbell DT (1979) Quasi-experimentation: design and analysis issues for field settings. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston
• Cuba L (1993) A short Guide to Writing about Social Science, 2nd edn. Harper Collings College Publishers, New York, U.S.A.
• N.N. (1977) Linus Pauling: crusading scientist, transcript of broadcast of NOVA, nr. 417, J. Angier, executive producer. In. WGBH-TV, Boston
• Pahl G, Beitz W (2007) Engineering design: A systematic approach, 3rd edn. Springer
• Rossi PH, Freeman HE, Lipsey MW (1999) Evaluation, a systematic approach, 6th edn. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks
• Yin RK (1994) Case study research. Sage, London
• Ashby M (2005) How to write a paper. www-mech.eng.cam.ac.uk/mmd/ashby-paper-V6.pdf. Accessed 14 December 2008
• Kelle U (1997) Theory building in qualitative research and computer programs for themanagement of textual data. Social Research Online 2:17
• Miles MB, Huberman AM (1984) Qualitative data analysis: a sourcebook of new methods. Sage, Beverly Hills
• Checkland P (1981) Systems thinking, systems practice. Wiley, Chichester
• Ericsson KA, Simon HA (1996) Protocol analysis: verbal reports as data, 2nd edn. The MIT Press, Cambridge MA
• IEEE (1998) IEEE Std 1012-1998: Standard for software verification and validation. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Orne MT (1962) On the social psychology of the psychological experiment: With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implications. American Psychologist 17:776–783
• Patton MQ (1987) How to use qualitative methods in evaluation. Sage Publications, London
• Patton MQ (1990) Qualitative evaluation and research methods, 2nd edition, Sage Publications, Newbury Park CA
• Patton MQ (2002) Qualitative research and Evaluation methods, 3rd edition, Sage Publications Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA
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Course Modules
Section Topic Module
1. Introduction to design and design research: What and Why; Major facets of design and design 1-5
research, Current issues with design research and the need for a design research methodology;

2. Introduction to DRM - a design research methodology - its main components, and examples to 6-10
explain the components, Types of design research
3. Starting design research: Clarification of requirements: Identifying research topics, carrying out 11-17
literature search, consolidating the topic into research questions and hypotheses, determining type
of research to be persuaded and developing a research plan
4. Types of descriptive study; Processes for carrying out descriptive studies for developing an 18-28
understanding a facet of design and its influences; Introduction to associated descriptive study real-
time and retrospective research methods for data collection such as protocol analysis, questionnaire
surveys, interviews etc; Introduction to quantitative and qualitative data analysis methods

5. Types of prescriptive study; Processes for developing design support and associated prescriptive 29-33
study research methods
6. Types of support evaluation; Processes for evaluating a design support, and associated Evaluation 34-37
study research methods
7. Types and structures of research documentation; Approaches and guidelines for documenting and 38-40
reporting research process and outcomes
TOTAL 40

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Module 11:
Research Clarification (RC) stage, RC process, Identifying topic of interest

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Research Clarification
• Introduction
• Objectives
• Outputs of Research Clarification stage
• Research Clarification process
• Stages of Research Clarification process
• Example for Research Clarification stage

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Introduction

• What is RC stage ?
– First stage of DRM
– aims to identify and refine a research problem that is
– academically worthwhile
– practically worthwhile
– realistic

• How is RC stage achieved ?

– Build overview of current understanding of area of interest
– And plan research to solve the problem

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Objectives
• Identify research goals
• Develop initial RM and IM
• Identify preliminary set of SCs and MSCs to evaluate research outcomes
• Provide focus for DS-I in finding factors that (currently) influence success;
• Provide focus for PS stage on developing support to address factors with major
influence on success;
• Provide focus for DS-II for evaluating the effects of support developed against
research goals

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Outputs of RC stage

• Current understanding and expectations:

– Initial reference model
– Initial impact model
– Preliminary criteria

• Overall research plan:

– Research focus and goals
– Research problems, questions and hypotheses
– Relevant areas to be reviewed
– Approach (type of research, main stages and methods);
– Expected area of contribution and deliverables
– Time schedule

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Research Clarification Process
Find overall topic of interest Divided into six iterative steps

Elucidate current understanding

and expectations

Formulate criteria, main

questions and hypotheses

Determine type of research

Identify areas of relevance and

contribution

Develop overall research plan

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Stages of RC process
1. Find overall topics of interest:
– Identify potential research goals and problems using initial understanding and expectations captured in Initial
RM and IM

2. Elucidate current understanding and expectations:

– Develop Initial RM and IM further using literature to identify which problems remain to be solved

3. Formulate criteria, main questions and hypotheses:

– Identify potential criteria for evaluating research outcomes and formulate research problems, questions and
hypotheses from Initial RM and IM

4. Determine type of research:

– Identify type of design research to be carried out to solve the research problem

5. Identify areas of relevance and contribution,

– Identify relevant knowledge areas likely to be used to solve the research problem, and the areas to which
research is likely to contribute

6. Develop overall research plan

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Stages of RC process

The steps use three main elements:

• Gradual focusing on research topic and most appropriate approach
• Gradual identification of state of the art and possible contribution
• Gradual identification of relevant criteria

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Example for RC stage
• A university approached by a manufacturer of large mechanical systems
• These systems have reliability problems
• Company not interested in a new, reliable solution for this system
• But a support to design such systems for better reliability
• A researcher is assigned this research: follows DRM to guide his work

• Note 1: starting point for a particular project not follow the same course as
in this example
• Note 2: RC stage may follow a more iterative process than in this example

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RC Process Step 1

Find Overall Topic of Interest

– Three aspects constitute an overall topic of interest:
• Issue of interest (e.g., quality, cost or reliability of designs)
• Activity and/or stage of the product development process
(e.g., generation or evaluation, concept, embodiment or
detail design)
• Area of application (e.g., mechanical design, design of
tractors, design of gear-boxes, etc. )

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Find topic of interest

• Can be suggested by
– Researcher
– external partner
– supervisor
– or found from literature

• Researcher, partner or supervisor believes that the issues in this

topic have major influence on design practice, even though strong
evidence may not exist yet

• Issues of interest should qualify as a research area, see next slide

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Whether topic of interest qualify as a research area

• Academically worthwhile:
– Problem sufficiently challenging and generic
– Solution likely to contribute to academic knowledge and understanding
– What is ‘sufficient’ varies with available resources:
• Not the same for a 2 year masters project and 4 year research programme by a research group

• Practically worthwhile,
– Problem generally important to practice, not only for industrial partners in the project
– Solution expected to be sufficiently beneficial (step improvement)
• Realistic:
– The research necessary to solve the problem can be carried out within the constraints
(e.g. time scale) of the project or programme

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Continued…

• The problem should fulfill all three requirements:

– Academically worthwhile
– Practically worthwhile
– Realistic

• Note: initial suggestions for a topic may not always be academically

and practically worthwhile

• Discussion with the stakeholders and research group should clarify

– Scope
– Main influencing factors
– Most important problems, questions and hypotheses
– Likely criteria for success, etc.
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