PhD Topic?

Im considering doing a PhD sometime next year, but starting to look in to it. I completed my Masters earlier this year and I want to increase my knowledge instead of bobing along in my job. I’m a bit unsure on my topic but I’m getting interested in economics at the moment and have always hold a interest for usability/interaction/cognitive psychology.

I know its a bit of a long shot but does anyone know a area that would combine economics, cognitive psychology and design? I would want to do something project based…so I can design some stuff.

Also, has anyone done or doing a design related PhD? how did they find it? Is it easy to raise some funding? What did you get in to after completing?

Wolfie - One of the best (and sometimes worst) thing about doing a PhD is that you have to come up with a topic. So if you’re interested in doing something with econ and cog psych and design, there’s no reason you couldn’t pull together a committee of the right people wherever you wind up going to school. Of course you’ll need to convice them of the academic value and rigor of the topic.

Second point is that other than financial aid, the most important thing about picking a PhD program is the professor/advisor that you will work with. In fact you want to think more in terms of applying to a particular professor, whose work interests you, rather than a particular school.

good 2nd point…I have approached the RCA and they said they could give me some feedback on my proposal…but I needed to define a topic. Yet I was inspired during my research for my MA report (on Emotional Design) by Don Norman and Pieter Desmet…but there not at a London uni…Can you have a long distance supervisor? Or a co-uni PhD? I don’t really want to leave London. I kind of regretted not doing my MA at the RCA, that’s why I wanted to do it there…though saying that I got my MA while working in industry. Could I do the same for my PhD? I was thinking of approaching the UK’s Design council (who are based in London) to see if they would be interested in it.

Also, I see you did your Phd in human factors psychology…cool. I was thinking a while back about doing another degree in human factors psychology, which they do at Loughborough…but know I’m thinking a PhD in some cross platform (inc some aspect of human factors psychology) would provide me with my desire to learn a new area, give me some specific skills set instead of another all round ID’er and it would be a bit more flexible rather than fixed syllabus undergrad…also think I could go back to being an undergrad, and Loughborough isn’t a notch on London.

I currently reading a thesis on product attachment by Ruth Mugge…and had a thought this morning (after turning the light off my house mate had left on) that how can you engage someone to be attached to there energy source so they don’t use it so sparingly.

  1. Retail design, particularly Amazon.com
  2. Virtual object design and retailing in MMPORGs (Mulitiplayer worlds.)
  3. The electric car.
  4. Changing consumer attitudes about brands
  5. Challenging Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in post-repressive societies. I think “The Substance of Style” touched on this.

That sounds like an awesome combo. Both economics and psychology are so tied with making a successful design… My pop has a degree in economics, so we are always talking about what is going on in that world, and my wife has a masters in art therapy and I would always get the down loads from all her psy lectures…

IMO all 3 topics are endlessly fascinating.

i have no idea on how you’d actually formulate a firm topic, or what you’d be able to design, but those 3 things to me speak to the perceived value of industrial design and how the consumer relates form to cost.

maybe something along the lines of an analysis of different materials or brand solutions to similar design problems and how something as simple as one formal language over another affects perception. thinking specifically perhaps of how commercial/industrial looking things (ie. stoves, fridges and espresso machines) can make a consumer think theres more value even with less functions or less consumer friendly design.

i’ve just gone through the experience of buying a “prosumer” grade espresso machine and find it interesting that the more expensive machine the harder it is to work, and less “design” you get (ie. stainless steel boxes compared to nicely surfaced plastic things).

R

Cheers for the suggestions cg. I asked Adam Curtis, writer/director of Century of the self (google video ep1), what areas he thought could be interesting and he suggested to “…look at the rise of the “if you like that then you will like this…” marketing of products on places like Amazon. What are the psychological and marketing theories behind it?”

Glad you think it would worth my while to do. I need to make sure that my desire for some more academia is not due having a slowdown at work. And would it be different if I was working somewhere else a bit more engaging? I’m just looking in to the possible route at the moment.

