Guide to Socially-Informed Research for Architects and Designers

Michelle Janning is the Raymond and Elsie DeBurgh Chair of Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at Whitman College.

• Introduction: Incorporating Socially-Informed Research into Design – The WHY 1. Framing a Project’s Goals and Research Question – The WHAT 2. Choosing a Research Method to Inform Design – The HOW 3. Choosing a Sample and Communicating with People during the Research Process – The WHO 4. Setting and Pace for Data Collection – The WHERE and WHEN 5. Telling the Data Story with Analysis and Presentation – Continuing the HOW Conclusion: Informing Future Design and Designing Socially Sustainable Communities – Revisiting the WHY

'I am always answering the question of "why" as I practice interior design. Solutions may appear as beautiful draperies or furniture, but they are physical manifestations to specific analysis that includes client needs, wants and constraints. But I haven't always thought about inherent prejudices and assumptions that I may bring to a project. Michelle gives academic tools to designers and architects to help them reach beyond their personal framework and create a more inclusive analysis of what constitutes good design.' - Robin Daly, Interior Designer, Robin Daly Color & Design'As a leader in social science research on space and interactions, Janning is the ideal guide to help designers better understand the value of sociology in the work they do. Janning is intellectually, disciplinarily, and methodologically promiscuous in ways that make this book an incredible and one-of-a-kind resource. With accessible and engaging prose, I imagine this how-to will make amateur sociologists out of a collection of designers to the benefit of all the rest of us who engage and interact with their decisions and designs.' - Tristan Bridges, Vice Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara