Design and the Researchable Question

Abstract

When a researcher begins a study, a crucial step is to state the research question, which must be precise and lead directly to the choice of research methods used in the attempt to answer it. Designers who seek information that will help them make better informed decisions must be able to ask a researchable question. What is the difference between a research question and a researchable question? The former, a scientist's research question, may be in the form of a hypothesis associated with a study method intended to discover whether or not the hypothesis is supported. It leads to the development of new knowledge. The latter, a designer's researchable question, is a path toward the discovery of potentially important information that already exists.A designer must use a variety of sources to discover relevant evidence for each unique project. The designer cannot rely on outdated information or ignore new information. Discovering relevant evidence means seeking out the most reliable information about any important topic that could influence a key design decision. This requires an understanding of what makes research findings credible. The range of information potentially relevant to a project is wide. Discovery entails looking for information in new, unfamiliar places. To do this requires the ability to ask the right questions.To ask the right questions, designers need sources of evidence from new fields. A hospital architect must learn about medicine, the healthcare system, and the nurse's role in care delivery. A sustainable project requires its architect to understand air quality, energy consumption in buildings, green building materials, and the ecology of natural systems. Practitioners using evidence-based design must be prepared to step outside the boundaries of their traditional education to explore the possibilities of information and credible evidence in unfamiliar fields.Identify a Key Design IssueThe first step should be totally familiar to every experienced practitioner. Anyone with a design education has been taught to identify issues crucial to the design problem and is accustomed to focusing on these key issues as they initiate the design process. Key design issues are best if the associated design decision will have a major impact and the design team and client have to learn more about the topic.Convert Key Design Issues Into Researchable QuestionsProducing researchable questions may require new skills. Typically, the description of a key design issue is not in a form that lends itself to a literature search. An architect must take each statement of a key design issue and convert it into one or more researchable questions. It is likely that each design issue will produce several questions. The main idea is to break the statement of a key design issue into questions that enable the search for information. These questions should be specific enough to empower the searcher and to allow for the possibility of an answer.It helps to begin with clear definitions. If the design issue is to reduce drug mixing errors in a cancer center, for example, one should ask what specifics constitute drug mixing and what precisely is meant by error. By asking deeper questions, one might begin to search a number of narrower topics such as distraction, stress, fatigue, and environmental aspects of the place where drug mixing occurs. One of the questions might be which elements of the physical environment play a role in error? If lighting, noise, enclosure, temperature, and air movement are possible factors associated with error, then a series of more specific search questions can be derived.Collect Information Relevant to the Researchable QuestionsThis step might require skills the designer has seldom used since leaving the university; it is the heart of an evidence-based process. It builds on the skills used in preparing a traditional project brief in which decisions are made to define the objectives and scope of a project. …