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I N N O V A T IO N S P R I N G 2 0 1 02

The insight translation research

process uses discovery, analysis and

synthesis to turn data into insight. While

useful, this insight alone doesnt help us

see the future. Insight translation spans

the gap between research and

designusing creative expression to

demonstrate how research findings

can impact future design efforts.

Problem Seeking and Problem Solving

While insight translators are designers, they do not provide

design solutions. Rather, they use creative skills and design

knowledge to illustrate the problem to be solved. By align-

ing on the right problem, teams can communicate more

effectively and innovate more freely. Teams can also use

the translation framework to evaluate how well concepts

deliver on the desired customer experience. This

approach improves time to market and results in better cus-

tomer experiences.

Seeing the Future Through Insight Translation

TURNING DATAINTO INSIGHT

By Chris Rockwell, IDSA and Spencer Murrell, IDSA

[email protected] I [email protected]

Chris Rockwell founded Lextant in 2000. He has spent his career putting user experience

at the center of innovation. I Spencer Murrell is the VP of insight translation at Lextant.

Prior to Lextant he spent three decades in product development consulting roles.

Design research has grown as a discipline over the yearsintegrating the fields of design, psy-

chology, anthropology, human factors, market research and consumer behavior along the way

in order to understand human experiences and desires. The goal of design research has always

been to inform and inspire design thinking and decision making. Unfortunately, engineers, marketers and some-

times even designers can have a difficult time knowing how to act on research findings. Design research should

help us understand how desires, features and benefits can be triggered through design. It should clearly define

both the design problem or opportunityandhow to focus creativity into effective design outcomes.

Left: Multisensory stimuli provide

measurable data.

Below: Stimuli can be translated into design

attributes.


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W W W . I N N O V A T I O N J O U R N A L . O R G30

Describing the future experience and how it can be

achieved through design can take many forms. Translation

can be as simple as a well-crafted problem statement or as

involved as an ideal product model that describes, in detail,

the key attributes that deliver a desired experience. But, in

each case, it must adhere to four key principles to ensure

its quality and effectivenessinsight translation must be

meaningful, aspirational, actionable andinspirational.

Meaningful. To deliver a true translation of research

insights, there must be a clear connection to the data.

Multisensory participatory techniques, because of the rich

stimulus set, allow a more direct translation of consumer

meaning to product form. Not only do these multisensory

techniques enable consumers to express themselves effi-

ciently about design issues, they also give the translation

team visual examples of design attributes. The images on

page 29 show how a multisensory stimulus set can provide

measurable data that translates directly to design attributes.

Aspirational. Each translation effort should tell a story

of the future. This is, in essence, the customers ideal expe-

rience and the qualities of the designed systems that deliver

it. These can be crafted as narratives, storyboards and illus-

trations that include a future product. In each case the prod-

uct, interaction or technology is expressed in terms of its

benefits and how it enhances the future experience of the

user. The example above illustrates a future concept for a

communication tool that seamlessly integrates smart phone

and laptop functionalities into a single product. The product

illustration and storyboard treat the product as generic but

manage to translate the customers expectations for fea-

tures, benefits and design attributes.

Actionable. Insight translation should provide concrete

descriptions of the sensory attributes that trigger emotions

and the desired experience. Visual descriptions can be

effective, but often tactile qualities, smell, sound and

taste are used to provide the most complete metaphors

Storyboards describe an ideal experience.


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to describe a future experience.

The illustration above shows a trans-

lation for a shampoo product. It illus-

trates the consumers expectations

for smell, texture, packaging and

interaction behaviors that deliver on

the ideal experience.

Inspirational. It is important that

translation communicate to design

teams in a way that provides creative

freedom and focuses them on the

needs and expectations of the con-

sumer. Translation must be descrip-

tive (describes the experience) rather

thanprescriptive (defines the design).

The images on the right show trans-

lations of a program to understand

consumer perceptions of cell phone

carriers. Specifically, we communi-

cated the personality of the brand

(top, right) and the potential design

cues for the products that would meet consumer expecta-

tions (bottom, right). As you can see, the translations of our

findings, while descriptive, are still broad enough to allow a

wide range of design exploration.

