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DESIGN Conference 2026: Workshop 3 - Mapping Validity in Design Research
Location: Hotel Croatia, Cavtat, Croatia (Room TBC)
Dates: 18 May 2026 (Time TBC)
Chairs: Philip Cash, Katja Thoring, Roland Mueller, Romain Pinquie, Kai Larsen, Roman Lukyanenko
Organised by: Design Research Quality SIG
Validity is a central issue in determining the quality of research. However, it is often not reported or only reported at an overall level in design research publications, preventing effective evaluation of quality concerns as well as limiting the ability of the field to develop deeper quality discussions. Critically, validity is multifaceted and has numerous (often unreported) elements and trade-offs, which typically require specific accommodations being adopted for design research. Hence, in this workshop we will facilitate a mapping of the major validity constructs across the represented span of design research.
To do this, we will build on award-winning work by Larsen et al. (2020) and Larsen et al. (2025) on validity in design science, whose authors are amongst our workshop chairs and organising team. This will also draw together work by e.g., Brubaker and Cash on research quality as well as empirical work carried out by the SIG. This covers the centrality of claim types in validating designs and establishes the relationships between claims, design artifacts, evaluations, and validity types. It further explains the evaluative process’s requirement for criterion reference artifacts.
We will aim to examine the variety of validity constructs, how they apply to different branches of design research, such as design science, DRM and intervention type methodologies, as well as more social science aligned design research. At a later point we will expand this to also consider those methodologies linked to research through design and the DRS community.
As part of the workshop, we will develop a mapping of validity constructs and relationships and then examine their application/relevance for different areas of design research. This will form a practical and immediate output for workshop attendees.
Following this, we will further develop the mapping via systematic review of the design literature, follow-up discussions, and further engagement with the community to publish at least one research article mapping validity constructs and concerns across the design research space, as well as a potential methodological follow-up article focused on the implementation of validity concerns when developing research. These will produce practical outputs usable by the wider Design Society community and serve as a landmark for discussion of this topic in the design research field.
