- What are the barriers you've experienced?
- What service would you like to see?
- What would be useful to you?
- Could academics make their work more easily applicable?
Here's my answer.
1. I do make an effort to be aware of academic research. There are some brilliant ideas if you know where to look, but looking is timeconsuming, and hampered by paywalls. Obviously academic research would be more practical use if it were more easily accessed by practising designers,
2. Academics typically divide one piece of research into several articles, to earn more academic points. So there may be little added value from each one. Peer review does not guarantee quality or uniqueness.
3. I do not have the funding to buy access for large numbers of articles on the off-chance they might be relevant or even comprehensible.
4. If practicising designers had better access to academic work, there would be a feedback loop that would help improve the practical relevance of future academic work,
5. There is a similar problem with international and industry standards such as ISO. These are widely ignored in my field because you have to pay upfront in order to find out if they apply to you, and most people don't bother.
See also @andybudd, It's all academic (February 2013)
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