A future story integrates emotions, benefits, features and design

attributes into actionable criteria.

Metaphors used to describe brand personality.

Design attributes of cell phones that match brand personality.


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Translation Workshops

Insight translation should be an

explicit step in the research and

design process. The process works

best when collaborating with the

design team. It allows them to apply

their knowledge of their business and

capabilities and helps them to focusand prioritize future design efforts.

Translation workshops are becoming

our preferred way of ensuring that we

match our clients capabilities with our

knowledge of the customers expec-

tations. These activities require a sig-

nificant commitment of resources and

time but can be incredibly valuable

sometimes transforming from next

years design initiative into a strategic

planning session. The three key

ingredients for a translation work-

shop are the right stimulus or tool

set, the right mix of people and a

shared passion to deliver customers

their ideal experience.

The illustrations on this page show examples of rich

stimuli for a translation workshop. The top diagram repre-

sents an ideal product model. It describes the key product

attributes that deliver the consumers ideal experience. The

segments of the model (key attributes) are described in detail

at the rightthat are actionable, meaningful, aspirational

and inspirational. The model can be deconstructed by seg-

ment and used for breakout sessions where subteams

explore ways to deliver different parts of the ideal.

Team formation for workshops should represent vari-

ous stakeholder groups in the organization in addition to

outside partners crucial to implementation. This helps cre-

ate alignment within the team as to the problem to be

solved and the criteria for success and allows each con-

tributor to focus and deliver a consistent, cohesive cus-

tomer experience.

Insight translation is the obvious next step in the evolu-

tion of design research. It fills the gap between research and

design by creating memorable (sticky) presentations of

research insights that go on to become institutional knowl-

edge. Done correctly, it will provide organizational alignment

around the correct problem to be solved and a framework

for focusing creative resources to determine how to deliver

the ideal experience. I

Left:An ideal product model diagrams the key benefit areas.

Below: Benefit areas are built out with detailed descriptions of

features and design attributes.


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28

Procter & Gamble

What techniques work best?

Specific to innovation, having a general understanding or

framework of consumer differentiation and trend modeling is

helpful; you need a way to identify people with common sets

of needs. This allows you to really investigate what makes

people similar and different. Its this framework that allows you

to go out and talk to groups of people about an experience or

emotion and define it in a way that can be acted on. If you

know the size of those groups of people, its even better

because you can project the potential business opportunity.

This is quite specific, but I always feel its worth stating.

When talking to people about their wants and needs, dontnarrow the scope of your conversation too early. Peoples

lives are complex; seemingly disparate experiences and

tasks have an impact on each other. I find that starting

broadly with your conversation allows you to uncover the

interconnectedness of tasks and emotions. Its the areas

between the known points that show new opportunities.

Lastly, when the people you are talking to are having a

good time, you are getting good information. Pumping peo-

ple for likes and dislikes ends quickly. Devising research

methods that are game-oriented and appeal to peoples

sense of competitionor that are just plain funkeep peo-

ple engaged. Such approaches will make sure that the data

youre collecting are valuable.

What are the benefits of design research to

your organization?

Though many categorize it as design research, when done

well I would just call it qualityresearch. I have known peo-

ple who were staunchly opposed to design research. Once

they experience it, however, they talk very positively about

the depth of insights and quality of work that gets devel-

oped with a quality design research method. The two

biggest benefits of quality research I see are better team

dynamics based on a common vision and higher quality

work across all aspects of the product development

process. In other words, teams work better and deliver

higher quality results.

I feel like its necessary to say that to get these benefits

the research needs to be done with a good team. At P&G we

leverage all the disciplines and build a cross-functional group

to contribute to and participate in the methodology. Without

this team, research would frequently become one-sided and

only useful to small parts of the company, which would result

in the lack of continuity in the consumer proposition.

