2007/10/06: Design science vs "routine design"

Design science suffers more from diffuse boundaries with practice than I think behavioral science does, and this makes it hard for me to wrap my mind around what exactly differentiates design science from innovative design performed outside the research community. I am very interested in using design research to propel my own research, and so knowing what characteristics it has so that I can increase the probability of that whatever I do will be accepted, insofar as the form of the research is concerned.

Hevner et. al. say that the goal of design science is to provide utility; to solve a real problem, but not to show why the solution works (p. 80). They differentiate design science from "routine design" like so: routine design applies existing IS knowledge to solve current organizational problems (e.g. implementing yet another web server using best design principles is "routine design"), while design science "addresses important unsolved problems in unique or innovative ways or solved problems in more effective or efficient ways" (p. 81). Design science is frequently applied to problems for which the necessary IS knowledge may not yet exist. Its purpose is to address what have been called wicked problems (all of the below from p. 81):

• unstable requirements and constraints based on poorly defined or understood contexts

• complex interactions among subcomponents of the problem and its solution

• malleable processes and artifacts

• a critical dependence on creativity ( intuitive knowledge processes) to provide good solutions

• a critical dependence on social abilities (teamwork) to provide good solutions

I think that are a lot of innovative solutions being proposed and implemented outside the IS research community (Yahoo Pipes and various google products, for example), so I feel like the emphasis on innovation is not an effective distinguishing characteristic.

It is, I believe, the focus on the IS research community it is Hevner et. al.'s guidelines 4, 5 and 7 (research contributions, research rigor and communication of research, p. 83) that distinguishes design science most from innovative design. Those guidelines are really saying that if we innovate with the intention of furthering the goals of science, and contextualize it within the IS knowledge base and community by writing it up and communicating it back to the IS research community, then we are doing design science.