DRS2012 Bangkok Proceedings Vol 4 - Design Research Society

Leandro Miletto TONETTO, Filipe Campelo Xavier DA COSTA
Even being artificial, it is naturalistic in terms of the size of the choice set. The average
size of the choice set was investigated. From this number, two experimental groups were
planned: one of them presenting 50% of the average choice set of each product
evaluated, and the other one with 150%, leading to three groups (a control group with the
average choice set size and the two described experimental groups). These results help
professionals when designing health and care collections and mixes of products.
Although this paper can be understood more as an argumentative essay than a researchorientated
study, we believe that it provides enough information for the authors to state
that the first choice when planning design experiments is still the artificial setting, due to
its higher potential to keep the study’s internal validity high. If the artificial setting
threatens the study’s external validity, then a naturalistic real-world experiment can be
more interesting. High external validity might not be worth having, if the paid price is low
internal validity.
The authors believe that the understanding of the benefits of laboratorial experiments
(developed in artificial environments) can bring into design research more interesting
results in terms of internal validity. On the other hand, it is crucial to understand that
laboratories are not always the best choice. The design field, different from some natural
sciences, requires from researchers flexibility when planning experiments. The usual
choice is not always the best choice to be made. The authors also suggest that the
arguments presented in this paper should inspire a next step of investigation (researchbased),
to improve, through the use of design experiments, the validity of the discussed
arguments.
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