How to do Design Research

In the third article in the JooYoung Oh series here on Design Droplets, JooYoung shares insights into the actual processes behind Design Research.

Part One – JooYoung Oh Interview Part 1 | Part Two – JooYoung Oh Interview Part 2 | Part 3 – How to do Design Research (Currently Reading)

Marty Gage, my design research mentor, often quotes Kid Rock saying; “If it looks good, you’ll see it; if it sounds good, you’ll hear it, if its marketed right, you’ll buy it; but if it’s real, you’ll feel it.” The core value of design research is well stated here.  How do you create a design or branding [sic] that is real?

This is why when companies speak in brand language, I ask them to think and speak in experience language first.  You start with understanding people and their experiences.  What are you trying to achieve?  Are you truly what you say you are? Do you really want to be what you say you aspire to be?

Design research is about understanding people and the experience/s they are having.

Experience has three elements according to Elizabeth Sanders; memories – the experience you had in the past; the moment – the experience you are currently having; and dreams – the experience you want to have in the future.  When you understand all three aspects of experience you have a complete picture.  How do we get to all three aspects then?  It is a process: clarify questions; plan; collect the data; analyze and synthesize that data, and translate the insights into a meaningful format [so that clients/a design team can make use of the insights to inform product design and development].

Step 1: Clarify questions

When a company comes to me, this would be the first thing we would talk about.  “What questions are you trying to get answered?”  “Is this about understanding the purchase experience or usage experience?” “Is this about generating ideas or evaluating ideas you already have? Are you trying to evolve your current product line or transform the product category?”  “What are [the] time and budget limits?”

While I was at Lextant, a U.S. based design research consultancy, we had a sleep apnea machine manufacturer that came to us for user research.  Through several discussions, we decided that we didn’t want to name the research “the ideal sleep apnea machine” [instead] we called it “the ideal sleep experience.”  [In] This way, we came up with insights that could feed the company a strategy for the next 10 years rather than the next few months.  Insights that would help generate true innovative concepts for sleep apnea patients.  You can make a better sleep apnea machine but unless you think outside the sleep apnea machine and dive into the world of ideal sleep experience, you won’t be able to identify opportunities that would bring a true innovation to the company.

Asking these questions in the beginning determines what approaches we should take to collect the data.

Step 2: Planning

Planning starts with figuring out what the company already knows.

Often the very first meeting with the clients and design research team can turn into a meeting about the business and brand.  But, it is critical that clients bring out all their consumer knowledge onto the table for the [research] team view.  This way we won’t re-collect knowledge that the company already has, but rather, further build upon the existing knowledge.

It is also important to learn from all possible technologies, such as colors they may be developing or any aspirational themes they already know of.  For example, when it comes to learning about a sports drink, one can imagine it should be refreshing, quick and portable.  Yet learning what these words mean in consumer’s words and how to deliver those qualities will be most meaningful to the client company.

The planning stage also includes expert presentation to review previous research as well as desktop research.  I often do a little mini dive myself if possible.  Let’s say this is about coming up with a new sports drink concept.  I would document every time I exercise and drink something.  I would write down what I felt, what I thought, where I was, what I was doing, what I wished for before, during and after having a drink.  This way I can get all my subjective opinions out of the way to be able to stay objective as well as get a better understanding of what is involved in the study.

Now we have a plan.

Step 3: Collect the data

How do we collect data?  A typical data collection process

When collecting data, there are always 3 steps, whether it is a generative or an evaluative study:

1. Understand the current experience

Understanding the current experience is about learning the context of the experience.  Pay attention to the activities, steps, environments, interactions, objects and people involved in the experience.  AEIOU is a good way to remember this (Activity, Environment, Interaction, Objects, and User – and I am quoting from a DMI article).  Figure out habits and practices, wish for’s and barriers; here, you can create tools such as photo journals and diaries to help people document these.

2. Understand the ideal experience

Once you know what the current experience is you can next help people imagine their ideal experience. This is when stimulus such as words and images comes in handy.  These tools help people imagine the impossible without the interviewer asking 100 ‘what if you can do this’ type of questions.  You show all the possibilities in words and images and see which one/s resonate with the participant and why.  These words and image come from all your planning work.

3. Understand how the ideal experience translates into solutions

If design researchers stop after the discovery of the ideal experience, then we might as well be psychoanalysts.  We need to figure out how these dreams and ideal experiences turn into attributes and solutions so that they can inspire [the] design [process].  This is the step where we would show images, words and multisensory objects to tease out possible solutions from participants.  This kind of interview takes at least 2.5 hours of sit down time, yet most participants find it fun and playful.  It is important to make it clear to participants that anything is possible and there are no wrong answers.  A lot of creative ideas come out of this part.

Dig down further; emotions, attributes, and solutions

When collecting data it is also key to make sure you recognize attributes Vs. emotional aspects.  For example, when we defined for a mobile phone manufacturer what a rugged mobile phone means in consumer language, we started by identifying what makes people think [that] a mobile phone is rugged.

Shock proof was one of the big themes that came out as a lot of people had had the experience of dropping their mobile phones.  We then explored what makes a phone shock proof through its [various] attributes such as shape, color, and materials.  We found out that materials with grip, rounded corners, and a black and yellow combination that reminds people of construction sites, was the design language that communicates shock proof.  We presented this outcome along with objects that represent these qualities.

