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Research How To

The document provides an overview of key concepts and methods for doing design research, including ethnography, interviews, persona development, journey mapping, and cultural probes. The goal is to understand users and stakeholders, identify problems and opportunities, and develop solutions through prototyping while considering feasibility, viability, and desirability constraints. Design thinking involves inspiration, ideation, and implementation stages. Qualitative research methods are emphasized to gain an empathetic understanding of people's experiences.

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Will Kurlinkus
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157 views

Research How To

The document provides an overview of key concepts and methods for doing design research, including ethnography, interviews, persona development, journey mapping, and cultural probes. The goal is to understand users and stakeholders, identify problems and opportunities, and develop solutions through prototyping while considering feasibility, viability, and desirability constraints. Design thinking involves inspiration, ideation, and implementation stages. Qualitative research methods are emphasized to gain an empathetic understanding of people's experiences.

Uploaded by

Will Kurlinkus
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Doing Design Research

Dr. Will Kurlinkus


Key Terms to Look Out For

¤  Users, Stakeholders, SME’s

¤  Design thinking steps: inspiration (the problem/opportunity),


ideation (the process of developing and testing ideas),
implementation (the real world production)

¤  Prototyping (early and often)

¤  Constraints: feasibility (what can we actually do given money,


time, and manpower in the near future), viability (what makes
sense for a long term future success), desirability (what makes
sense to real people)

¤  Brief: “Reinvent bathroom cleaning with an emphasis on what


was enigmatically called ‘the everyday clean’” (24).
What should we call ourselves?

¤  Platypus

¤  R+D

¤  Skunkworks

¤  Shadow
Division
7 Minutes: What Did You Read?
Ethnography
¤  Graphing an Ethnos: What/why/how are the insider logics/expertise of this community?
¤  Combines emic (objective outsider accounts) and etic (insider accounts) data
¤  “Behaviors are never right or wrong but they are always meaningful” (39).

¤  How is collective identity created? Who are insiders and outsiders?

¤  What are the activities, events, and genres occurring?

¤  What are the different types of participants? What does difference/diversity of


membership look like?

¤  How is power wielded or equalized?

¤  How does space transformed into place?

¤  How is place created? What kind of place? What are it’s rules? (public vs. private)

¤  What do violations, rejections, ruptures, and fights look like?

¤  How does this community operate over time (change or stay the same)?
Interview
¤  Allowing real human beings to have a real voice and real say.

¤  Closed vs. Open-ended questions.

¤  Avoiding leading questions—Asking not inducing.


¤  Bad: So many English majors don’t know what they want to do after they graduate, why become
an English major?
¤  Better: Why become an English Major in 2019?
¤  Best: Can you tell me about how you got into writing?

¤  Tell me a story about…

¤  Structure the interview from less to more specific questions to avoid skewing later
answers.

¤  Start with a softball/easy story to tell.

¤  Ettiquete: Always record, always take notes, always give positive feedback cues, avoid
interrupting, always use callbacks (earlier you said...)
User
Persona
¤  Humanize and storify
your problem.

¤  A persona is a fictional
user archetype—a
composite model you
create from the data
you’ve gathered by
talking to real people—
that represents a group
of needs and behaviors

¤  Personas usually contain


a photo, name,
demographics, role,
quote, goals, behavior/
habits, skills,
environment,
relationship, and
scenario

¤  Journey across time is


particularly important
Empathic Modeling/Mapping
Journey Map
Future Workshops
1.  Prep: who is invited?
How is power
balanced?

2.  Critique: What is the


problem and what
are it’s numerous
causes? No solution
or criticizing others.
Quantity and
categorization.

3.  Fantasy: What is our


ideal world—
divorced from our
problems and from
any constraints.

4.  Implement: How


can we achieve this
ideal in reality?

5.  Follow-Up
Making as Research: Cultural Probes
Metaphorical Design
¤  English major
as…
¤  Internship
¤  Hospital
¤  Art Studio
¤  Buffet
Assets Mapping
Think About Your Problem
What are you going to do in this project and where will you start?

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