Design research and the study of the possible

Design research has much to contribute to and much to gain from the emerging field of possibility studies. In this short essay, I discuss these opportunities with respect to four topics: (1) processes of mediation and representation, (2) systems perspectives on creative work, (3) methodological options for investigation, and (4) educational challenges that should be addressed. Considering design research’s contributions to each of these topics raises interesting questions that possibility studies might address as it develops. Conversely, possibility studies is already raising issues that design research should also attend to.


Introduction
In this short essay, I reflect on my understanding of the possible, especially as it relates to design research. I structure the essay around some of the topics raised in the Journal's first editorial (REF: Glaveanu Editorial), considering the way those topics intersect with design research, and how possibility studies might further address them as it develops.
I first start with a brief description of design and design research as I mean them in this essay.
Design activities are most easily identified in the design professions, such as architecture, product design, engineering design and graphic design. There are many such design disciplines, each with various specialisms, but they generally focus on devising a plan for how something should be and representing that plan so that it can be implemented. Design activities can also be seen outside the design professions, where people who are generally not described as 'designers' (and who would not identify as such) undertake work to develop novel plans. This broader concept of design would include some of the actions of many people, such as doctors (designing treatments), lawyers (designing rules) and teachers (designing classes). Design research has typically focussed on activities that are well aligned with the practices of the design professions, but has also focussed on how well those practices transfer to these other varied domains (for an overview, see Cross, 2019).
Having explained what I mean by design, I now turn to the topics raised in the editorial. In particular, I select four of those topics from the 15 that are listed there: 'the possible is mediated', 'possibility related phenomena should be studied as systems', 'the study of the possible requires diverse and creative methodologies' and 'pedagogies of the possible are an educational necessity'. I select these four, either because I identify them as topics that design research can contribute to, or because I have particular interests in them.

The possible is mediated
Design research has always been concerned with the mediated nature of creative activities. Designers don't just imagine possible alternatives through the construction of internal mental representations, they also explore them through words, gestures, sketches, drawings, models and prototypes. Through constructing these external representations, designers explore the situation as it is, and develop proposals for how it might be. The representations that are constructed don't just capture completed ideas, but make emerging ideas more visible and tangible, supporting imagination. This permits designers to make new discoveries in those representations, discoveries that are responded to with new representations, and so on. Designers are thus said to be in a dialogue with the representational media they work with. Even a designer who is seemingly working alone is really working with the representations being constructed (e.g. see Schon & Wiggins, 1992).
Whereas some creative practices result in the artefact of interest (e.g. a painting), in many cases the designer's final output is a representation of the artefact of interest (e.g. a drawing of a product). Sometimes a representation such as a drawing of an existing product will also be the point of departure that initiates the design process. In this sense, designers are experts in representations because those representations figure in the starting point, process and outputs of design work. Designers use this expertise to strategically move between different modes of representation to exploit what each one offers and to overcome each one's limitations. More generally, even the final product that results from a design process can be seen as a medium through which designers attempt to communicate with that product's users. Such communication might focus on what the product is, what qualities it possesses, how it should be used and what it might say about the user (e.g. see Crilly et al., 2008).
A potential topic for possibility studies is to understand the range of media and types of representation that are used in the diverse practices that the field looks at. What kinds of representations are constructed and why? What influence do these representations have on the exploration of the possible and how is such influence accommodated? What is happening in situations where the possible is being explored but where external representations are not apparent?

