Process not product: Negotiating innovative interdisciplinary honours outcomes

Abstract

This paper describes an interdisciplinary approach to a creative arts honours collaboration that set aside a conventional approach to facilitate an experimental methodology to support greater creative innovation and knowledge acquisition. This paper examines an honours study which explored analogue and digital hybridity in board game design. The methodology employed a practice-led research approach with the Double Diamond design process model used to structure the study. A structured and critical reflective practice model was used to identify and analyse the thinking present within the creative project. A core innovation of this approach was the shift from a focus on a finalised project consisting of a separate creative work and critical thesis, to a study where the critical and creative work were still separate, but included a greater focus on process and prototyping as a means to engage with design principles, rather than a finalised product or artefact. Lessons from the collaboration are identified to inform interdisciplinary honours in the future.