Square one.
I have no idea what I’m doing. But that’s the fun part.
One of the main reasons I took this new teaching gig was because of the opportunity I have to start a design lab. I worked for about 10 years as a visual/interaction designer in industry and while the design problems were still interesting and intriguing, generally speaking, they were the same challenges, just repackaged. I love design in all its forms and wanted to explore the discipline from different angles, namely writing, research, and the integration of visual communication design into emerging forms of product design.
In starting a design lab, there are many questions: with whom to collaborate, where to collaborate, what materials and equipment to purchase, how to raise future funds, how to market and generate interest in the design + technology community. Luckily, I have other new faculty interested in similar veins. I also have the backing and resources of a tier one research institution. So one of my first steps is to research other design labs (I’m especially inspired by what Emily Pilloton’s doing with Studio H) and talk to principle investigators at various universities to find out the basics of forming a lab.
And while a design lab might be different than a pure scientific one in terms of overall process, experimentation, execution, and end product, my guess is that there will be a lot of similarities. Here are a few research starting points:
Institute of Design (d:school) at Stanford
Now, if I could only get some face time with Nicholas Negroponte….