ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the importance of hypotheses or conjectures in design research. It discusses design principles and conjecture maps because these are typically the most general formulations of starting points and outcomes of design research. However, design research is often also about development over time, which leads to the discussion of hypothetical learning trajectories. Design research is therefore sometimes characterized as a form of what H. Freudenthal and many French educators called didactical engineering. One of the features of conjecture mapping that makes it a useful methodological tool in design research is that it distinguishes two types of conjectures that can be empirically tested. A possible pitfall of working with detailed hypotheses is that design researchers may focus on small grain-size hypotheses that are very close to the data, with the additional risk of losing sight of other things that matter.