It is also important, in the data collection stage to go to where the experience occurs.  Go to the surgery room and watch the surgery if you are studying medical tools.  Go into people’s homes, talk to them while they are cooking something if you are trying to study kitchen organization.  When my Lextant research team and I were in Brazil to study the mobile phone experience, the findings coming from being in each participant’s home became a great clue to one of the key insights [discovered].

We met this one guy who lives alone and sells black market baby products.  We weren’t really sure about what makes him all that different from US consumers.  He gave us a look around his place and there wasn’t anything particular about it; same TV set, same family photos etc.  The interesting part was when he pointed out a room with a pile of trash [in it] and called it his kitchen.  So this guy, who doesn’t even have a proper kitchen set up to eat, spends all his money on electronics and a mobile phone.  That was the first time we realized that a mobile phone to him is more than a phone; it is a social status symbol.

If this it is an evaluative interview you are doing, it is important to show the mock up in its most realistic form as possible and to make sure they are placed in the appropriate context.  A focus group setting is popular for evaluation and it is still better than no research at all when it is combined with homework, but I highly recommend that an interview takes place in its experience context.

Step 4: Analyze and synthesize the data

Visualization of the data is the key to analysis and synthesis.

This process starts at the planning phase.  When planning for the [research] methodology, we should think about what data to capture and how.  Creating discussion guides and a note taker’s template helps this process.  You want to make sure that you capture all the essential data consistently.  The analysis model should be designed in the planning phase as well.  Once you come back from collecting the data all the [data] points that could be a clue to figuring out the big picture should be put up on the wall.  This includes quotes, pictures, charts, and artifacts.  The visualization process helps the team to think together and to find patterns intuitively.  As you go through all the data – which takes from at least one week to 4-5 weeks or more depending on the sample size – you want to identify big themes.  Synthesis is about creating a framework that embraces all these big themes from the research. [Refer to JooYoung’s Part 2 interview for discussion about synthesis]

I personally come from a very data driven approach to analysis, which is the style at Lextant.  At least 2 weeks of time would be devoted to rigorous data analysis which included the process of quantifying the qualitative data with hundreds of charts.  This won’t be the case if I am only talking to 3-6 people.  Notes will be taken to refer back to the quotes, but not to analyze the notes the same way that I would for a bigger sample size.  For the small sample size, I’d rather summarize each person’s interview and even use the summary for final presentation so that designers can see the various consumer types in a given limitation.

Step 5: Translate the insights into a meaningful language

Communicating the insights is the art of storytelling.

After analysis and synthesis comes the delivery of the insights.  Communicating insights in a concise format is extremely important.  This is not only because the CEO of a corporation doesn’t have time to read a 100-page report, but also because nobody wants to read a boring report.

When you deliver the key insights in a simple and visual form, it becomes a reference point.  This is especially important when you have hundreds of people working on the project at the same time.  The research is responsible for creating a common consumer language that everybody involved can remember easily.  I often use a story format.  It is a great way to describe the current and ideal experience in its context, and how to achieve the ideal experience all at the same time.  The report should be entertaining, like a movie.  If it is a report, it should look like something that you would want to take on vacation and read while drinking beer on the beach.  It should be engaging and fun to look at.

Combine it with a concept generation workshop.  A PowerPoint presentation is a common way of communicating insights yet I found it most effective when you combine this with brainstorming workshops.  You not only deliver the insights, but also facilitate concept generation.

These workshops can be divided into three parts; immersion into research findings, trying out the exercise, and concept generation.

Immersion into research findings

For immersion, you can chunk out the research insights and share videos and participant snapshots. Videos of participants are always the most popular part of a presentation as it is engaging to peek into what people really do, especially if the clients could not be present during the interview.  For example, we had moms take the temperature of their kids and video document the process themselves (often the dads would do the videotaping).  Some of the most amazing insights came out of watching those videos.  We found for instance, that a lot of moms were using the thermometer wrong.  Sharing video clips of interviews and having clients hear some of the key points from the participants themselves is powerful to support your findings and recommendations.

Trying out the exercise

Trying out the exercise means you have the client team go through the exercises [that] the participants went through, such as creating a collage of their current and ideal experience.  In this way, you can help clients become aware of what they think their consumers want Vs. what their consumers really want.

Concept generation

Concept generation is easy to facilitate, as the immersion and trying out exercise are a great warming up process for the team.  While you want to keep this part loose and fun, having a solid design criteria coming from research helps the team to focus on solving the right problem.  For this, it is important that research findings are presented in a measurable format.  [For example] “What would be 5 absolute criteria that each concept must communicate?”  Giving evaluation criteria for concepts makes sure that the team is heading in the right direction.  To give an example of criteria, let’s say we are generating ideas for a baby stroller.  One of the criteria could be portability.  Portability is about its size and flexibility; can it be folded small enough to fit in the trunk of a car yet still give a sense of security. Security could be about ruggedness of parts and etc.

Think in metaphor.  A group exercise for thinking in metaphor is a great way to help people think outside what they are designing.  For example, let’s say one of the main insights is delivering a ‘secure’ feeling for the baby stroller concept.  You can give people an assignment to think of things that represents security.  It doesn’t have to do with baby strollers.  Send them to a nearby Target or Home Depot, or give them a stimulus kit to pick from.  It can be an image of a person wrapped in a blanket, a couple hugging each other, a chain bike lock, or insurance policy card.  Have them talk about what elements of the things make them think of security. This step feeds creative thinking into the concept generation phase and ultimately the products design.