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We
figure out what universe you’re in.
Life
looks a lot different depending on whether you’re
focusing on the universe, one solar system, or Kansas. So
the first thing we try to do is figure out what universe
we’re in. Its
important to see the whole thing…getting too close
initially can be blinding. If you think you’re in
the telephone business and suddenly you find that
consumers prefer the communication business (replete
with email and texting and personal data bases), you
missed the boat.
We
watch people.
“Observational
Research” is a fancier name for watching people.
Of course, it’s a little more than sitting
in the corner café and watching the world go by. Techniques
of ethnography, visual anthropology and human ergonomics
are used to make sure that the watching is systematic. Analysis
includes input from the behavioral sciences.
The
bottom line is that often people don’t know what they
actually do. They
also have difficultly articulating what they really
want, even
if they know. So
it is the job of design research to figure out who
they are and how they live.
We
try it.
We
make one. Try
it. Ask
consumers to try. Then
we make another and try it again. Consumers
try it again. We
make another. We
do this as fast as we can. Instead
of trying to make finished production items, we make
“sketches”, “models”, quick and information-rich prototypes. The
faster we can put stimuli in front of users, the faster
we’ll learn what’s wrong and what’s right.
We
test it.
We
work with you and your consumers to make sure it works. To
make sure it will sell. To
make sure it will satisfy.
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