Design Research is a new interdisciplinary research area with a social science orientation at its heart, and this book explores how scientific knowledge can be put into practice in ways that are at once ethical, creative, helpful, and extraordinary in their results. In order to clarify the common aspects - in terms of features and approaches - that characterize all strands of research disciplines addressing design, Design Research undertakes an in-depth exploration of the social processes involved in doing design, as well as analyses of the contexts for design use. The book further elicits 'synergies from interdisciplinary perspectives' by discussing and elaborating on differing academic perspectives, theoretical backgrounds, and design concept definitions, and evaluating their unique contribution to a general core of design research. This book is an exciting contribution to this little explored field, and offers a truly interdisciplinary approach to the treatment of design and the design process. It is valuable reading for students in disciplines such as design studies and theory, participatory design, informatics, arts based education, planning, sociology, and interdisciplinary programmes in humanities and technology.

In the twenty-first century, more than ever, everything and everybody seems to be on the move. Global flows of people, goods, food, money, information, services and media images are forming an intensely mobile background to everyday life. Social scientists, too, are on the move, seeking new analytical purchase on these important aspects of the social world by trying to move with, and to be moved by, the fleeting, distributed, multiple, non-causal, sensory, emotional and kinaesthetic. Mobile Methods addresses the challenges and opportunities of researching mobile phenomena. Drawing on extensive interdisciplinary discussion, the book brings together a collection of cutting-edge methodological innovations and original research reports to examine some important implications of the mobilities turn for the processes of 'research', and the realm of the empirical. Through analysis that addresses questions such as 'how are social relationships and social institutions made in and through mobility?', and 'how do people experience mobility in twenty-first century world cities?', the authors mobilize sociological analysis, bringing new insights and opening up new opportunities for engagement with contemporary challenges. This book is a key text for undergraduate and postgraduate students of disciplines including Human Geography, Social Policy, Sociology and Research Methods.

Design Research is a new interdisciplinary research area with a social science orientation at its heart, and this book explores how scientific knowledge can be put into practice in ways that are at once ethical, creative, helpful, and extraordinary in their results.

In order to clarify the common aspects - in terms of features and approaches - that characterize all strands of research disciplines addressing design, Design Research undertakes an in-depth exploration of the social processes involved in doing design, as well as analyses of the contexts for design use. The book further elicits 'synergies from interdisciplinary perspectives' by discussing and elaborating on differing academic perspectives, theoretical backgrounds, and design concept definitions, and evaluating their unique contribution to a general core of design research.

This book is an exciting contribution to this little explored field, and offers a truly interdisciplinary approach to the treatment of design and the design process. It is valuable reading for students in disciplines such as design studies and theory, participatory design, informatics, arts based education, planning, sociology, and interdisciplinary programmes in humanities and technology.

'User-designer relations' concerns the sorts of working relationships that arise between developers and end users of IT products - the different ways designers of IT products seek to engage with users, and the ways users seek to influence product design. It is through the shifting patterns of these relations that IT products are realised. Although it has generally been accepted that achieving better user-designer relations will improve the quality of IT products, there has been little consensus on how this might be achieved. This book aims to deepen our understanding of the relationships between users and designers both as they emerge in the wild and as a consequence of our attempts to intervene. Through a series of case studies the book juxtaposes in-depth explorations of different perspectives and approaches to thinking about - and doing - user-designer relations, considering important implications for design and computer science more generally.

'User-designer relations' concerns the sorts of working relationships that arise between developers and end users of IT products - the different ways designers of IT products seek to engage with users, and the ways users seek to influence product design. It is through the shifting patterns of these relations that IT products are realised. Although it has generally been accepted that achieving better user-designer relations will improve the quality of IT products, there has been little consensus on how this might be achieved. This book aims to deepen our understanding of the relationships between users and designers both as they emerge in the wild and as a consequence of our attempts to intervene. Through a series of case studies the book juxtaposes in-depth explorations of different perspectives and approaches to thinking about - and doing - user-designer relations, considering important implications for design and computer science more generally.

In the twenty-first century, more than ever, everything and everybody seems to be on the move. Global flows of people, goods, food, money, information, services and media images are forming an intensely mobile background to everyday life. Social scientists, too, are on the move, seeking new analytical purchase on these important aspects of the social world by trying to move with, and to be moved by, the fleeting, distributed, multiple, non-causal, sensory, emotional and kinaesthetic. Mobile Methods addresses the challenges and opportunities of researching mobile phenomena. Drawing on extensive interdisciplinary discussion, the book brings together a collection of cutting-edge methodological innovations and original research reports to examine some important implications of the mobilities turn for the processes of 'research', and the realm of the empirical. Through analysis that addresses questions such as 'how are social relationships and social institutions made in and through mobility?', and 'how do people experience mobility in twenty-first century world cities?', the authors mobilize sociological analysis, bringing new insights and opening up new opportunities for engagement with contemporary challenges. This book is a key text for undergraduate and postgraduate students of disciplines including Human Geography, Social Policy, Sociology and Research Methods.