The Role of Hypothesis in Constructive Design Research

It is, today, widely appreciated that Research-through-Design – or Constructive Design Research as we will call it in this paper – allows for designers to produce knowledge based on the skills and capacities of the design field itself.
However, most of the research fails to bridge the gap between the general notions of constructive design research and the detailed research activities of the field. We therefore suggest bridging this methodological gap in the academic discussion with what we have ended up calling the “entrance level of constructive design research”.
As a step towards to a more nuanced and solid perspective on how to keep constructive design research on track, this paper offers a model for understanding the role of hypothesis in constructive design research. The model allows for understanding the hypothesis’s relation to research motivation, questions, experiments, evaluation and knowledge production. The intention of the model is to have it serve as a tool in the research process aiding the researcher to understand at what “level” discussions and claims are brought forward, and what consequences these might have for the research work at hand. Thus, the paper claims the central position of the hypothesis as a key-governing element even in artistic led research processes.