Overview

A chapter on theory as a research technique is strange as, in a way, what is academic research about if it is not about theory? Without theory we may be engaged in product development, or data gathering, but not research. This said, there is of course also a spiritus mundi against theory: in abstracting away from the particular, theory is seen as at best simplistic and at worst reductionist and dangerous. And of course in popular language a theory is an unsubstantiated guess, almost the opposite of the scientific understanding of theory!

A theoretical approach is also not so much a method or technique that is applied to research, but an attitude and a desire to make sense of and to understand, in some ordered way, the phenomena around us. This approach can influence design and research methodology; indeed those most avowedly atheoretical in their methods are often most theoretical in their methodology!

Theories, that is systematic and structured bodies of knowledge, are the raw material for both research and practical design, but are also the outcomes of research and often the results of more informal reflection on experience. As we shall discuss shortly, theory is the language of generalisation, the way we move from one particular to another with confidence.

And theories can be more basic still. A tiny baby watches her moving fingers, hits out at a ball and sees it move, gradually making sense of the relation between feelings and effects; the building, testing and use of theory are as essential a part of our lives as feeding and breathing.