Research-Driven Design
As Visocky O’Grady said in his book, A Designer’s Research Manual, the new wave of the design profession is to guarantee results to clients. No longer is a design strategy just a strategy. In today’s fast-paced, profit-driven world a proposed strategy needs to be airtight and backed by preliminary statistics of its success with customers before it will be adopted by a company. In short, not only is having experience with research and the techniques used to gather this data imperative to a designer who wants to stay relevant but so is understanding how to properly visualize the data once it is collected.
The simple idea behind research-driven design is that, more often than not, the public already knows what they want and need. If companies and designers ignore the folks they are creating a product or system for, then it’s like gambling with the end results. The idea put forth by the creators might end up being popular with consumers, but it also could be completely useless once released to the public. If intensive research, including interviews, field studies, and prototype testing, is done in the early stages of production, it is far more likely that the consumer will like the end result because people just like them were a part of the process in creating it. Understanding the problem deeply in the first place makes finding the right solution easier and more efficient in the end. In this way, designers also play the role of a marketer because they are expected to understand the consumer completely.
O’Grady discusses many different types of research and how each one is useful to a designer: quantitative, qualitative, primary, secondary, formative, and summative. Each of these research techniques helps to highlight different aspects of a group or problem, each in their own ways. The research methods I found most interesting to read about were the umbrella terms of formative and summative research. I think I was drawn to this section because these investigations are completely reliant on the problem itself and can be found in almost any part of the design process. Formative research is meant to help find and then define the problem. How can we fix something if we don’t know what it is? Summative research examines the results of a process. How do we know if our solution will/has worked if we don’t look at the data or simply ask the consumer?
The main outline of this section of Visocky O’Grady’s book is that research is important and lucrative to any designer today. However, this technique of understanding the problem and the consumer before moving forward with an idea has a long and celebrated history in the design field. This practice has noticeable roots in the Bauhaus curriculum, Henry Dreyfuss’ practices, and Arthur C. Nielsen’s market research. It is a proven technique that allows for accuracy and success for any design process, product, or system.
Source: A Designer’s Research Manual by Visocky O’Grady