[Thinking Through Design] Design research: An everyday example

MANILA, Philippines – Design research is a systematic way of gathering information about how humans experience the tangible, man-made world around them (such as products, services, and built environments) so these can be made better to help achieve everyday goals. Design research can be applied to something as mundane as designing a better toothbrush, to larger more, complex projects such as developing a more efficient bus or railway system for a sprawling metropolis.

Design research is often confused with market research, and understandably so. After all, both engage with people as a source of knowledge about the world, and both approaches may use techniques such as focus groups and interviews. While many might think that companies would have to choose one approach over the other, design research and market research typically work best to complement (rather than replace) each other. This is because they make sense at different stages of a business or organization. Design research methods such as direct observation, think-aloud protocol, and creativity-centric group discussions are best employed with a mindset of openness and exploration when one has yet to decide on a final concept. Market research, on the other hand, which uses qualitative methods as well as surveys, is best applied when an organization has a finalized design concept and needs to validate the extent to which people will accept the design, and is furthermore ready to pin down the related investments and returns.

The problem space

The design research process works for any category: cars, websites, houses, mobile-phone accessories. The approach can be used regardless of the simplicity or complexity of the problem space. In my work as a design researcher, clients range from NGOs who work in areas such as financial literacy and gender violence, to SMEs who would like to find out what next mobile-phone accessory to import, to market leaders in the fast-moving consumer goods sector (FMCGs) who would like to invent household items that reduce the effort it takes to complete everyday chores, to international companies looking to provide alternative-energy solutions for the rural poor.

For illustrative purposes, however, let’s begin with something familiar to everyone. Let’s start with an everyday object, such as a handbag. Say you want to build a business around designing and selling handbags. You might be unsure how to start as there are endless styles and features: sizes, lengths, widths, capacity, material, straps, buckles, zippers, compartments. We haven’t even discussed pockets: There are open pockets, pockets with zippers, pockets with snaps, pockets outside the bag, pockets inside the bag, hidden pockets, and so forth. Design research tends to drive the point that there’s a whole lot more to everyday objects than what is typically acknowledged. Bags aren’t just bags. Rather, they are things made up of other things. Designing a handbag from a design research perspective would entail finding out how to piece together all these details so that your customers’ experiences with the bag coincides with their objectives for using the bag.

What feels right

Of course, one could design a bag off the bat. Design can be based on an article in a credible fashion or entrepreneurial magazine which features saleable bag designs, or perhaps based on what one has learned in design school, or on an observed proliferation of a particular bag design, or still furthermore, just on what feels right as a designer or a business owner. These would all fall under the larger activity of design, true. This approach to designing, however, wouldn’t classify as design research because the primary influence for creating the bag’s features largely hinges on the preferences of the business owner or designer, rather than on the actual experiences of the bag’s intended users.

To take this example of design research further, let’s assume that you’ve decided to make your bag based on your users. Note that we’re employing the term “user” rather than “customer” because we want to acknowledge people’s interactions with their bags: they use them by holding them by the strap, putting the strap on their shoulders, clutching them under their arm, zipping and unzipping them, by putting things in them and by pulling them out. We are therefore not only interested in the different things a bag is composed of, but also in the different uses these things enable in relation to the bag.

An important question is, how exactly would you determine the users you want to make bags for? You might start by observing the different types of people and the different types of bags they use. Men might use a combination of backpacks, briefcases, or murses. School-age children use bags filled with books on strollers; teenagers use backpacks; and women use various types of handbags, depending on whether they are working, studying, commuting, doing the groceries, whether they are with friends or with infants, and so forth. Your foray into observation might end with a list of categories of people paired up with categories of bags and their features, and the different circumstances in which they are used. One way to reduce the uncertainty and increase focus in such an open-ended problem space is to divide your world of investigation into modular, more manageable chunks that you could dig deeper into individually.

