My saga with Design Studies
I've just had a prolonged, disappointing publishing exeprience with the journal Design Studies come to a conclusion; my paper was rejected. The rejection is fine. It's part of the research experience. But the rest of the process was a total mess. I should say that I was warned before submitting work to Design Studies that the journal was in a state of disarray: the publisher apparantely installed Cara Wrigley, a new Editor-in-Chief, without warning, and the entire editorial board then resigned as a result.
However, the journal has quite a positive reputation, so (shame on me?) I ignored the advice and submitted this interview study with instructors. About a month later, I received feedback from four reviewers: R1, R2, R3 and R6. I've summarized that feedback here.
I addressed all concerns, and resubmitted on March 20th; I received a second set of feedback on April 30th. At this point, R1, R2, and R6 requested no further changes. R3 still identified some issues to address; I worked through some revisions, and resubmitted the paper on May 1st.
On June 3rd, I received these reviews:
Reviewer #3: The author has responded constructively to all four points raised in the second round of review. The manuscript makes a timely and practically useful contribution, and is now recommended for acceptance.
Reviewer #2: The Conclusion can be elaborated further. It looks quite condensed.
missing work: Wrigley, C., & Straker, K. (2017). Design thinking pedagogy: The educational design ladder. Innovations in education and teaching international, 54(4), 374-385.
Wrigley, C. (2016). Design innovation catalysts: Education and impact. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 2(2), 148-165.
R3 seems to find the work publishable, but R2 has come back with some "missing work". That's the extent of the review - just two citations - and I assumed the R2 wanted me to examine these texts, as they felt something was missing. I was surprised, given that R2 had already indicated the paper was sufficient. I was also surprised to see that both recommended papers are authored by Wrigley, the new Editor-in-Chief of the journal, who has not written extensively about design studio practice. The papers have only a vague relationship to my paper, but I added a brief reference to each, and then submitted my revision the same day (June 3).
On June 11th, I received a new set of requested revisions from a new, unnamed reviewer (I will call them R7):
The manuscript needs to engage more thoroughly with the established body of work published in Design Studies. Authors are encouraged to incorporate and build upon this literature, demonstrating how their paper advances the field and contributes new knowledge to the journal’s scholarly conversation. The manuscript addresses a potentially important topic; however, several aspects require further development before the paper is suitable for publication in Design Studies.
Abstract
The abstract would benefit from a stronger framing of the research problem, methodological approach, key findings, and contribution to the field. At present, the significance of the study and its advancement of design knowledge are not sufficiently articulated.
Keywords
The keywords should be strengthened to better reflect the design research focus of the paper and improve discoverability. Consider including terms that more directly position the work within the broader Design Studies discourse and design education literature.
Highlights
The highlights require revision to more clearly communicate the paper's contribution to the field. I encourage the authors to review recently published papers in Design Studies to better understand the style and level of contribution expected within the journal.
Methodology
The methodology section requires a more robust and detailed description. The research design, data collection procedures, analytical approach, and justification for methodological decisions should be presented with greater transparency and rigour. Readers should be able to clearly understand how the study was conducted and how conclusions were derived from the data.
Data Analysis
The manuscript would benefit from a far more robust explanation of the analytical protocol used to interpret the data. Currently, the analysis appears underdeveloped, making it difficult to assess the credibility and trustworthiness of the findings. The authors should clearly outline the stages of analysis, coding procedures, theme development, and any strategies employed to ensure rigour and reliability.
Ethics
Please provide the relevant human research ethics approval number and a brief statement regarding ethical clearance for the study. This information is currently absent and should be included within the methodology section.
Discussion and Contribution
While the findings are interesting, the discussion requires further development to position the results within the broader design research literature. Greater emphasis should be placed on articulating the theoretical contribution, practical contribution, and implications for future research. At present, the contribution to the field of design is not sufficiently clear.
Implications for Practice
I recommend including a dedicated section immediately prior to the conclusion entitled Implications for Practice (or similar). This section should explicitly outline the key takeaways for educators and practitioners, translating the findings into actionable recommendations that can inform teaching, facilitation, curriculum design, or professional practice.
Relevant Literature
The manuscript would benefit from stronger engagement with existing design education and design facilitation scholarship. In particular, the authors should consider the following works:
Wrigley, C., & Mosely, G. (2025). Interdisciplinary Design Education: A Guide to Pedagogies and Practices. Routledge.
Mosely, G., Markauskaite, L., Lodge, J. M., & Wrigley, C. (2025). The role of expertise in design facilitation practice: A systematic review. Design Studies, 100, 101342.
Mosely, G., Wright, N., & Wrigley, C. (2018). Facilitating design thinking: A comparison of design expertise. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 27, 177–189.
These references may assist the authors in strengthening both the theoretical framing and discussion of their findings, while positioning the work more effectively within the existing Design Studies literature.
Overall Recommendation
The manuscript has potential; however, substantial revisions are required to strengthen the methodological rigour, analytical transparency, theoretical contribution, and practical implications. Most importantly, the paper needs to more clearly articulate how it advances knowledge within the field of design and why the findings are of significance to the readership of Design Studies.
As this reads, the whole paper is now inadequate: the abstract, the keywords, the highlights, the methodology, the analysis, the ethics statement, the discussion, contribution, and implications for practice all now require revision. Additionally, three new papers should be "considered", all of which, again, are written by Wrigley, the Editor-in-Chief of the journal.
I wrote her asking for help in understanding what happened. Two weeks later, she wrote back:
I have looked into the review process. The manuscript was indeed sent to an additional reviewer, as the Editorial Board felt that there were still some issues that required further consideration.
The main concern relates to the methodology. If you are able to address the additional reviewer comments and suggested edits, particularly those aimed at strengthening and clarifying the methodological approach, I believe this will significantly improve the paper.
Please work carefully through the comments and let me know if you would like to discuss any of the feedback in more detail.
Strangely, her focus appeared to be on methodological rigor. To be clear, this was an interview study of 25 people. The methodology is about as normal and straight-forward as could be. She stated that the "main concern relates to the methodology," yet the added review indicated that pretty much everything about the paper needed to be revised; was I being instructed to just ignore the rest?
At this point, it was clear that I was being jerked around, so I wrote back and indicated I was not interested in making further revisions; as expected, she rejected the paper.
So, as a summary: my paper was rejected. R1, R3 and R6 think the paper is strong. R2 was okay with my paper and then suddenly wasn't, but would be if I added two citations to Wrigley. R7 was brought in at the end of the process (after three rounds of revision over four months, all of which seemed to be proceeding positively) who requested that I scrap the entire paper, and while I re-write it, cite three additional papers, all of which were written by Wrigley. Wrigley herself wants me to update the methodology section to make it clearer what an interview is and how it works.
I don't have extensive experience in the peer-review process. I've only published perhaps 15 articles that were peer reviewed. When I was the Editor-in-Chief at interactions, our work was solicited, not peer-reviewed. And although three of my books went through a peer review process, it's not quite the same as this. But I have never really run into something this disorganized at other journals and publishers. Maybe these are post-editor-change growing pains. Maybe my paper sucked. Or maybe I should have just added the five requested references, citing five papers written by the Editor-in-Chief, and then defined what an interview study is in more detail, as if the readers of Design Studies can't be given the benefit of the doubt about basic research methods.
But there are lots of other venues to publish in, so I'll pursue those instead. I'm annoyed that it took four solid months, but it is what it is. The work is really strong, and I think it's important for the design community to see and consider it.