Welcome back. In this lecture we'll be briefly talking about formative research. The various activities that designers have to do in order to understand that the problem domain in which they're working in, and to get design inspiration. It turns out that research is an essential part of what designers do, as part of their work. Collecting information about a problem domain, and then trying to make sense of it in different ways, like through affinity diagramming, that you see in this picture here. Is something the designers do, both at the start of the project and throughout the design process, in order to better understand their design problem and to gain inspiration for design solutions. There are a number of goals both for doing formative research in the context of design. One is to understand the context and the domain in which the problem is situated. One way we normally think about this is understanding user needs. Well who do users are what kind of situations and context they're living in and working in, and what their needs are in relation to the problem that the designer is trying to solve? Another reason to do research is to get ideas for design solutions. It is to gain inspiration and be able to identify new design solutions for the problem that one is trying to address. There are a number of methods that can be used as part of informative research. And one way to think of them is in terms of the distinction between formal and informal processes. Formal methods are numerous and they go well beyond the scope of this particular lecture, but they include things like interviews and surveys and focus groups, participatory design groups and so on. All of these methods have the goal of trying to identify exactly what the constraints are that the design problem is facing, who the users are and what their needs are in order to be able to come up with an effective design solution. Again the methods are quite numerous in number and you'll be able to see more detail on a lot of these methods if you're to take another course in the sequence understanding user needs. The good thing about formal methods is that they're very effective data rich. Especially if designer has access to a large number of participants using formal methods such as these. Allows the designer to get a really detailed granular understanding of the problem domain and their users. On the other hand, these form of methods for doing formative research can often be slow and expensive. Especially if they're done with a large number of participants. Another way to do formative research, especially if time and resources that are limited is using informal methods. These are methods like informal observations, where designer observes the target users and try to understand relatively quickly what their main concerns are what the needs might be. Things like targeting conversations with key stakeholders. This is something that is done very often by companies such as IDO. Who send their designers out to quickly interview key people belonging to each of the key stakeholder groups, to get the perspective of the design problem that the company is trying to solve. Another way of getting insights about user needs is just by foraging information about the domain. Reading a lot, looking at the Internet, looking at research materials in the scientific literature. And trying to get quickly a clear sense of what the key aspects of the problem domain are and what are the areas that are needing these improvements. Finally, especially for if one is working on a design problem that is common and is applicable to a lot of people. One can just turn to one's social network, friends and family members who have had experience with the problem that the designer's trying to solve. And get their understanding of what are the issues that the most frustrating them and bugging them. And what are the things within that problem domain that need to be fixed? There are other methods of this sort. But the basic idea here is to try to do research quickly and efficiently in order to get a clear understanding of what is going on with the target users and what their concerns and needs are. Without necessarily spending the time and resources that is involved in running formal interviews and focus groups, or using other informal methods like the ones we described above. One nice thing about informal methods is that they tend to be quick and cheap. And allow a designer to get quick understanding of the problem domain without spending a tremendous amount of resources. On the other hand, there are also important aspects of the problem that can be missed unless the designer is very good or have a lot of experience with these kinds of methods. Whatever trajectory, one decide to take. Whether to use formal methods like interviews, or some of these more informal methods which we have just been talking about. And the essential part of the design is to just collect a lot of stuff about the problem domain. And then, immerse oneself in them as fully as possible. Print out representations of your research and put them on the walls in your room. Immerse yourself in these materials in physical form, in digital form, in any form you can think of to really start living and breathing the research materials about your problem domain. This is an essential part of what all designers do, regardless of what methods of formative research they employ. Another way to think about formative research is not only in relation to understanding the problem domain, but also finding inspiration, for creating new design ideas. And I've really liked this quote from the Movie Director Jim Jarmusch who said that, nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. And this is, I think a very helpful way of thinking about formative research in service of design inspiration. So what we might want to use this materials for. It's just to allow us to come up with a lot of ideas for what the design solution might need to look like. And so the idea here is to notice any design ideas that occur during the formative research. And to start creating a collection of such ideas that can then later be used to select options that the designer wants to develop later. So one way of doing this is through something that the designer build box then calls a bug list. And I think that this is actually a really nice quick technique that can really be helpful for fueling design inspiration, and creating a lot of new design ideas. So, how does a bug list work? Well, first, one finds examples of other technologies that address the same problem. So in the context of the example we've been talking about in these lectures. A mobile health application for weight loss. One would go to something like Apple App Store or Google Play Store, and just download a lot of different weight loss applications that one finds there, and just look at them. So try them and see what they do, what list of functions they have. But also, as you try them, really pay attention to the things that are not working well about these applications. What are the frictions that you're experiencing? What is frustrating you about it? Is it taking to much time to log food, are they only focusing on certain kind of physical activity? For example steps at the excursion of other things that you think are very important as well. So just compound a list of this kind of frictions and frustrations and then start thinking about what are the various ways that you might be able to address these limitations. And draw them out, write them out. Start creating a repository of ideas for how to address these frictions and limitations in already existing solutions. This is a quick but also very effective way of coming up with an immediate and massive list of design ideas that they can work on later on. There are also other types of inspiration. For example, as we said earlier, you can look at other technologies in solving a related problem. Not just an exact problem that the designer is focusing on, but related problems. So in the context of our example, many of the implications that focus on chronic disease management for example, will have many of the same features that are relevant to weight loss as well. So those might be worth looking at too. There are also non technical solutions for your problem. How are people addressing the problem that the designers working on in non-technical ways? So how was weight loss done prior to technology? Trying to understand what those solutions have been can be a really good source of inspiration for technological solutions as well. As well as then going back to formative work and trying to understand the context, the habits, and the culture of the population in which the problem is that the problem designer is trying to solve. Elegant artefacts and processes, just artefacts and objects the designer find attractive and/or to work particularly well. Might give the designer ideas about how similar kinds of ideas could be implemented in a solution for his or her own design problem. Finally, anything else that strikes the designer's fancy could be fuel for inspiration. As long as the design problem is stewing in the back of the designer's mind. As long as the designer is embedded in his/her research or materials and he's thinking about the design problem all the time. The designer cannot help but notice things in the world that will give them ideas for how to address the design problem. And this one of the most fun things about doing design. The inspiration is everywhere, one just needs to look for it. Thanks for watching and see you next time.