What challenges do you experience with design

research?I see two big challenges with research in my work. First, its not

always easy with limited resources to convince others in the

business to go forward with something that looks very design-

oriented. However, the more experiences we have with these

types of research, the more widely accepted they are becom-

ing. At this point its about being a strong advocate for the

methods, helping people understand their value and delivering

great results when we get the opportunity. In my almost seven

years with the company I have seen design building capability

and credibility around how to inspire innovation and measur-

ing the success of design work, which is really exciting.

The second is a challenge particular to research for

innovation; we sometimes believe that people can tell us all

we need to know. The synthesis (conversion of the collect-

ed information into action or deeper meaning) is equally as

important as the research itself. It takes time, and the con-

versation is frequently nonlinear. This is not work anyone

can do; it takes a devoted, patient team. I am happy to say,

the more experience we gain with these tools, along with

positive results, the less challenging this issue becomes.

We are on a journey with how we use research to inspire,

inform and qualify design work within the context of a holistic

proposition. The key is that we are using the right tools to get

the information we need to do our work and develop prod-

ucts and services that make peoples lives better.

Guy Wilkins

Principal Design Manager

Q&A


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GE Healthcare


The design organization at GE Healthcare works across a

broad portfolio of products that presents an ever-changing

landscape of questions and constraints, so there is no sin-

gle set of techniques that always works best. However, there

are three common scenarios we are asked to address: iden-

tify unmet needs, prioritize potential features and validate

how a product meets defined requirements. To address

these questions, our teams employ a range of techniques

from field-centered observational research to lab-centered

scenario testing. These techniques are often used in the

context of an iterative process, as opposed to a stand-aloneapproach where one technique is used in isolation.

Of course, we do have our favorite techniques. During

the exploratory phase of product development, we seek to

identify unmet needs as a primary source of insight for new

products or services. Contextual inquiry is one of our pre-

ferred tools in this phase. Through observation it provides rich

insights into what people actually are (or are not) doing, as

opposed to what they say they are doing while in a focus

group or in their responses to a survey. That being said, GE

Healthcare also leverages focus groups and surveys, but

almost never in isolation as stand-alone techniques. We find

that the zone of supposed paradox between what is

observed and what is said often forms a rich source of data

to drive innovation. In addition to exploring what is happening

in the user environment, we use a variety of semistructured

interviewing methods, such as laddering, to develop insights

into the drivers behind why those behaviors are occurring.

Once these foundational data have been collected, we

typically synthesize our findings through user personas, affin-

ity maps, flowcharts and storyboards. Conjoint analysis is fre-

quently used both to prioritize identified unmet needs and the

feature sets intended to address those needs. Finally, during

the validation process we use a variety of formal usability test-

ing methods in a controlled lab environment.

How do you use research? Primarily to generate

ideas or to evaluate ideas?

Both. The GE Healthcare design group passionately advo-

cates for a structured and iterative research process that

balances the generation and evaluation of ideas. Ideas for

products and services are generated on the basis of data

that build insights about unmet needs. Those ideas in turn

are incorporated into prototypes that are subjected to eval-

uative testing, and those prototypes are then improved on

Q&A

the basis of the collected feedback as to how well they sat-

isfy those needs. The more generate/evaluate iterations we

can fit within the early stages of the development cycle

before locking down a final product concept, the better.

Above is a high-level il lustration of our process for building

meaningful user experiences through design research. Note

that we strive to engage all of the stakeholders in the devel-

opment process, both as early as possible and throughout

the entire process. Leveraging the insights of a cross-func-

tional team enables a more robust generation and evalua-

tion of ideas.


your organization?

Considering this question at the level of our overall GE

Healthcare organization, design research brings the human

element deeply into a development process that otherwise is

dominated by technology- and financially-centered criteria.

By so doing, design research enables the business to focus

development and marketing efforts in areas that are truly

meaningful to our customers, thereby driving commercial

success by differentiating our product solutions in the mar-

ketplace. Considering this question from the perspective of

just the GE Healthcare design organization, design research

provides credibility for our recommendations. It illustrates

that designing useful and usable products is based upon

neither simple common sense nor unsubstantiated personal

opinion, but rather a repeatable and robust methodology

that requires specialized expertise to execute.

Ravi S. Adapathya

General Manager, Global Product Experience

A structured process for creating meaningful and differentiated user

experiences. Image courtesy of GE Healthcare.



