Design Research 101

When it comes to delivering design research, how do you engage your audience and key stakeholders to make sure it’s interesting and actionable? How do you turn insight to action?

Exploring early ideas with consumers during the innovation process can be challenging. When should you do it? How should you do it? In fact, should you do it at all? Here are four of the key problems you’re likely to face and how you can overcome them.

Empathy is frequently cited as a key design thinking skill, but what’s the psychology behind it, and how does knowing this help us use empathy more effectively during the creative journey?

Should you involve consumers in the creative process? What’s the best way of doing it? Thinking about the different roles, or ‘hats’ you want consumers to wear can help you get more meaningful and useful input.

Individual perspectives have a powerful role to play in design research. We all see things differently, and there are some scenarios where the perspective of the person conducting the research is as interesting and important as the person we are talking to or observing.

What is the difference between design research and qualitative research? The key difference is the dual role of design research to both understand and inspire, and this plays out in several key ways.