On the importance of design research

Posted by Fred Oliveira on December 21, 2009 | Comments (4)

There’s an interesting discussion emerging on the blogosphere on the importance of design research. Don Norman argues that research works when iterating over existing products and services but isn’t a great fit when coming up with innovative breakthrough ideas. Adam Richardson of Frog Design points that design research doesn’t necessarily equate to user research, which is what Don frames his article on and adds quite a few good points to the table.

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I’ve been reading Warren Berger’s book Glimmer (amazon link) and mulling over this exact same question in the last few days, and I am somewhere between the two camps. One might argue that some of the greatest products of our time are not necessarily a product of design research but of genius design (Berger talks about Jonathan Ive’s work for Apple). But you could also say that genius design doesn’t necessarily emerge out of a vacuum – it is the product of deep thinking about how people use the products and services around them, and the realization that things can often be better through design.

Whenever I read about design research being the be-all-end-all of figuring out what people need, I remember the Ford quote “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” In fact, most companies that claim to do design research go out and ask people what they’re lacking about a product – and people do want “everything, really” (including a faster horse).

Ultimately, I believe the answer to “what do I do to know what people need?” is to use design research in order to create a bond with the target audience – dive into the challenge -, and then go with the instincts of the design team. While instinct alone may work in the realm of the inexplicable (and may often return odd results), it is unquestionable that an informed (by research) instinct is where lies the secret to the next iPhone, Netflix or Nike Plus.

Comments on this post

The question is an important one. But I always get a bit annoyed when I head these debates. They seem to always focus on what the user/consumer wants out of the product. Ford says they wanted a faster horse. And this is true. But it’s really misguided.

A product is only a means to and end. It is that end that we can define better by research, and if we design products to improve or solve that end they WILL work. The only “hard” part about being a genius in that sense is figuring out what the consumers intention really is.

All action requires motive. From what consumers are doing today we can extrapolate intentions or desires that we can use to focus new products on. Jonathan Ive is a genius, but Apple is just doing what every other computer or cell phone maker is doing, they just strip away the unneccary parts while they do it. Ugly plastic shape? unneccesary. Fantastic specs but nothing to do with them but place calls? unneccesary.
The list goes on.

Design isn’t such a huge mystery as people make it out to be. That’s why Donald Norman is so successful, because he’s simple. =)

I don’t really get the Design Research versus User Research focus of Richardson’s post, although I can relate to his arguments. Norman’s text clearly pits Design Research against “Tech Research”, or however you call it, and I must say that what he says is pretty much obvious. While Design (Research, or not) works with what exists – technology, lifestyles, market trends, whatever – “Tech Research” is more fundamental, and actually changes the ground rules you play by when designing. To demonstrate this, think what would happen if teleportation was invented: what would happen to most of the design work for cars? Obsolete – the premises changed. Maybe some theoretical lessons are drawn, but the bulk of it would be worth nothing. In fact, what I come to suspect from Norman’s post is that he is not really fond of the “Research” word in “Design Research”. And all the (true) facts laid out by Richardson, even that we don’t play by the same rules now than we played when all these example inventions took place, are quite irrelevant for this main argument.

Ok. Now tell me, what do you do when your boss says there’s no need for any research because he already *knows* what the customers want, and tells you to build a site as he “designed” in Photoshop?

The only option I’ve found is to either change the boss or change the company. Is there anything else?

[...] that I referred to in the last post on Design Research, is a great book by Warren Berger on research, process, inspiration and design as a potential [...]

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