Design research is a type of study I have not considered before as "theory method" both for its practical appearance and specificity on a particular case.
The two lectures of today showed me how surprisingly a design research could take advantage of both qualitative and quantitative studies and also deeply explaining how a particular invention is composed and how it works.
The qualitative part of design theory is mainly gather user satisfaction about a product or analyze challenges and further developments in the field.
This kind of predictions are likely to vary drastically in the time, in particular in media and technology sector (as both Ylva's and Haibo Li's lectures highlighted).
Often it is difficult to grasp what "data" are in design theory and when it is possible calculations and statistics are not always easy to draw.
In this sense the contribution of quantitative methods in research studies mainly applies to the responses participants could be asked to give after a prototype trial.
I found particularly interesting Haibo Li's lecture when talking about "great", "good" and "innovative" ideas.
First it is important to discern between the problem itself and the problem solving: many examples showed how often the solution is simply hidden behind factors between us and the problem.
Then it is important to understand among many ideas those which are really breakthrough and there is no need for it to be truly innovative, sometimes they are just a "remake" of something already existing but simplifying the user interaction or turning it more compelling.
In this filtering process we should not rely too much on our sensibility -which is often fallacious- but mostly get numeric evidence through maths.
Some of the variables which show the usability in this process are for instance efficiency and effectiveness.
Giving validation and proof to our proposal is not only essential to prove the validity of the idea, but giving a simple explanation is also useful to convince people of the value it could raise.
In this way the technical communication is an essential and subtle step; In the explanation the "professor" approach is difficult to grasp for non-academic people, but the "salesman" one may be seen as deceptive and intrusive.
Giving practical proofs on tangible facts is the way enterpreneurs manage to raise fundings from investors and a good estimation, evaluation and validation step is a key factor for success in this type of research.
Hej Teo, I liked how you reflect on the difference between the problem itself and the problem solving process. You further mention that it is not really necessary to invent something completely new in order to make a breakthrough. I like how sometimes small improvements or "remakes" of something existing make our lives so much easier. A good example of that could be "Hövding" the invisible airbag for cyclists: http://www.hovding.com/en/how_it_works/
ReplyDeleteYes, amazing! Thus nothing really new, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteHaibo today mentioned how Zuckenberg described Facebook as a new idea on a old platform as an example of an extremely successful invention without anything revolutionary in particular.
But why then we are constantly talking about issues and concerns about Facebook and other social media (for instance in the course Social Media Technology) if it was meant to be something -as you said- "to make our lives easier"?
I feel often we come up we something not necessary but still successful, what is your opinion on that?
Hej Teo!
ReplyDeleteI really like how you critically discuss the use of qualitative and quantitative methodologies on design research! It was surprising for me, as it was for you, that design research can take advantage of qualitative methodologies.
What I will keep from Haibo's lecture is the impor
tance of business thinking in order to be able to judge if your idea is a breakthrough and the ability to sell your researchers to investors. As you say, a successful idea doesn't have to be a truly innovative idea. But you need to be able to identify the gap in the market and combine different ideas and technologies in order to fill in that gap.