Comments on: On the importance of design research

By: Helloform » Reading list for the end of 2009

Helloform » Reading list for the end of 2009 — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 03:22:29 +0000

[...] 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 [...]

By: abc

abc — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 18:27:47 +0000

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?

By: João M. Gonçalves

João M. Gonçalves — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:53:47 +0000

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.

By: Jesper Bylund

Jesper Bylund — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:31:29 +0000

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. =)