1 - Inspire Me

By Kate Dowler

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.

I spent the first half of my career working in traditional market research, learning the tools and skills needed to be a successful qualitative researcher.  It wasn’t until 2011 that I fell into the design industry and began working in design research - a happy accident that has enriched my world view immensely.  

What is design research?

One of the fundamental differences I learnt early on is that exploratory design research needs to inspire creativity.  Whilst it’s important to understand users - their attitudes, beliefs and behaviour, the end goal is to identify creative insights that can spark new ideas. In contrast, qualitative research typically looks to understand and capture the truth, to capture what is, and to find commonality that helps to understand the market.

This shift to inspiration plays out in three key ways:

Future Users

When doing exploratory insight work, we’re not usually looking to gather a sample that is representative of today’s users (though they may still play a role). Instead, we look to identify emerging typologies - users of tomorrow, or to recruit people who represent a new trend, behaviour or attitude that is relevant to the project.

There’s also more of a focus on the “extreme” rather than mainstream user, whether that’s extreme in terms of their attitudes and behaviour or their usage of emerging products or technologies. Observing and understanding more extreme cases is likely to lead to greater creative leaps in terms of our thinking.

Context is King

Creative inspiration depends heavily on observation - being able to watch interactions between users and products or services through contextual research.  For innovators and designers, being immersed in this environment provides much richer creative insight than watching a focus group, or listening to an insight debrief presentation. They become active participants in the research process rather than stakeholders who receive the outputs.

Taking the role of context further, often, the richest insight comes from spending time immersed in parallel worlds where similar challenges exist, or where there are interesting examples that may spark new ideas. For example, in a project looking at the future of the kitchen, we might spend time in food outlets, supermarkets, laboratories and artists’ studios - as well as spending time with people in their homes.

Bring your Opinions

Another important shift is that the mode of investigation becomes more “pointy” and opinionated.  

Qualitative researchers are trained to be open and neutral in terms of their moderating style, to try and banish pre-conceptions, and be aware of their personal influence and biases in order to better understand consumer attitudes and behaviour.  

The process becomes more two-way in early design research. User understanding remains at the heart, however there is also a role for challenge, for developing a creative point of view early on, and for following particular avenues of discussion at the expense of being comprehensive if a creative spark emerges.  

In a nutshell...

Ultimately, design research needs to stretch and challenge our thinking. It needs to inspire the creative process, whilst still be grounded in insights that are future-relevant (if not representative in today’s world) and which will resonate for people and brands in the future.