...design research community has long grappled with questions of validity and reliability. The standards developed in the natural sciences do not map cleanly onto qualitative inquiry, requiring researchers to develop alternative frameworks for ensuring research quality.

In science, we see rigor as a means to reduce researcher bias, increase reliability, and create valid results. In qualitative research, we see trustworthiness as a proxy for rigor and a means to create credible, transferrable, dependable, and confirmable results. Qualitative design research requires guardrails to ensure its results are valid and reliable.

Rigorous design research may be taken more seriously by those who commission and rely on it to make decisions than less rigorous research. The implications for practice are significant...