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Sony

How has research helped you innovate?

One immediate way research helps us innovate is by pro-

viding common frameworks we can share across the com-

pany and different business groups to describe user seg-

ments or customer groups. Sony has tools based on

months of research that allow marketing folks in the US to

describe a segment like stay-at-home moms who surf the

net and have business groups in Tokyo who immediately

understand some basic criteria of this segments habits

and desires. While there is a lot of variance in defining that

segment precisely, the frameworks provide an initial start-

ing point for the discussion that make up for cultural andmarket gaps.

What outputs do you find most inspirational for

your design team?

For our design team what we find most interesting are

research outputs that provide a look inside unique or

emerging subcultures. What inspires us are developing

trends: the rise of the X Games and the importance of the

green movement have directly inspired how Sony envisions

new products and technologies (such as our sports

Walkman line and more recently our eco LCD TVs). Things

that exist on the cultural periphery today and the new ways

people are directly or indirectly interacting with technology

provide us the most fuel for imagination and inspiration.


your organization?

Design research, when we do execute or perform it, allows

us to tell different stories to answer one piece of the difficult

question of what will resonate with the customer. Design

research in many cases supports an existing hypothesis

about a new product concept. With this hypothesis the

design research helps to nudge the development path to the

left or right. The research can provide a set of considerations

that the designer needs to prioritize, then address. After a

concept has been created, design research can again find

the pain points in an experience or suggest further develop-

ment. But its never used as a red light for an idea.

Q&A


research?

Naturally, like most firms, we face internal and external chal-

lenges when it comes to using design research. Internally,

theres always a translation factor when it comes to user

insights. What designers see in the data might not be exact-

ly what the marketing person or business planner see in the

same data. Each team member can have their own aha

moment. These different interpretations require a lot of inter-

nal debate and weighing of criteria in order to get a majori-

ty agreement in the room. Determining whats the important

takeaway that should be acted upon is always one of the

biggest challenges for our teams.

Externally, our challenges in design research mainly

come from our engagements and collaborations with out-

side firms. Often its as simple as problems with storytelling.

Some of the firms Ive worked with have a tendency to

reduce really rich qualitative data into simply a report. These

firms lose all the richness and energy of the subject as they

translate the information to a PowerPoint deck for final pre-

sentations. If we are watching these reduced presentations

with team members from the business side, they begin

looking at their watches and checking their email 10 min-

utes in. Often whats most inspiring for the design team is

taking peeks into previously unexplored worlds. That sense

of discovery has to come through in presentations to man-

agement, particularly when the outside research firm is

working on the designers behalf.

Ronald Clark

Manager, Strategy Group

Brand association exercise with locally recruited teens.

I N N O V A T IO N S P R I N G 2 0 1 0 3


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Diebold

How has research helped you innovate?

When were able to perform research early in the develop-

ment process, it acts as an incredibly useful guide. It some-

times reminds us to take a step back to ensure our focus is

set on true user needs instead of on refining and redesign-

ing existing solutions. Having access to good and timely

research helps me make sure were operating at the correct

altitude to address the problem were solving.

What are the benefits of design research

to your organization?

Above all else, design research provides directionality. Morespecifically, it can remove conjecture and anecdote from

both the specification and development processes. It also

fulfills the desire for the development team to do the best

job they possibly can and with the best data available. It

fuels the entire teams creativity. From a purely financial per-

spective, the benefits are measurable, both through creat-

ing a more guided and efficient development target as well

as minimizing the likelihood of any redesign or rework.


research?

Most of the challenges we face with design research are

related to the different priorities or understandings of inter-

nal stakeholders. We know we must be very meticulous in

ensuring weve engaged all of the correct internal stake-

holders. Often, if the research findings arent written and

presented diligently and with consideration, some people

who are less familiar with design research fixate on small

details, or they take a piece of the findings literally rather

than understanding the directionality it provides.

Timing and cost are also challenges. It can be difficult

to convince some audiences of the value of the research if

they havent been through a well-done design research

effort before. With regard to timing, when researching larg-

er scope efforts, such as those that are international, it can

be difficult to convince engineering groups, who are anxious

to get started, to wait to begin the project until we get the

results.

