87773 Visualising Research
Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular semester, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.
UTS: Design, Architecture and Building: DesignCredit points: 12 cp
Subject level:
Undergraduate
Result type: Grade and marksRequisite(s): 85701 Research Based Designing AND 87555 VC Project: Design Practice AND 87665 VC Project: The Community AND 87551 VC Studies: Concepts of Professionalism
Handbook description
At this advanced level of study students articulate a research-based design project. Through engagement with a site of research/creative exploration, students are required to establish an appropriate focus for their project. Emphasis is placed on the integration of qualitative and experimental approaches to research. Designed outcomes may include print publications; a series of photographs, drawings or illustrations; a motion graphics or animated work; interactive interfaces; environmental graphics; models; visual essays; and briefing documents or reports. Students can select from a number of available project options. In some instances they may negotiate a personally directed project relevant to their academic and professional interests.
Subject objectives/outcomes
On successful completion of this subject students will have provided evidence of their ability (at a proficient level of realisation) to:
a. Establish a site of research/creative exploration/inquiry; develop a research question and methods appropriate to the inquiry; and produce a research plan.
b. Define, undertake and document a generative engagement with a site of research through visual exploration and experimentation in media which may include photography, drawing, mark making, typography, image making, writing, model-making, graphic forms, mapping, interactive interfaces, animation or video etc.
c. Develop and document a contextual understanding of a site of research/ creative exploration/inquiry through activities that may include reviews of literature; reviews of creative work, creative processes, precedents, benchmarks or models; observation, interviews, narrative enquiry, auto ethnography, performance, probes.
d. Identify and communicate coherent and imaginative connections between contextual and generative findings.
e. Develop a designed response to the key insights that have emerged through the engagement in the research process as evidenced by the archive/visual portfolio.
This may include experimental, information and communication artefacts or prototypes such as posters, animation, video etc, publication, interactive, experience design, design proposals, exhibition designs, briefing document, extended essay or a visual essay, design proposal, et al.
f. Demonstrate the capacity to plan evaluate and critically reflect in order to support project development and management.
Contribution to course aims and graduate attributes
This subject contributes to the course educational aims to produce graduates with high levels of:
- Creativity and innovation
- Communication and interpersonal skills
- Practical and professional skills
- Critical thinking and research skills as well as appropriate professional and personal
- Attitudes and values
The projects undertaken in this subject offer a methodological engagement and scale of process preparation for Major Project where the quality of integration of research and practics determine the level of excellence and innovation. This 12 point subject provides a preparation for the Major Project commitment of 24 credit points. In some instances projects may be undertaken where the site of research is a workplace. In this case an agreement must be reached between academic supervisor, student and employer at the outset of the subject.
Teaching and learning strategies
Weekly on campus: 1 hr lecture, 3 hr tutorial, 2 hr laboratory x 4 for Weeks 1-7.
Face-to-face in small groups, supervision sessions in small groups or one on one; scheduled lectures weekly with occasional guest lectures at other times; workshops/laboratories timetabled intensively for the first half of semester. These experiences will incorporate a range of teaching and learning strategies including emphasis on student led practices including short presentations, exhibition, displays and written submissions.
Content
The lectures, studio and workshops will discuss the following topics
1. Practice-based research - approaches to contextual and creative/generative engagement in a design context.2. Identification of a research question and methods appropriate to the question (inquiry).3. Generation of designs that communicate coherent and imaginative connections between the contextual and the generative findings.4. Strategies to develop visual languages through visual experimentation;5. Critical engagement through reflection on research process, research findings, designed response and project management informed by self review, peer review and literature review.Workshops will support the research, design and communication process.Assessment
Assessment Item 1: Propose, plan, play, present.
| Objective(s): | a, b, c |
| Weighting: | 50% |
Assessment Item 2: Design
| Objective(s): | e, d |
| Weighting: | 30% |
Assessment Item 3: Reflect, plan
| Objective(s): | f |
| Weighting: | 20% |
Required texts
Jen and Kenn Viscocky O’Grady A designer’s research manual Succeed in design By Knowing your Clients
and what they really need Rockport 2007-02-09
Ian Noble and Russell Bestley Visual Research: an introduction to research methodologies in graphic
design AVA Publication 2005
Recommended texts
Laurel, Brenda (editor) Design Research Methods and Perspectives,The MIT Press 2003
References
• Boud, D. Keogh, R. and Walker, D. (eds.), 1985, Reflection: Turning experience into learning, Kogan
Page, London. Buchanan, R., Doordan, D., Justice, L. and Margolin, V. (eds.) 1999, 'Doctoral Education
in Design', Carnegie Mellon University Press, Pittsburgh.
• De Freitas, N. 2000, 'Research Methodologies in Art and Design: Some Contradictions in Practice', New
Zealand Association for Research in Education Conference, 30 Nov - 3 Dec 2000, University of Waikato,
New Zealand.
• Gray, Carole and Julian Malins, 2004, Visualizing research: a guide to the research process in art and
design, Ashgate, Burlington
• Jarvis, Peter. 1999 The Researcher-Practitioner: Developing Theory from Practice, Jossey-Bass
Publishers, San Francisco
• Mason, John. (2002) Researching your own Practice: The Discipline of Noticing, Routledge, London
• Miles, M. and Huberman, M. 1994, Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook. Sage
Rose, G. 2001, Visual Methodologies: An introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. Sage.
• Spinosa, C., Flores F., and Dreyfus, H.L. 1997, Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship, Democratic
Action, and the cultivation of Solidarity, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.
• Twemlow, Alice. What is Graphic Design For? Rotovision SA Switzerland 2006
Tufte, E. 1990 Envisioning Information, Graphics Press
Journals
• Artefact - Journal Of Virtual Design
• Design Issues
• Design Studies
• Journal of Design Research
• Working Papers In Art And Design
• Architectural Design Research
Project-Based Design Research + Discourse On Design
