Probious: researching Australian communication design through collaboration and design practice

This article contributes to mounting evidence of the value of participatory methods in discovering knowledge about design. It discusses an on-going study into the experiences and self-perceptions of Australian communication designers, focusing on designers' contribution to research direction and methods. We argue that researcher-driven approaches to knowledge production are too reductive to discover critical information about complex, human phenomena like design, especially where they occur in diverse circumstances. A variety of design-led interactions saw designers and researchers jointly develop research tools and questions to enhance the study's relevance to the design community and establish the foundations for a collaborative research partnership. To engage designers' participation and guidance, the research design process used familiar language and practices. The stress on creative processes in the resultant cultural probes was vital in allowing participants to reflect on their practices, experiences and situations in open-ended ways, rather than pre-empting research questions as with established social survey methods. The article reports some early research findings, but mainly presents an epistemological and methodological discussion on the importance of involving those being researched in research design, reflexive collaboration challenging researchers' perspectives on the issues under investigation.