Can design science be used for design?

Design Science is currently much discussed in Information Systems research. In our analysis we distinguish two distinct threads in this discussion. The first thread is a meta-debate about the nature of IS research, and (in particular) how design work can properly be enacted as research. The second thread is a normative discussion of how design work should be conducted – important in a field where the principle objects of study are designed artefacts called information systems. If these principles for design have any consequence at all, they should be verifiable and they should be evaluated. In this research, conducted with student software designers at Aalborg University, we pose the question ‘can design science be used to build software?’ Ten experienced students in the Department of Computer Science participated in experiments to use design science theory as the principle inspiration for small software development projects. They studied the literature, chose appropriate starting theories, designed their own development processes, used them to build small mobile applications, documented their experiences and evaluated those experiences by writing research articles. A more experienced researcher helped organise the experiments and supervised the research. Students were surprisingly positive about their experiences with design science and the causes for this enthusiasm, and the underlying contribution of design science to the software developments are discussed.