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Research Driven Design

     All too often when we’re designing an experience—whether it be social, digital or real life—we get carried away with developing the execution and we tend not to dedicate enough time to research.  In a recent article Jon Freach, of frog design, defends research and discusses the necessity for it within the design process.

Freach points out that research within design should not be the cold, hard, process-driven science it is within other disciplines. Research in design, rather, should embody and sustain the user-centric approach design takes. Research should enable us to learn something about the behaviors, culture, or context of our audience we didn’t already know. Research should provide a “much more nuanced understanding of the people for whom [we] design”, as Freach states.

But we all know that there isn’t always time to perform primary research and proper studies that are often time consuming and expensive. So Freach’s article inspired me to think about my own research and the resources I leverage when tackling a problem. Detailed here are some sources made available via the social web that I’ve utilized in recent months.

-Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia is almost always my first go-to when initiating research. Not because it’s the heralded source of information, but simply because understanding how we, as a collective digital whole, construct and architect knowledge. It can also be tremendously inspiring and lead to a road of otherwise untapped sources and thinking.

-Delicious.com. How better to understand what people connect with than an Internet directory of associations through and web links?

-Shareslide.net. Slideshare offers an abundance of smart thinking. One may have to spend some time sifting for relevant presentations, but it’s a great means to understand how others have approached your problem and leverage their data & sources.

-Observation. Simple anthropological (slightly voyeuristic) observation of people conversing and interacting with products and platforms can be deeply insightful. It lends to understanding what people are communicating about within the public social space and how they’re leveraging those platforms. It can also lend to larger cultural implications of how we’re adapting our communication style to meet the opportunities and limitations of social technology.

No matter your source, research should lead to insights that fuel creative thinking and, ultimately, create experiences that augment our audience’s behavior. And that’s my sweet spot as a Strategist.