Possibility related phenomena should be studied as systems
Designers can be seen to operate within systems that include not just people, but also the organisations they work with, the physical environments they are situated in, the tools they use, and the larger economic, societal and environmental context that their work relates to. These different components can all be seen as influential on the design process, or even agentive in it. However, taking a systems view would suggest that such influences are not uni-directional, and that each component might be influencing the others, often in ways that include feedback, non-linearity and delays. For example, the rise of machine learning technologies that support creative work is opening up new representational opportunities that make the attribution of agency -or even creativity -difficult. The human designer and the computer work as a system, with each influencing the behaviour and capabilities of the other in unpredictable forms of dialogue (for a recent editorial, see Lloyd et al., 2022).
There is also another sense in which design can be studied as a system, but as a system of ideas. Many studies of creative behaviour focus on problem solving, where the problem is set at the beginning and the possible solutions are searched for or generated. Design research has always focussed on how the problem being addressed by designers is re-visited during their creative work. As proposals for solutions are explored, the interpretation of the problem might change -either slightly or radically -because the possible solutions tell the designers new things about the problem. In a systems interpretation of this, we can imagine that the 'space' within which designers are operating is an ecology of ideas, not just of problems and solutions, but also of opportunities, constraints, processes and modes of representation. Ideas about these things might be seen to interact in complex ways as they co-evolve: as each one develops it shapes the environment within which the others develop, and such environments further shape such development (see recent reviews in Crilly, 2021aCrilly, , 2021b).
An interesting issue for possibility studies is to explore the range of things that make up the most relevant systems or ecologies for the diverse practices that the field looks at. At different levels of analysis, what components are most relevant and how do they interact? What interactions occur across these different levels of analysis, such as from micro to macro, or from short-term to longterm? When considering the possible, what systems do people recognise themselves and their ideas as operating in, and what is the influence of that recognition?
The study of the possible requires diverse and creative methodologies Design research embraces diverse methodological approaches, ranging from philosophical analysis, ethnographic research and industry case studies through to quantitative surveys, controlled experiments and neuroimaging studies. Of course, design researchers have also developed novel research methods that are specifically tailored to the people, processes and tools that are being investigated. This methodological range is well suited to the equally varied questions that are addressed and the perspectives from which those questions are viewed. However, as with any interdisciplinary study there are some challenges in how this diversity is managed. There is evidence of fragmentation, with research from different methodological traditions becoming isolated from each other despite focussing on the same general topics (for an analysis, see McMahon, 2012).
One consequence of fragmentation is methodological conformity, where a research topic becomes associated with a certain approach, and that approach determines the research questions that are asked, rather than the other way round. Such problems mean that it is not always easy to connect the findings of studies on the same topic where different methods have been employed. This is because although the same words are used to describe those topics across methods, when examined more closely the different methods are really being addressed to quite different aspects of those topics. For example, a qualitative study on creative design might emphasise persistence over many months or years (and de-emphasise divergent idea generation), but a short laboratory study ostensibly on the same topic can't observe such persistence (and reports on ideational fluency instead). Similar observations can be made for creativity research more generally, where the analytic biographical studies of creative individuals and the experimental studies of creative behaviour have very little thematic overlap or conceptual exchange (for a discussion of these issues, see Crilly, 2019).
A difficult challenge for possibility studies will be to navigate the landscape of pluralistic practices, topics, perspectives and research methods. How can the field support intellectual freedom without suffering fragmentation? What research questions will unite researchers from different traditions, and how can they be assisted in coordinating their efforts? What research methods and reporting standards will connect studies of completely different practices or domains, even if they all relate to the possible?

Pedagogies of the possible are an educational necessity
In recent years, there has been growing recognition of the importance of creativity, design and innovation across different levels of education and different industrial sectors. Much of traditional education emphasises the power of analysis, and the solving of set problems with a single correct answer. This is in contrast to much of what design education focusses on, where problem finding might be as important as problem solving, and where there may not be any 'answer', let alone a correct one. Even from an early stage, design students often work on challenges that are multifaceted and where the objectives and constraints might be unknown, unknowable or contradictory. Students often make progress on such challenges through immersion in the relevant contexts, developing an understanding of the key stakeholders, generating a wide range of proposals and iteratively developing them through the construction and testing of low-fidelity prototypes (for a teaching resource, see Cross, 2021).
The way that design is taught and the way that designers work has increasingly been recognised as relevant to a broad range of professional practices outside the traditional design disciplines. Key to this has been abstracting from these specific practices to make them more generally applicable, and referring to design as a way of thinking that others can adopt. Education in 'design thinking' has consequently become a much discussed topic, with articles, books and courses all describing how creative and innovative outcomes can be obtained through design (meant in its broadest sense). This is accompanied by similar projects that emphasise how other professional practices also have their own ways of exploring, testing and implementing the possible, such as the work of entrepreneurs ('entrepreneurial thinking') and computer scientists ('computational thinking'). In each case, the idea is that although such thinking originates in particular disciplines, it can be usefully transferred to others (for one analysis of the development of design thinking, see Auernhammer & Roth, 2021).
An exciting opportunity for possibility studies is to look much more widely across the diverse practices that focus on the possible. Artistic practices, craft practices and many others also have their own distinctive approach to engaging with the world, trying to understand it and trying to change it. How is possibilistic thinking actually manifest in specific disciplines? What differences are there, and also what is common? What opportunities for transfer could there be, and how should the required knowledge, skills and tools be packaged for wider dissemination?

Conclusion
In this short essay I have tried to illustrated just a few of the ways in which the work done in design research might inform possibility studies. What is just as interesting is the ways in which possibility studies will inform design research, especially on the 11 topics that I have not referred to from Glaveanu's editorial. For example, I would have found it harder to connect design research to discussions of how 'experiences of the possible transform the self', 'experiences of the possible foster mental health' or 'an ethics of possibility is imperative'. As possibility studies explores and develops topics such as this, it will be in a position to contribute to what we know about design, and to what design research investigates. However, design research is just one of the many disciplines that might be connected to the study of the possible. Design is closely related to other disciplines such as entrepreneurship studies and innovation studies on the one hand, or craft studies and art studies on the other. As it establishes itself, possibility studies should explore the way these different disciplines have developed, the practices they have focussed on, the questions they have asked, the methods they have used and the knowledge they have generated. However, it should also identify what those disciplines, with their specific interests, have not done, have overlooked, have ignored and have conflated. That is interesting to imagine, and will be fascinating to see.

Author's note
There is no data underlying this essay other than the works cited. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.

Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.