Week 6: Design and Research

Week 6 Reading notes:

Siu, Kin Wai Michael, Users' Creative Responses and Designers' RolesDesign Issues, 2003, Vol.19(2), pp.64-73

Do you think the design of an object pops out of the designer's head? Obviously not, from the emergence of the design concept to the completion of the production, the designer or design team needs to do a lot of research in this process. The most important of these is to delve into the needs and preferences of users. Quite a few designers expect and believe that they can predict the user's operation mode and determine the user's likes and dislikes in advance, but the user's needs and desires are constantly changing, and it is difficult for designers to meet all the user's needs, especially the design for public use.

Different products will be given different definitions and functions by different people, which is especially obvious in the design of public facilities and urban planning. For example, the footbridges in Hong Kong which were designed only for pedestrian traffic, but were used by different people for different functions. These footbaridge have been redefined as social gathering places by housewives, as resting places by older people, as business places by hawkers, as playgrounds by skateboarders, as scribble-canvas by youngsters, as homes by beggars, and so on. As shown below.

Therefore, in this article, the author gives some suggestions to designers, planners or policymakers. You can leave some "gaps" for users to fill in during design, and encourage users participation in developing design. But it does not mean that the role of the designer should be ignored or not to do anything, the role of the designer is still very important. Designers play two important roles in the process of user participation. The first is as coordinators, gathering together different interested groups and professionals, and then as facilitators, assisting users in participating, modifying, experiencing, creating,  producing,  and actualizing  the design. The second role of designers is to explore the diverse backgrounds, beliefs, needs, wants, preferences, and satisfactions of people, since this kind of feedback can help them to better understand users and, in turn, enhance their participation.

In summary, design has never existed independently, nor is it just the work of the designer alone, but more requires the participation of users. Designers need to understand the public's preferences and needs to make products that meet the requirements of the times. Design is like a literary work. Each period provides readers with a concept or theory, but each reader has their own understanding and views. As a writer, as a designer, the purpose is to convey a concept to readers / users, to convey a trend of the times, not to impede readers' ideas, and to decide for users how they use the product. The relationship between designers and users is mutual achievement.

Week 6 Lecture notes:

Design research is one of the most important stages in the process of design. No matter how skilled or experienced a designer is, they cannot design for users they don’t understand or they do not know. Far from collecting data on a subject, research is not simply fact finding and gathering information, its value lies in looking at outcomes and making summaries based on the data collected.

If the user group is having any problems using a design the problem lies not in who or how but in the design itself. The design is there to serve the user and it’s certainly not the user that serves the design, so before designers can confidently design for people, crucially they must first understand them. This is done through the process of research and it is central to recognising user attitudes towards the proposed design, to what level of success the design will be used and whether the design solution will work as intended. Design research needs to be meaningful and the method should begin with a question followed by a planned way to collect accurate data. This part of the research stages also stretches beyond looking for and collecting information, A designer will also include experiments with materials, prototypes, system and user interaction all the while drawing data from this testing. The major goal of this part of the research is to turn that data into meaningful insight.

            This insight is divided into two categories, qualitative and quantitative. The former provides the researcher with data on whether, why and how. And quantitative providing information of which and can, this usually delves into relationships between things, objects, systems and users. The conclusions drawn from this systematic analysis and interpretation, go on to develop an understanding of all the experiences in the proposed context. All the information collected during the research phase needs to add value to the design and then applied to the design practice.

            A danger to research is the ‘knowledge effect’ and this can inhibit the designer’s process by skewing results and not providing valid data. By having someone familiar with the subject test or provide feedback of the design they, armed with inherent knowledge or familiarity of the matter may fill in gaps that the design might miss. Therefore they may not truly represent the intended user group’s response to the design problem.

A key phase in design that needs to be researched is the possible drivers and barriers. These are the conditions and situations that support the design like material and distribution or that inhibit the proposal such as laws and technology that may stand in the way.

To summarise applying research to the design practice we want to firstly categorise data in a logical way, then determine what is most useful to the proposed question. We then analyse and reflect what is the most effective in the context of responding to the brief and develop concepts to test solutions. Finally we want to refine solutions that achieve the best outcome based on what the design brief needs. This sounds very similar to the design process but should not get confused with or merged into it. Research is a very crucial stage in the process of design and forms the foundation that gives creativity the greatest chance of being relevant to the very problem that the design is trying to solve. 

Week 6 Tutorial notes:

Design research is done because the designer needs to understand the user needs, their liking, attitude and motivation. Without insights of users from research, the product designed would be just the designer’s judgement or guessings that are off-centered. Stimulating old age by wearing a glove when testing prototypes is a good method but the mentality of an elderly is not understood. Thus it is better to let the target user group to test prototypes, instead of fellow designer colleagues. 

Design research also helps to guide decisions on why products are made, such as remote controls for a dishwasher that is marketed based on a scenario that is not likely to happen. Often remote controls have tons of buttons that no one uses, because it focuses on functionality not usability. Apple TV’s remote control is a good example of a product that is really easy to use, even for people with dementia. 

Design research is about observing how things are used by people, such as the temperature control button on the fridge that is always set to the middle range because the numbers are confusing, or computers that are never usable by older people. It is also investigating the materials that are suitable for the product, like a hard plastic remote control that shatters everytime it is dropped is not suitable for users with kids. User research investigates people’s interpretation of the product, so that the designers do not make their own assumptions.

The most important part of design research is the reflection or analysis of the findings, where you might find insights which are not thought before and do more research about it. Thus, research is similar to the design process where it is not linear but an iterative process. 

Design research is related to psychology, and there are structures to follow that allow the people you are researching to open up and provide good answers or feedback. It requires a designer to be a good listener, and shows the interviewee or participant that their opinion is important and valued. A good method of collecting information is reminding the participant about the question, and taking notes when the participant is talking, so that you can think afterwards.

We also had a slightly off-topic but interesting discussion about elderly who can’t be bothered to adapt to new ways of doing things but find themselves in difficult situations when a crisis happens. Research on user interface and user experience should also include older generations so that they are not excluded from society, such as not having online banking but could not go into the bank anymore.

Group Reflection and Discussion:

A designer needs to understand the actual needs of users through research, design a product, design a public facility, and implement a service all need to get data and feedback from real users. Design research methods that we learned in the HCD course like interviews are very useful in providing insights and we should definitely practice more to master them.

Designers should not design from their own experiences. 

Even though Andew has lived in Adelaide for 40 years his knowledge of his home town will make it hard to see it from Shu Yun’s and Yilu’s perspective as he has never lived here as a student. Their knowledge is and experience will be better suited to building a student app however all of us will need to do research to design a great app. Andrew knows where and how to get local things whereas shu yun and yilu know what a student living abroad needs.