[IxDA Discuss] Design research

[Challis Hodge]

After reading Dan's essay I'm not sure exactly what he's trying to say. He
may have some good thoughts but they didn't come through. The few points he
did articulate were not substantiated well by his examples, correlations,
etc. Dan wrote:

On several recent projects, I've conducted no research at all — or at least
> very little of it — and those products seem to have turned out fine and are
> well liked by users. Luck? I'm not sure.
>

This statement reminds me of all the Aunt Thelma's of the world who want to
give you advice when you have your first child. They have all the answers.
Their justification? They raised 4 kids of their own. Those 4 kids simply
surviving into adulthood is all the justification they need.  Obviously Dan
is no Aunt Thelma but I do believe he is underestimating the complexity of
the situation.

Beginning the essay with the term research and then quickly shifting to the
term design research was the first clue that the train was off the tracks.
The breadth and depth of research techniques that might be applied to any
given problem space are huge. Design research is just one and some would say
an ambiguous one at that.

-challis

On 5/9/07, Mark Schraad <mschraad at mac.com> wrote:
>
> I read this morning a column Dan Saffer wrote that is posted on the
> adaptive path web site. It caused me some concern.
>
> http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000755.php
>
> I am a huge proponent of design research, but I think it is all too often
> done poorly, and not done frequently enough. That said, I agree for the most
> part with what Dan says regarding many projects and many designers not
> needing research. What concerns me is the specificity of Dan's message and
> its audience. I have no data here... but I would surmise that many from the
> IxDA community get the context of this article and as such all is fine. Of
> concern is the portion of Dan's (my assumption here) growing audience that
> is in design school, just out of school and outside of the "designer as
> motivated learner" catagory.
>
> Did Dan just give designers with limited experience justification for
> blowing off research or testing? I am quite certain, that is not the
> intended message, but it is a concern. I guess I am not sure what the
> purpose of this article is. Experienced, confident designers with domain
> expertise and good sense of "hunch", likely don't need to be told that this
> is OK. They know.
>
> There is so much time and money wasted in product and service design.
> Business schools quote numbers of 70 - 80% of all new products fail. This is
> a horrible waste of resources. Surely... we can do better. One way to
> effectively improve the odds is to meaasure the intended audience or target
> market. Research is a great start at this. Even if the research confirms
> your hunches, it is likely worth the time.
>
> Mark