Design Research

1. Design Research Project 2 Readings

2. Abstracts • An abstract is a self-contained, short and powerful statement that describes a larger work. ‘Writing Abstracts’ - The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

3. Descriptive Abstracts: • Indicates the type of information found in the work. • Makes no judgments. • Does not make conclusions or provide results. • Includes key words that include purpose, methods, and scope of the research • Very short. ‘Writing Abstracts’ - The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

4. Informative Abstracts: • Acts as a surrogate for the work itself. • Presents and explains all the main arguments and the important results and evidence in the complete work. • Includes the results and conclusions. • Length varies, but usually less than 10% of the length of the entire work. ‘Writing Abstracts’ - The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

5. Shared Components of Abstracts: • Reason for writing. The importance. • The Problem. What is the main argument. What is being solved? • Methodology. • Results. Data or a discussion of results in a more general way. • Implications. How does this add to the body of knowledge? ‘Writing Abstracts’ - The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

6. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • Traditional focus group: gathering of 10-12 consumers led in a tightly scripted discussion by a trained moderator, usually for about 2 hours. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

7. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • Mini Focus Group: gathering of 6-8 consumers led in a tightly scripted discussion by a trained moderator, usually for 1-2 hours with deeper discussions and questioning. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

8. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • Dyads: 2 friends interviewed as a pair by a moderator following an outline or lightly scripted guide for at least one hour. A powerful forum for exploring issues that are difficult for people to articulate or people uncomfortable being interviewed. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

9. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • Super groups: 50-100 people gathered in a large auditorium to view ideas, products, designs or other exhibits presented on a large screen. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

10. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • Triads: 3 people who are similar to each other or are different in a specific way, interviewed by a moderator following an outline or lightly scripted guide. Provides the depth of 1-on-1s with more breadth. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

11. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • Party groups: a group of people who all know each other gathered in one person’s home conversing with each other and the moderator on a specific topic. Generates good insight, but is difficult to manage. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

12. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • Online discussion groups: takes any of the methods discussed and attempts to conduct it virtually. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

13. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • Ethnography: a research approach that produces a detailed, in-depth observation of people’s behavior, beliefs and preferences by observing and interacting with them in a natural environment. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

14. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • Ethnography: - Liz Sanders… Sonic Rim - Cheskin - The Doblin Group - E-Lab - Fitch - IDEO from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

15. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • Field Ethnography: a person or group are observed by a researcher while they go about their normal lives. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

16. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • Digital Ethnography: observing people as they go about their lives, but uses digital cameras, PDAs, laptops, virtual collaboration sites, or other technology to record, transmit, edit and present the information. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

17. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • Photo Ethnography: people are given a camera (still or video, film or digital) and asked to capture images of their life and describe them with accompanying notes. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

18. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • Ethnofuturism: marries digital ethnography focused on daily activities and small details of cultural significance with a futures perspective that looks to major trends influencing and changing culture as a whole. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

19. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • “Real World” ethnographic enactments: builds an environment for a person or people and then monitors them within it. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

20. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • Participatory Methods: involve consumers in the development of the products, services and brands they hopefully will eventually buy. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

21. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • Development Panel: groups of people are contracted for a period of time to evaluate and give feedback on various aspects of a product or service as it’s developed. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

22. Qualitative Methods:From Boring to Brilliantby Christopher Ireland • In-home placement: people are given a product or provided with a service at an early stage of development and asked to use it in their daily lives and then provide specific feedback on how it performs. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

23. Ethnography and Critical Design Practiceby Tim Plowman • Anthropology: at its core, it is the study of human behavior - how people experience and make sense of what they themselves and others do. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

24. Ethnography and Critical Design Practiceby Tim Plowman • Ethnography: involves the study of a small group of people in their own environment in order to test the ethnographer’s hypotheses. from Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel

25. Participatory Design: Make Tools http://www.maketools.com

26. Usability: The New Dimensionby Artemis March • In traditional design, usability largely concerned ergonomics - that is, embodying in physical forms knowledge about how people reach for, pick up, carry, hold, operate, sit in, and otherwise use artifacts.

27. Usability: The New Dimensionby Artemis March • In user-centered design, the emphasis encompasses the cognitive aspects of using and interacting with a product, or how logical and natural a product is to use, as well as the emotional aspects, or how people feel about using it.

28. Usability: The New Dimensionby Artemis March • User-centered designers try to understand those interactions - the dynamic space between user and product - and translate their understanding into a product’s form.

29. Usability: The New Dimensionby Artemis March • The experience that a product delivers is rapidly becoming the key to offering distinctive value to the consumer.

30. Usability: The New Dimensionby Artemis March The RCA ‘System Link remote control: -has buttons of different colors, shapes and sizes that make it easy to use, even in a dark room. -the VCR buttons are clustered separately from the television buttons.

31. Usability: The New Dimensionby Artemis March The PowerBook 140/170 -emerged gradually from a series of exchanges both between the development team and targeted customers and the members of the development team.

32. Mapping Emotionsby Daniel Formosa, PhD. Smart Design …. the new paradigm calls for designers, to a greater extent than ever before, to understand people in ways relevant to design.

33. Mapping Emotionsby Daniel Formosa, PhD. Smart Design Sometimes love-hate relationships can be great news, since the “love” group consists of probable buyers. For the design team, this gives weight to more innovative, even radical ideas, that may otherwise be bypassed as too risky.

34. Mapping Emotionsby Daniel Formosa, PhD. Smart Design While emotions aren’t everything, emotional connections are on the critical path to product success. Products and services need to connect emotionally and physically.

35. Planning Problems are Wicked Problemsby Horst W.J. Rittel & Melv in M. Webber - a set of problems that cannot be resolved with traditional analytical approaches.

36. Planning Problems are Wicked Problemsby Horst W.J. Rittel & Melv in M. Webber • requirements are volatile, constraints keep changing. • stakeholders can’t agree. • target is constantly moving. • If considerable time and effort has been spent, but there isn’t much to show for it.

37. Planning Problems are Wicked Problemsby Horst W.J. Rittel & Melv in M. Webber • a tame problem lends itself to analysis and solution by known techniques. • to tackle wicked problems; discuss them… they can’t be tamed unless there is consensus on what the problems are.

38. Planning Problems are Wicked Problemsby Horst W.J. Rittel & Melv in M. Webber To deal with a wicked problem: • recognize that it is one. • see if it can be ‘tamed’… resolve conflicts and agree on a common goal. • use adaptive process… discussion, consensus, and accepting change as a normal part of the process.