Client as designer in collaborative design science research projects: what does social science design theory tell us?

Abstract

This paper reports a study of a design science research project in which researchers in computer science and earth science collaborated to attack a looming problem in the earth sciences – the need to analyze data of different types (satellite data at various resolutions, text, raster, and vector). The motivations of the two partners appeared complementary – the computer scientists needed a hard problem to solve to focus their research, and the earth scientists had a hard problem in need of solution. This study uses theory and research on design from the social sciences to explore the experience of users who are included as partners in a design project. It finds that it is very difficult for a client partner to enter the ‘design world’ as full collaborators.

Keywords:

• design theory
• design practice
• scientific collaboration
• design science research
• designer-client colloboration

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Judith Weedman

About the author

Judy Weedman is a professor at San Jose State University; she is also an associate supervisor of doctoral students in the SJSU/Queensland University of Technology Gateway Ph.D. program. She holds a Ph.D. in Library & Information Studies from The University of Michigan. Her research addresses knowledge production in particular settings, including scientific communication and design practice. Her articles have been published in such journals as the Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Communication Research, and Science, Technology, & Human Values; refereed papers have appeared in the proceedings of a variety of conferences. She teaches in the areas of information retrieval and socio-technical studies.