Thinking Through Design and Its Contribution to Data Collection Methodology in Interdisciplinary Research Practice: Questionnaire/Interview Construction and Analysis

Abstract

Through a particular way of thinking and a specific approach to knowledge, design contributes to an understanding of the most diverse issues that exist outside its scope [1]. It aims to develop creative and innovative solutions as both a discipline and a practice. Within this framework, the purpose of this study is to identify and understand the role and contribution of thinking through design specifically as it relates to data collection and analysis methodology, namely contextual inquiry and interview methods. To find answers to these questions, a questionnaire/interview was conducted at the Sao Joao Hospital Breast Centre in Porto, Portugal. The design of this questionnaire/interview was studied and the collected information was analysed. The interviewed women suffer or have suffered from breast cancer and take part in a doctoral research focus group combining both areas of health (psycho-oncology) and design. The analysis revealed the application of a unique vision of design as a discipline in different stages, indicating a quest that goes beyond the pragmatic use of methodology and challenges itself to seek and explore through poetic observation [2, p. 16]. This study shows the advantages of the primordial integration of designers and their practices in multidisciplinary research teams based on the ‘designerly’ ways of thinking contribution that, due to the rhetorical and exploratory nature of design [3], challenges the entirely rational and linear practices and processes in search of innovative and creative solutions suited to a specific audience and goals.