Paul Magee, IDSA

Director, Strategic Design & Brand Integrity

Q&A



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Making the Qualitative Quantitative

A PATTERNPERSPECTIVE

By Laura Seargeant Richardson and Erin M. Sanders

[email protected] I [email protected]

Laura Seargeant Richardson, a principal designer for frog design and former director of design research at M3 Design,

specializes in the emotional, participatory and future design of products and environments. I Erin Sanders, a senior

designer for frog design Shanghai, has worked on service design innovations, consumer electronics and software

development interactive systems as well as global design research for industrial, healthcare and digital design projects.

The conclusion of design flows naturally from the data;

we should not shrink from it; we should embrace it and build on it.Michael Behe


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As designers should we seek to be inspired or informed by research? Before we answer that

question, we need to step back and consider a commonly held assumption that design is not

a democracy. Future innovation does not come from the people for whom we design. Instead,

it comes from design rock stars, industry veterans and visionaries through a deep-seated knowledge, a

propensity for creative thinking and designerly knowing, a la inspiration. This beliefthat inspiration is the

basis for design ideashas led some businesses and designers to use ethnography as a tool to merely

inspire. However, another way to consider ethnographic research in the design process is to use it as a cre-

ative foundation built on structure, rigor and information analysis. When used this way, what emerges is a

creative framework and a foundation for designwhat we commonly refer to as thepattern perspective.

On Inspiration

Inspiration is a natural and necessary part of the design

process. Inspiration is what fuels us and certainly informs us

along with the practice of our craft, our innate intuition and our

quest to constantly improve the world or products around us.

As designers we are more observant than most to that

world. Our gift is a honed ability to see something in almost

anythingthe careless flick of cigarette ash, the casual con-

versation overheard or a persons behavior in a public bath-

room. Meaningful moments like these have been captured

by Jane Fulton Suri, IDSA in her book Thoughtless Acts?

Inspiration, inherently, is an internal reflection process, built

from the designers constructs. What Suri may see and con-

sider with one image, another designer would see in a very

different manner, and they would each create entirely unique

responses to what they see as designers.

The limitation of inspiration is that our internal ideation

is not from co-creation, a shared understanding or an exter-

nal process. It is an individual pursuit. And while there is

beauty in the singular, there is meaning in the multiple

multiple perspectives (usually your team), multiple inputs

(usually a variety of research methods), multiple people

(stakeholders, subject matter experts and consumers)

and multiple dimensions (because the problems we solve

arent always simple and are part of larger systems and

processes).

Thus, we would argue that inspiration is not always

enough for the challenges we face today. Inspiration may

help us see the opportunity but doesnt always provide the

best solution. And ultimately the qualitative nature of

ethnography remains simply that, qualitative.


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The Patterns Around Us

As humans, we live in a world of patternssound, scent,

touch, taste and certainly visual. As a profession, we have

made patterns the gestalt of design.A Pattern Language by

Christopher Alexander or Principles of Pattern Design by

Richard Proctor grace most shelves, depending on your dis-

cipline. Patterns help us wrangle complexity, provide struc-

ture to data and soothe our need for symmetry. But morethan any other affordance, patterns provide meaningpar-

ticularly, meaning in the complexity of gathered data.

At frog design, patterns are a part of our DNA. The way

we interpret and synthesize datawhether its from strategic

investigation, secondary research, workshop ideation or co-

creation in participatory designalways comes back to pat-

terns. This pattern perspective has even been formalized in

both our proprietary and nonproprietary methods. We might

also look at patterns multidimensionally through the combina-

tion of stakeholders, a products life cycle and the lens through

which we focussuch as behavior, emotion and organization.

But what pattern analysis can we create from participatory

design and co-creation with only a handful of people or from

more traditional ethnography where we historically have gath-ered singular moments of inspiration? How many participants

are enough for data-driven research analysis?

Several years ago, an article on P&G described the

moment the company changed its approach to research.