Empathy

A possible category of users to develop bags for could be working women who commute on the MRT. To know more about what kind of design would work for them, you could take an MRT ride to both observe and experience the challenges of using a bag on the MRT yourself. Design research is big on empathy, or the ability to understand things from the perspective of others. By riding the MRT yourself, you might discover various issues that women face while commuting, such as keeping bags secure from pickpockets, or retrieving bag contents while being squished against other people in the train with limited space to move your hands. Another design challenge could entail helping women commute with bags stuffed with an armload of contents without taking too much space on the train and without sacrificing aesthetic appeal. You could also talk to women who typically take the train to work and use what you’ve previously observed as points for further discussion and understanding. This is again a process of categorization, except that at this point, you’ve moved from simply categorizing things and users to categorizing the different problems your designs could solve.

Now that you’ve pointed out specific challenges you could proceed to designing possible solutions. Say you’ve decided to zero in on designing a bag that would help women retrieve their bag contents easier while on the train. You could now design different bags that represent different solutions. These would be your prototypes. One could be a bag made with clear material on one side and with opaque material on the other. This would allow women to see the contents easily while leveraging on the opaque side to keep their belongings private. Another could be a special pocket or device that allows women to reach into the bag with limited movement. Treat your prototypes as hypotheses in tangible form, and the user’s sentiments towards them as answers that either confirm or invalidate your hypotheses.

With a range of prototypes on hand, you’re now ready to test. You could draw your prototypes then gather women and have them compare and contrast these, and perhaps even learn more about what matters to them by getting them to sketch or create their ideal bag for this purpose using everyday office supplies. If you’re ready with prototypes that are actually ready for use, you could hand them out for different users to try. You could observe them further on the train and make more detailed notes, or you could talk to them after having a go at your potential design. This process of prototyping is iterative. Meaning, you might go through several cycles of designing and testing until you’ve ruled out possibilities and narrowed designs down to a few key final and feasible versions. At this stage you don’t need to talk to a lot of people because the larger concern involves refining and eliminating concepts and finding alternative possibilities, rather than finding out how much resources are needed for production, and how much you could potentially earn.

Numbers game

Imagine you’ve come up with two or 3 designs which have consistently received positive user feedback throughout several cycles of prototype revision and testing. You’re now ready to cross the design research threshold into market research. You’ll want to know your market size: how many women take the train to work, how often and where do they purchase bags, how do they decide on which bag to buy, how important are designer brands to them, and any other piece of information that would help you produce and sell your design. This is a numbers game so while you might start out with a few focus groups to clarify basic assumptions, you’ll eventually want to do a survey that will help you with the various business projections that you’ll need to make.

A common question: Does one need to be a designer in order to do design research? A designer who knows how to do design research is without a doubt enormously valuable, but in general, not at all. My background is in communication research and anthropology, and I have no formal training in Design per se. I do, however, need to exert extra effort to learn basic design principles and to catch up on how different things are designed and how these designs have shaped people’s lives. There is also a lot of literature on design research methods which I need to know by heart. I also try to engage with designers to understand how they think and how they might use the data gathered. After all, designers are the ultimate users of the knowledge gained from design research.

Does one need to be formally trained in research in order to do design research? Formal research training exposes learners to a wide range of methodologies, their pros and cons, and their suitability to various research contexts. Formal training also grounds researchers in discussions that are relevant to all types of research: ethics, validity, generalizability, and accuracy. However, the most important characteristics needed to succeed in design research are often not covered by formal training: curiosity and empathy. If you have a passion for discovery and are willing to do what it takes to walk in someone else’s shoes, then I encourage you to embark on a design-research journey. As there are very few of us design researchers in the Philippines, the country is our oyster. (You can also read:  [Thinking Through Design] Understanding its significance. – Ed.) – Rappler.com

Pamela Cajilig is a business and design anthropologist with a background in communications consulting, and is co-founder of design research firm Curiosity. She is also communications adviser to a number of NGOs.

Letterpress type-‘design’ photo from Shutterstock