Design Accountability: When Design Research entangles Theory and Practice

When design research builds on design practice, it may contribute to design in ways richer than research that treats design as a topic. Such research, however, faces several tensions that it has to negotiate successfully in order not to lose its character as research. This paper looks at constructive design research which takes the entanglement of theory and practice as its hallmark, and uses it as a test case in exploring how design researchers can work with theory, methodology, and practice without losing their identity as design researchers.