Rather than focus groups and statistics, the companys

newest product innovation was diving deep and immersive

with as few as three to four people. One innovation lead

even quipped that hed learn more by going deep with one

person than he ever could by going broad with many. And

in the aggressive timelines we are all seeing today, some-

times you dont have the luxury of quantitative studies.

Thus, the answer is to set up our immersion so that we see

patterns across only a few participants.

Patterning Tools

From the future of electric vehicles to more responsive med-

ical identification, from group game play to products for the

Asian market, we have had to craft design research proto-

cols and synthesize the collected data into usable patterns

with as few as four participants and sometimes as many as

20. The commonality across the research has been the pur-

poseful planning and composition of the probing or cre-

ationary artifacts as well as the researchers focus lens.

The goal of the participatory design process is to

enable co-creation through the act of making the ideal or

future product. Because the research team typically pro-

vides the inputs (e.g., the kit of parts) to the act of making,

patterns are quickly determined. The kit of parts can take

DESIGN RESEARCH

ScottStater

A design synthesis, creating insight combinations through themes and

patterns.


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the form of Velcro modeling, image

collaging, card sorting, process map-

ping or environmental touchpoints.

Two projects exemplify this type of

research perfectly. The first was a con-

cept project designed as part of a

team (also including Greg Burkett and

Vincent Lam) at M3 Design. The idea

was simple. While participatory tools

have become more contextual and

sensorial, as well as larger in terms of what challenges we

tackle using this methodology (e.g., Velcro modeling an

entire car), the team felt that the approach to inclusion and

analysis hadnt really changed. Typically, participatory

design is done one-on-one, with the kit contents serving as

the common factor between individuals and the individuals

ideals and stories merging through the lens of the

researcher or designer. We wondered what were we miss-

ing by not enabling the crowd to co-create together, to

share a common kit rather than mirror images of separate

kits. Well, it turns out we were missing a lot.

The context we set to ground the exercise was in the

form of the ideal group game experience for teenagers. To

ensure their ability to move from individual mental models to

a group mindset when creating the ideal game, we method-

ically took four teenagers through a

series of co-creation activities. The first

was an individual image collage, the

second was a series of shared contin-

uums around game construct (such as

characters, rules and environment),

and the third was a single group MAKE

kit built from basic physical objects.

We found that by enabling participants

to co-create together, more improvised

innovation developed. The teenagers fed off each others

ideas, picking up and discarding them as they worked

through the challenge together.

The second example of participatory design is a recent

project at frog that looked at peoples wayfinding goals as

they walked through an environment. After the research

was conducted, each set of the participants goals was laid

out horizontally and then mapped to a color that corre-

sponded to a specific goal. A matrix of eight participants

was created this way, with the goals shared by the group

visibly seen through color. Because of the proprietary nature

of the research, all context has been removed. But that is

the beauty in patterns: you can still clearly see the wayfind-

ing process in the resulting color blocks, much like a

Mondrian work of art.


Vinc

entLam

Above: The teenagers move from individual ideal to group understanding through game construct continuums.

Below:A pattern emerges: wayfinding goals are clearly discerned from common color blocks.


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imagine replicating this across participants. How many pat-

terns are missed because we must take in an overall picture

rather than focus on the minutia? This method lets the team

focus on both.

Aligning the Qualitative and Quantitative

Recently a frog design team based in Shanghai traveled to

Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore to understand the cultural

context and behavioral nuisances in designing an interna-

tional product for the Southeast Asian market. Here, we uti-

lized ethnographic methods of capture to delve into the day-

to-day lives of individuals. We planted ourselves in malls, inbustling business districts, in hospitals and on every type of

transportation and watched thousands of individuals use

hundreds of products. Simultaneously, our ethnographic

research took us into history museums, art galleries and

houses of worship to understand the deeply embedded intri-

cacies of the cultures for which we were designing.

While visiting these cities we also performed a small

subset of contextual inquiries in which we ventured into peo-

ples homes and lives. We performed home and product

tours, contextual interviews and participatory design exercis-

es that helped us understand how these individuals were

placing value on everything they owned as well as the

images we had captured through our ethnographic inquiries.

