Qin Han came to Dundee from Shanghai in 2005 to study the MDes programme. After passing, with distinction, she stayed on to study for a PhD looking at stakeholder management in service design. In July 2010 she was awarded her PhD. Over the last couple of years I’ve taken various students to look at her wallpaper in the corridor opposite my office. These students were invariably “terrified” by the idea of doing research, using phrases like “I’m no good at writing” or “I’m so disorganised!”
After seeing Qin’s wall, where all her research was stuck on neat little post-its, index cards and see-through paper, they began to understand the idea of “visual research” – getting it all out there instead of stuck in ring binders, not being afraid to move something from one place to another, or to draw a great big arrow halfway across the room if it helped them to see how things fit together. Sadly, Qin is moving on and her wallpaper has come down, but before she went I asked her to write a few words of advice to design researchers about looking at research as a creative, rather than restrictive, exercise. Thanks to Qin for allowing us one last look at your wall!
You can read more about Qin’s work and research at her blog, www.designgeneralist.com
When I say doing research, what comes to your mind first? Scientists wearing white coats in labs? Guys with clipboards on the street doing a survey? Or two people sitting doing an interview with a recorder on the desk? If you think these are the only ways to do research, think again – I mean think creatively.
As designers, we are equipped with wonderful talents and techniques – that is visualising and making things. We are trained to make images, animations, or objects the evoke emotions and interactions. So it is only natural that we take advantage of our skills to make people see, hear, and touch our research as well.
I have been doing research on Service Design for the past three years, and I really enjoyed making it visual and designing my own little toolkits for research. So I’m going to share three of my favourite techniques with you and, of course, you may come up with even better ideas!
Tell me a story…
Sometimes starting an interview with ‘tell me the story of the last time you go to the new library…’ works much better than ‘how do you like the design of our new library?’ It allows people to set up their own scenarios and it bring out emotions and memories. A further push on this method is to encourage people to doodle (or you can help them doodle) while telling the story. Putting down visual narratives helps to stimulate their memory as well as their imagination (really depending on your questions). And it leaves you with a reminder of the key points of the conversation. Dan Roam has a full book of wonderful quick visualisation techniques of this kind in his book ‘The Back of the Napkin’. Here is an example of an interviewee’s doodle on my notebook – it’s not really difficult, just give them your pen!
Post-it notes
Post-it notes are a designer’s best friend! For my own research, I developed this mapping game for people to describe how different people take part in their project. So I printed out a simple timeline structure, colour-coded different categories of people involved in green, yellow, pink, and orang, then I used a laser cutter to transform the post-it notes into small figures, so that it was easy to put them in the timeline and to write notes on them.
I then went to different design companies and asked them to map out a project with the toolkit, and describe how people’s relationships evolved over time.
You can even make very simple 3D models with post-it notes. The example in the image was also made during a conversation. So, even basic material like post-it notes can make your research very fun and interactive for participants and for yourself. Just think creatively and you will find other simple materials to hand that you can turn into great research tools.
A roll of wallpaper
I love marking on wallpaper while thinking – it goes on and on, so my thoughts don’t get restricted to the physical space. This may not suit everyone, but I do encourage you to give it a go. Some people like spreading things on a large scale (like me), some people prefer just a notebook with pencil and eraser, while others prefer doing their thinking in front of a computer screen. All is fine. The important thing is being able to see the progress of your thinking, because then you can go back to find mistakes or inspiration. I am lucky enough to be able to take over a lot of space outside my office (just ask nicely, most people won’t mind). Also, my ‘wallpaper gallery’ is not only a working space, it is a conversation space as well – others are more then welcome to put their writing on it.
So there we go. Next time you hear the word “research”, or if you are assigned with a task to do some research in Design Studies or for a studio project, think about the colourful fun stuff you can do. Research needn’t be boring if you want to make it playful.
Be creative – you might actually love it!
