How to Design Things with Words – a Communicative Perspective on Design Research in Information Systems

Design research is establishing itself as a research approach in Information System (IS). Topics of IS design research include system development methods and conceptual modeling languages that often find their way into CASE tools. However, there is also a lot of confusion about the differences between design and design research, the idea of “design science”, and the role of the IT artifact in IS. In this paper we critically examine some design science approaches, in particular the guidelines of Hevner, and propose an alternative approach in which design is viewed as communicative action and design research in IS is ultimately aimed at improving information and communication processes in organizations.