Cracks in the Success Narrative: Rethinking Failure in Design Research through a Retrospective Trioethnography

What can design researchers learn from our own and each other's failures? We explore “failure” expansively—turning away tidy success narratives toward messy unfoldings reflexive discomfort—through retrospective trioethnography. Our findings reflect on failures we identified in six past research projects: issues of relational labor deployment, mismatched designer/participant imaginaries, burden participation, invisibility researcher labor. discussion contributes to broader reflections shifting practice: (a) methodological considerations inviting others engage through trioethnography, (b) letting go as a mode care, (c) possibilities for more candid reporting, (d) how centering failure may contribute justice by providing technique attending harm healing practices. Throughout, call challenging research, underscore the need systemic changes practice.