Building an Archive of Perception: The Role of Observation and Intuition in Design Practice and Research

Abstract

As a recent field of study, design resorts to a perspective of methodological integration or mixed method research. Both as a discipline and a practice, design is driven by the endeavour to develop creative and innovative solutions for the most diverse issues outside its scope, through a particular way of thinking and knowing. Within this framework, combining both the areas of design and health (psycho-oncology), this study aims to identify and understand the role and contribution of design practice to the borrowed methodological tools used in the pursuit of deep observation of systemic and contemporary phenomena by means of data collection methods and analysis methodology. Specifically designed to collect information through contextual inquiry (Beyer and Holtzblatt in Contextual design: defining customer-centered systems, San Francisco, 1998) and interview (Coutinho in Metodologia de investigação em ciências sociais e humanas: teoria e prática., 2a edição. Almedina, Coimbra, 2016) methods and applied in personal interviews to breast cancer patients from the São João Hospital Breast Centre in Porto, a field research instrument in the form of a questionnaire/interview was analysed from its design and application to the results obtained from the collected information. The conducted analysis revealed that the appliance of design’s unique vision allowed to go beyond a methodical and pragmatic approach by seeking beauty, poetry or a hidden meaning through personal observation. Through this, designers are able to assemble an archive of perceptions that nurtures inspiration enhancing the creative process and the development of creative solutions. It is shown that multidisciplinary research teams may benefit from the early integration of designers through their challenging ‘designerly’ ways of thinking and knowing (Cross in Design Research Now: Essays and Selected Projects, Birkhäuser Verlag AG, Germany, 2007), granting from the start that the ethnographic collection constitutes relevant and valuable material capable of fostering innovation.KeywordsDesign researchDesign practiceDesign methodologies