Design research

• to understand people & their behavior related to the product or service
• To design the best UX, pay attention to what users do, not what they say
• enables to empathize & get to know the context
• is "Becoming friends with reality" - Erika Hall
• motivation to find out how customers or other relevant actors experience a given service
• helps to move beyond assumptions
• two main types:
  • qualitative
    • answers the question "Why?"
  • quantitative
    • answers the question "How?"
• starts with a Research question and aims to derive Insights
• usually is based on ethnographic methods
• typical process:
  • research scope & planning -> data collection -> synthesis -> key Insights
• gives us:
  • customer problems & needs
  • experience gaps
  • testing & feedback collection
• outcomes should be clear & understandable to the whole team
• use Triangulation - allows to have more & better Prototypes
• starts with Research planning
• results should be visualized by Research Visualization
• "CX oriented research is rather inductive (finding out along the way), whereas testing prototypes is deductive (validating hypothesis)"
• Important to take notes [well][https://condens.io/user-research-note-taking/]
• The mismatches between user attitudes and user actions are often a great source of insights.
• Two main fidelities
  • pure - rigorous research uncovering completely new knowledge
  • applied - less rigorous, borrows ideas and techniques from pure research but is more relaxed
• Research can be also looked through the double diamond paradigm