Materializing Design
About
Design reasoning and activity happens
- 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 reasoning process of the designer, but which the external world may never encounter.
Materializing Design is a SSHRC funded research group that is investigating epistemological grounding for games research. Our goals are:
- 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.
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.
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
Reading List
- Barr, P., 2023. The Stuff Games Are Made Of
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262546119/the-stuff-games-are-made-of/ - Beck, K. L., Beedle, M. A., Bennekum, A. van, Cockburn, A., Cunningham, W., Fowler, M., Grenning, J., Highsmith, J., Hunt, A., Jeffries, R., Kern, J., Marick, B., Martin, R. C., Mellor, S. J., Schwaber, K., Sutherland, J., & Thomas, D. A., 2013. Manifesto for Agile Software Development
https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:109006295 - Beckett, S. J., 2017. The Logic of the Design Problem: A Dialectical Approach
https://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00470 - Bowers, J., 2012. The logic of annotated portfolios: Communicating the value of "research through design"
https://doi.org/10.1145/2317956.2317968 - Breslin, M., & Buchanan, R., 2008. On the Case Study Method of Research and Teaching in Design
https://doi.org/10.1162/desi.2008.24.1.36 - Cash, P. J., 2018. Developing theory-driven design research
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2018.03.002 - Chapman, O., 2012. Research-Creation: Intervention, Analysis and"Family Resemblances"
https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2012v37n1a2489 - Charrieras, D., & Ivanova, N., 2016. Emergence in video game production: Video game engines as technical individuals
https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018416642056 - Chiapello, L., 2017. Epistemological Underpinnings in Game Design Research
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322684728_Epistemological_Underpinnings_in_Game_Design_Research - Cole, T., & Gillies, M., 2022. More than a bit of coding: (Un-)Grounded (non-)Theory in HCI
https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3516392 - Costa, N., Patrício, L., & Morelli, N., 2018. A designerly-way of conducting qualitative research in design studies
https://doi.org/10.1145/3235765.3235767 - Cross, N., 2006. Designerly ways of knowing
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6756-8 - Dewey, J., 1933. How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37423/37423-h/37423-h.htm - Dixon, B., 2019. Experiments in Experience: Towards an Alignment of Research through Design and John Dewey's Pragmatism
https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00531 - Failure, 2019. In J. Sharp, C. Macklin, S. Davis, Y. J. Chen, T. Ozkan, & C. M. Pitarch, Iterate
https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/10826.003.0005 - Frascara, J., 2007. Hiding Lack of Knowledge: Bad Words in Design Education
https://doi.org/10.1162/desi.2007.23.4.62 - Frayling, C., 1993. Research in art and design
https://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/id/eprint/384/ - Godin, D., & Zahedi, M., 2014. Aspects of Research through Design: A Literature Review
https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2014/researchpapers/85 - Granzotto Llagostera, E., Khaled, R., & Sinervo, K., 2025. Tracing Research Through Design with Ponte: Bridging game development repositories and qualitative research tools
https://doi.org/10.1145/3723498.3723821 - Halstrøm, P. L., 2016. Design as Value Celebration: Rethinking Design Argumentation
https://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00415 - Iteration, 2019. In J. Sharp, C. Macklin, S. Davis, Y. J. Chen, T. Ozkan, & C. M. Pitarch, Iterate
https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/10826.003.0006 - Jung, H., Wiltse, H., Wiberg, M., & Stolterman, E., 2017. Metaphors, materialities, and affordances: Hybrid morphologies in the design of interactive artifacts
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2017.06.004 - Khaled, R., & Barr, P., 2023. Generative Logics and Conceptual Clicks: A Case Study of the Method for Design Materialization
https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00706 - Khaled, R., Lessard, J., & Barr, P., 2018. Documenting trajectories in design space: A methodology for applied game design research
https://doi.org/10.1145/3235765.3235767 - Khaled, R., Sinervo, K. A., Ali, M. S., Barr, P., Bethancourt, M., Kocken, F., Limeburner, C., & Nickel, V., 2024. Reflective Surfaces: Experimenting with Playful, Playable Publication Formats
https://doi.org/10.1145/3656156.3665435 - Krippendorff, K., 1989. On the Essential Contexts of Artifacts or on the Proposition That "Design Is Making Sense (Of Things)"
https://doi.org/10.2307/1511512 - Kultima, A., 2018. Game Design Praxiology
https://trepo.tuni.fi/handle/10024/103315 - Llagostera, E., & Khaled, R., 2023. ON COOKING A SOUR GAME
https://gamescriticism.org/2023/07/27/on-cooking-a-sour-game/ - Moon, J. A., 2008. A handbook of reflective and experiential learning: Theory and practice
https://www.routledge.com/A-Handbook-of-Reflective-and-Experiential-Learning-Theory-and-Practice/Moon/p/book/9780415401418 - Rasmussen, S., Fritsch, J., & Hansen, N. B., 2019. A Design Archival Approach to Knowledge Production in Design Research and Practice
https://doi.org/10.1145/3369457.3369476 - Saldaña, J., 2025. The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers
https://collegepublishing.sagepub.com/products/the-coding-manual-for-qualitative-researchers-5-287917 - Salisbury, J., & Cole, T., 2016. Grounded Theory in Games Research: Making the Case and Exploring the Options
http://www.digra.org/digital-library/publications/grounded-theory-in-games-research-making-the-case-and-exploring-the-options/ - Schön, D. A., 1983. The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315237473 - Smith, K. M., 2018. Producing the Rigorous Design Case
https://doi.org/10.14434/ijdl.v1i1.917 - Spector, J. M., Lockee, B. B., & Childress, M. D. (Eds.), 2023. Learning, Design, and Technology: An International Compendium of Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17461-7 - Wiberg, M., 2022. Approaching Things that Trigger Things: A Review of Three Shifts in the Character of Things and Their Implications for Design
https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00671 - Writing a Critical Reflective Journal, 2022. In S. J. Deeley, Assessment and Service-Learning in Higher Education
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94440-7_3 - Zahedi, M., & Tessier, V., 2023. Designerly activity theory supporting research-through-design
https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/iasdr/iasdr2023/fullpapers/97 - Zielhuis, M., Sleeswijk Visser, F., Andriessen, D., & Stappers, P. J., 2022. Making design research relevant for design practice: What is in the way?
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2021.101063