In order to disseminate the large quantity of data into some-

thing more suitable, we held translation sessions at the end

of every day of research. Here we were able to leverage the

ethnographic data against the individual contextual inquiries.

We found patterns emerging almost immediately.

Ultimately, we were able to make the qualitative and the

quantitative align. We did not survey the thousands of indi-

viduals we observed, but instead meticulously watched

their behaviors in real-world contexts. We then were able to

take a much smaller sample of individuals and explore

deeply into their thoughts, feelings and aspirations toward

the specific product we were designing for.

With one visualization you can captivate your toughest

clients and persuade your internal team. Patterns, quite

simply, are hard to refute. Why? Because we all crave

understanding in the face of voluminous data. Is the goal of

research to be inspired or informed? It all really depends on

your perspective. I

In probing alignment or resonance to a concept, the

goal is to determine resonance in a structured way such that

patterns will emerge. For example, in probing participants

emotional response to medical identification concepts, we

revealed controlled aspects of the product over time and

then created a heartbeat, or EKG graph to show a compos-

ite, not an average, view across eight participants.

Similarly, another project required deconstructing the

pleasure dimensions in the mouth and through research

determining which dimensions the product team should

focus on for a product redesign. A dimension, for example,

might be lip engagement (lips are the second-most sensi-

tive part of our bodies), surface area and texture as well as

visual properties. The result was a spider graph across 11

participants, which showed the dimensions that had the

greatest product improvement opportunities for the indus-

trial design team.

And finally, in the more typically unstructured behavioral

ethnography the goal is to observe unobtrusivelybut even

then, there can be structure in the observation such that the

patterns in behavior, gesture and process can be dis-

cerned. As teams we practice focusing our attention on

specific components of an ethnographic encounter. Part of

observing, really observing, is knowing what to look for and

seeing the essence of things in an instant. So, while a

videographer might unobtrusively capture the overall pic-

ture, each team member may be assigned a specific area

of focusone on behavior, one on gesture and so on. Now

A spider map reveals the areas of opportunity that would most

pleasurably impact the design of an intra-oral product.


15/15

Hewlett-Packard


Contextual research is best because it captures customer

experiences as they use the product. Otherwise, when peo-

ple are not actually using the product in question, such as

in focus groups, they sometimes forget work-arounds and

other negative experiences. The laboratory-based usability

studies have also worked very well for us in helping to refine

concepts and ensure users are able to fully utilize the prod-

uct, as well as compare different design alternatives. Weve

also used surveys and remote-guided interviews when we

are trying to learn more about how our customers are using

our designs and what their needs are, and to gather trend-ing information (what percentage are using a certain feature,

etc.). Ideally in order to maximize the opportunity for new

information, it is best to do this research outside of a

roadmap program where there is not time-to-market, strict

budgets and predetermined product requirements.

Q&A

What outputs do you find most inspirational

for your design team?

Our team attends events, such as CES in Las Vegas and the

annual auto show in Houston, to look for trends in consumer

electronics and automotive design as well as leading-edge

technology. We do competitive breakdowns and user evalu-

ations as well as Internet research of new products, materials

and processes. Inspiration for innovation also comes from

other forms of media, such as the cinema with Minority

Report and Iron Man and more recently Avatar, as well as

new products and applications like the iPhone and Cool Iris.

These have been an inspiration for our software user interfacevision projects. We also have gone back to nature (bio-

mimicry) for inspiration in thinking about breaking paradigms.


your organization?

Design research is clearly the best way to provide highly

competitive design solutions that differentiate your products

from the competition. It is also a verification, when integrat-

ed with appropriate human-factors testing and evaluation,

of the usefulness and benefit to customers. It is a good way

for us to explore how our customer experience compares to

that of our competitors and identify areas where we can

improve, as well as those where we excel.

George Daniels, IDSA

Design Navigator, Enterprise Design Center

The rack-mounted

console is easy to locate

and deploy due to the

unique silver color and blue

LED lighting that highlights

the interaction area. To avoid

distraction, the LED turns off

when the console cover is opened.

idsa innovation

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