I saw one of my favorite clients this morning and she asked me if I would do a post on the importance of research for non-research focused folks. This is one of my favorite topics, and when she mentioned it I realized that I haven’t written about understanding the value of research yet…so here goes.
Why do we do research?
This is one question I ask every student I mentor to develop an eloquent and succinct answer to. For me the terms research and inspiration are interchangeable. We do research because we are not the target users. Even if we use the product or service that we are selling, we do not see it through the same lens as the general population. We know too much about our products and services. We have a complete mental model for the thing we are selling, making it challenging to understand how to improve the experience. It is kind of like trying to proofread your own paper. You don’t see the downfalls because you created it.
Why do we do observational research? Isn’t it better to have statistically significant answers?
It really depends on the question. Here I talk about the difference between quantitative and qualitative research, but the general rule of thumb is: the earlier you are in the innovation process the more you should be focusing on a few deep observational sessions. As you move towards having a physical product with features, finishes, and price points it absolutely makes sense to seek quantitative feedback. However in the early phases of an innovation project you should be focusing on understanding your user’s needs and desires. You understand desires by talking, but you can really only truly understand needs, challenges, and frustrations by observing your user in context.
What is the process?
Every design firm has a slightly different description of the innovation process but the phases of the process are all pretty much the same.
Step One- Understand the Business Challenge
This phase is sometimes called alignment or kick off, but can start as early as the sales pitch. The goal is for the consultancy and the client to align on what the goal of the project is. It is also an opportunity for any new team members to fully immerse in the context of this new problem. This is also the planning part of the process. It is a chance for both teams to align on goals, schedules, and critical milestones.
Step Two-Understand the Experience Challenge
This phase is sometimes called research, data collection, understanding, or discovery. The goal is for the project team to immerse in understanding what the business challenge means to the user. There are a number of lenses to look through to understand an experience. Your team my start by doing research about the market, and available technology before moving towards understanding the consumer needs and brand equity. Understanding all four will help you assure that you are creating a viable, feasible, usable, and desirable solution.
Understanding the user experience utilizes various forms of research including (but not limited to): individual interviews, focus groups, observation, diary studies and immersion. You can learn about various user research methods here.
To insure success at this phase of the project preparation is key. Remember the goal here is to gather data to eventually make business decisions. This means that we must talk to the right people (through screening and recruiting) about the right things (by creating a useful protocol), while capturing data for effective analysis (by creating debriefing tools).
Step Three- Articulate the “big idea”
This phase is sometimes called analysis, synthesis, or reframing. The goal is to use all of the data that was gathered during step two to create themes which drive towards solution articulation. Analysis acts as the foundation and support for the final product. The act of analysis helps the team communicate the attributes of the opportunity, separate from the execution.
In order to effectively transform data from the field into an actionable insight the team must: identify connections, form a point of view, and create criteria for a successful solution based on an understanding of the consumer’s life.
Figuring out the “big idea” based on consumer’s lives means understanding their:
- Values (often unconscious, unarticulated): Drives what people really want
- Attitudes (often conscious, articulated): What people say they want
- Behaviors (often unconscious, unaware): What people actually do
Some keys for successful analysis include creating time and space for your team to reflect, collaborate, and constantly evaluate and evolve the current state of the articulated opportunity. In order to do this we create project rooms (sometimes called war rooms) to live with our data. We will create frameworks and tools for thinking like journey maps, personas, and analogies to help us understand the opportunity and how to frame the “big idea.”
Step Four- Make it real
This phase is usually called design, but is probably more accurately referred to as envisioning or experience prototyping. The goal of this phase is to create a stimulus which communicates the big idea in an obvious and compelling way.
This often means finding ways to explain products or services that cannot easily be described or even imagined. This phase is about telling the story of an idea, service, or experience in context to evaluate if the concept will resonate with users on a functional, rational, and emotional level.
This part of the process bridges the gap between strategy and execution. The act of building prototypes and creating storyboards helps put a stake in the ground as to what this big idea could potentially be. It gives the whole team, as well as users, something tangible to respond to.
Step Five- Prove it
This phase is usually called evaluation, directional testing, or resonance testing. The goal of this phase it to understand which aspects of the “big idea” resonate with users and which aspects do not. Testing at this point in a project is used to evaluate a concept direction, not design details. This means that the test must be carefully created to put users in the position to evaluate how they would actually act if this solution were offered in the real world.
Start by validating that the key themes identified during Step Three are actually important to users. Once you have validated your themes, you need to evaluate how well your concepts align with those themes. This means creating stimuli for your users to react to. We usually try to keep evaluation focused on having users understand and react to desired experiences, not a specific concept. Sometimes this means drawing purposefully “fuzzy” story boards so the user can focus on the challenge and proposed solution instead of design details. This may also mean mocking up a contextual experience for your user to interact with. We have built gondolas and deli cases in conference rooms to help stimulate users to think about the whole experience and not just the design details.
By having deep, well designed conversations with a small number of users early in the design process your design team can course correct quickly. You will also gain a deeper understanding about what will and will not resonate with your potential user. This understanding can be applied to everything from marketing campaigns to the design of the out of box experience.
From this point you can enter a typical iterative design process where design gets more realistic and detailed and testing gets more and more evaluative and quantitative in nature.
So why do we research?
We research so that we can make informed business decisions which align our internal capabilities with our user’s needs and desires to create viable product and service decisions. We research early and often so we can “hedge our bets” and make sure that we are creating a product or service that will be successful in the market place because it aligns with the true needs and desires of our users. We research because well designed research programs are the only way to truly understand the risks and potential rewards of a new product or service launch.
Beth Werner | 
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