Materializing Design

An ongoing SSHRC funded research group housed at Concordia University in Montreal, led by Dr. Rilla Khaled.

Main Objective

  • To develop best practices and workflows for game makers to document, archive, and reflect on their work, aka the Method for Design Materialization (MDM).
  • To progressively build a set of public-facing online game development repositories, documented using MDM, supporting future research into game design practice.
  • To transparently employ grounded theory analysis to inform evidence-based patterns for how game design actually happens.
  • To surface and materialize game design processes for an audience of academics, members of the game industry, design practitioners, and the general game-curious public.

Method for Design Materialization

Design reasoning and activity happen
  • in context, and
  • in response to constraints or intentions, and
  • in response to material conditions and work environments, and
  • in relation to timelines, and
  • in relation to prior experience, and
  • in embodied states, and
  • in subjectivity.

Materializing design activity therefore involves intentionally surfacing context, constraints, timelines, materials, experience, and subjectivity. Design activity also involves exploration of multiple solutions that may impact significantly on the designer’s reasoning process, but which the external world may never encounter.

The Method for Design Materialization (MDM) is a methodological approach to design practice documentation that connects design reasoning and materials, in order to make design processes traceable.

continue

MDM Archives

view all

Publications

  • (2025) Tracing Research Through Design with Ponte: Bridging game development repositories and qualitative research tools. Granzotto Llagostera, E., Khaled, R., & Sinervo, K.
    https://doi.org/10.1145/3723498.3723821
  • (2024) Reflective Surfaces: Experimenting with Playful, Playable Publication Formats. Khaled, R., Sinervo, K. A., Ali, M. S., Barr, P., Bethancourt, M., Kocken, F., Limeburner, C., & Nickel, V.
    https://doi.org/10.1145/3656156.3665435
  • (2023) Generative Logics and Conceptual Clicks: A Case Study of the Method for Design Materialization. Khaled, R., & Barr, P.
    https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00706
  • (2018) Documenting trajectories in design space: A methodology for applied game design research. Khaled, R., Lessard, J., & Barr, P.
    https://doi.org/10.1145/3235765.3235767