Don Norman wrote a short essay called Simplicity Is Highly Overrated that you might be able to relate to, here’s is a snippet:

Once upon a time, a toaster had one knob to control how much the bread was to be toasted and that was all. A simple lever lowered the bread and started the operation. Toasters cost around $20. But in the Korean store, I found a German toaster for 250,000 Korean Won (about $250). It had complex controls, a motor to lower the untoasted bread and to lift it when finished, and an LCD panel with many cryptic icons, graphs, and numbers. Simplicity?

I’d also recommend reading -

Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student’s Guide to Earning an M.A. or a Ph.D. (Paperback)
by Robert Peters

I don’t know anything at all about design (sorry, long story how I got on here), but I am a prof and have a PhD closely aligned with econ and psych.

You might want to look at some of the research bridging econ and cog. psych and from there, with your design expertise, make connections to a good topic. Have a look for example at U of Chicago, organizational behavior group in the business school (e.g. Thaler and Becks work). As another example, Kahneman’s work at Princeton (he won a Nobel prize bridging the two) or the folks at Harvard (both in psych, like Dan Gilbert; but also some in the bschool). (as an aside, I’m assuming micro, not macro econ is your interest).

There is also a very cool PhD program at Michigan that you might want to check out (not to attend, but to look at the interdisciplinary work they are doing there): http://designscience.umich.edu/program02.html

thanks!

This reply is probably a bit late now, from the original posting date, but may provide useful to others, so…

I don’t think you should write off places like Loughborough as not as cool as London, because in some respects they may offer better opportunities for doctoral level research than the RCA.

Their approaches are different, due to the nature of their particular core strengths. In my opinion, at the RCA there are not so many tutors with in-depth knowledge of cognitive psychology and economics, but plenty on the creative design side. Larger multi-disciplinary universities may provide more opportunities for you to pull together your research interests, as experts in these respective fields may already exist in other departments.

As someone who also looks at these issues in my applied research, i can definitely say it’s an interesting area with plenty of unanswered questions. You mentioned Desmet, and I would also suggest you look up Marc Hassenzahl. Much work has already been done in the areas of Human computer interaction, and i am seeing trends for this being applied to different product areas such as cars and consumer electronics.

Academics here at the University of Warwick always stress the necessity of generating substantial new knowledge in order to get a PhD, and places differ as to how that is measured. I know for example that the Technical University of Delft ID-Studiolab has some quite creative/practical PhD research. You can download examples of past theses from their repository.

As some knid of conclusion, I would say that once you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and what your ideal research proposal is, you will find it easier to assess different offerings. If you’re going to spend three years motivating yourself to do research, it will be easier if it’s something you are really interested in.

Good luck

This reply is probably a bit late now, from the original posting date, but may provide useful to others, so…

I don’t think you should write off places like Loughborough as not as cool as London, because in some respects they may offer better opportunities for doctoral level research than the RCA.

Their approaches are different, due to the nature of their particular core strengths. In my opinion, at the RCA there are not so many tutors with in-depth knowledge of cognitive psychology and economics, but plenty on the creative design side. Larger multi-disciplinary universities may provide more opportunities for you to pull together your research interests, as experts in these respective fields may already exist in other departments.

As someone who also looks at these issues in my applied research, i can definitely say it’s an interesting area with plenty of unanswered questions. You mentioned Desmet, and I would also suggest you look up Marc Hassenzahl. Much work has already been done in the areas of Human computer interaction, and i am seeing trends for this being applied to different product areas such as cars and consumer electronics.

Academics here at the University of Warwick always stress the necessity of generating substantial new knowledge in order to get a PhD, and places differ as to how that is measured. I know for example that the Technical University of Delft ID-Studiolab has some quite creative/practical PhD research. You can download examples of past theses from their repository.

As some knid of conclusion, I would say that once you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and what your ideal research proposal is, you will find it easier to assess different offerings. If you’re going to spend three years motivating yourself to do research, it will be easier if it’s something you are really interested in.

Good luck

Cheers for you comments. I held off diving in to a Phd for a while but its still at the back of my mind. Quite a few folks here at the BBC have done HCI related MA’s at UCL…which I might consider approaching further down the line.