Types of Design Research Every Designer Should Know. But it has no scientific evidence. The goal is to identify general patterns that are characteristic not only for the surveyed group of people, but also for the entire population as a whole, which will allow the study

blind luck

The mythical image of the designer as a lonely dreamer does not allow to see the similarity between him and the filmmaker. However, when the lights go out in the cinema, we look forward to being allowed to enter the world created by the imagination of the latter. Many moviegoers were introduced to the chilling world created by director Adrian Lyne when his 1987 film Fatal Attraction ( Fatal attraction) became the highest-grossing film of the year. In the climactic scene of the film, Glenn Close, skillfully wielding a knife, bleeds to the other world in the arms of Michael Douglas. Apparently, this Adrian Lyne has a very vivid and vengeful imagination. Although, perhaps not at all with him ...

In this particular case, this cinematic vision came from suburban American moviegoers. During a test screening of the film, which ended with Glenn Close's suicide scene, the indignant audience loudly demanded blood, and on a much larger scale than could be extracted from suicide. It was this audience reaction that convinced the film company Paramount spend over a million more dollars filming a different, bloodthirsty ending.

Today, making a movie that becomes a box office hit is no longer the blind luck it once was. The same is true for the development of successful products or programs. Through methods such as focus groups, hall tests and a number of others, design receives information from consumers, learns their reaction to new concepts and prototypes of products. For example, in a Swedish factory Orrefors Glass an annual conference of buyers and distributors is held, the purpose of which is to review the new range and make proposals for adapting product design to various national markets. AT Hilti Powertools users work with designers to evaluate new product ideas. In company Microsoft developers sign up to receive user feedback on products by e-mail, which allows them to address emerging issues in the next version of the program.

Whether we're creating a film, a glass, a mechanical instrument, or a word processor, we need adequate methods to determine whether the wishes and needs of consumers are being met. And in product design, we also need to be competitive with existing products, to ensure that our work reflects the ever-changing trends and directions in design, technology and culture.

In this chapter, we will explain why research is so vital and how it can be used in experience-first design. We will review the main research methods and analyze in more detail those that have been relatively recently improved in response to the challenges of a new consumer culture and technological opportunities.

Research and design process

Most designers claim that they are not researchers at all, although in reality they are often engaged in just research. Let's use a comparison of the two models provided by Nijuis and Bercema, the design process model and the applied research process model (Figure 4.1).

The similarities are clear: both design and research involve identifying a problem, following a set of steps to explore that problem, and finding the best solution. suitable solution. Each step involves research, that is, the process of finding the information needed as a basis for each stage of the product creation process. So, for design practitioners, design research is a process of searching in three areas.

Search for understanding

To design effectively, a designer must have a deep understanding of the context* in which they will be working.

But these studies are not necessarily and are not always carried out consciously. Many designers have an innate ability to be on the same wavelength with the environment, people and their needs, with color, shape and material; this kind of immersion in the material world allows them to use the acquired knowledge in the design process. However, there is often also a need to collect information about the markets and all parties interested in the appearance of the product (including customers, users, manufacturers), and for this there are special tools, techniques and disciplines.

Search for ideas

During design, the designer is looking for ideas that can help him give the product a certain form, which includes the functions of the product, the materials from which it should be made, and its aesthetics. Here the designer again uses his intuitive knowledge predominantly, but often intuition, as a rule, needs the help of conscious research activity. It all depends on the creative talent of the designer and his ability to use the available knowledge to spur his imagination. Having decided on the context of the design task, the designer begins to search for ideas. Some of the techniques for generating creative ideas are used to stimulate the creative process (module 4.1). They are also called design methods.

Module 4.1. Techniques for finding creative ideas

Brainstorm

A method of group participation in the generation of ideas to find a solution to a specific problem.

Goal Tree

A technique that consists of listing design goals and project subgoals and plotting the hierarchical relationships between them.

Counter planning

This technique requires the analysis of premises and the justification of the problem, solution, plan or design through the process of proposing and considering opposing premises, which results in a final, revised solution, plan or understanding.

Interaction Matrix

Exploring and scheduling interactions between multiple elements within a problem being solved.

Interaction network

Turning an interaction matrix into a representation of spatial or other relationships between problem elements.

Forced connections

A way of generating innovation that consists in looking for likely links that do not currently clearly exist between the components of a product or system.

New Combinations

Search for new, previously non-existing combinations of alternative components.

Source: abbreviated from the Open University Design Methods Module ( open University,ou).

Searching of decisions

Finally, in the process of directly working on the design concept and solutions, the designer conducts (formally or informally) research, which involves not only the use of all kinds of creative techniques, but also a methodical search for processes, materials, technologies and ideas. It is not uncommon for designers to organize their own information repositories. So, in the design bureau PSD a room of trends and technologies has been specially created for its employees, where relevant information is stored about them.

It is quite obvious that these search categories are interdependent and complement each other. Understanding context, searching for ideas, and testing concepts overlap (Figure 4.2).

Design process

The designer does not conduct these searches consistently: first - understanding, then - ideas, and finally - solutions. The design process is more like a constant alternation of tides

and ebb and flow, which can be illustrated by the four main categories of the design process: formulation, development, transfer, and reaction.

Wording is related to the identification of needs and the planning of the task statement. This beginning of the design and development process of a new product is often referred to as a “fuzzy start”: at this stage, the designer and other participants in the product development process try to understand the needs, requirements, and wishes of all interested parties, and the result is the definition of incentives for the subsequent generation of ideas.

There are two parts to this process (Figure 4.3). One of them is the study of the environment in general, when the designer and representatives of other functions of the company, such as sales and marketing, study trends, collect general information about the market, observe users and consumers, track product usage and feedback. Very often, the designer takes on only the observation of trends and consumers, which is carried out formally or, which happens more often, informally. He can go to exhibitions, visit retail outlets, watch TV and purposefully collect information about the market and users. The market research department and sales staff also collect similar information, but at the official level. The designer's goal is to intuitively understand the world in which he is going to work in order to enable the generation of ideas and start the creative process. In other words, he is in search of understanding and ideas.

Once the problem or concept is defined, the search becomes more focused, specific research techniques are applied, often referred to as the requirements statement process (Figure 4.4). In the process of collecting and transforming information to develop requirements, formalized methodologies are used, usually borrowed from the field of market research, but with the advent of ethnographic methods, the capture of research results and control of their use and value throughout the entire course of product development, that is, the requirements management process, has become the most important aspect. .

Development associated with the generation of ideas, concepts and detailed design development. At this stage, the designer searches for ideas, using existing knowledge, information and creative techniques to develop concepts; decides which technologies, materials and processes will contribute to generating ideas and finding solutions; tests design concepts and revises the developed design, taking into account the reaction of the context and users to this design.

Transfer covers the introduction of the design into production and the release of the product to the market or its delivery to the user or consumer. Here, the research is solely about ensuring a smooth transfer of design to production - much of the research has already been done in previous planning stages. But even at this stage, the designer receives certain knowledge and experience in understanding the production and implementation process. The information obtained will be extremely useful for him in solving future design problems.

On the stage reactions the designer addresses the results of his work, evaluating them in terms of the reactions of users and other interested parties, and also evaluates the entire process and the knowledge gained. All this is part of the learning process for the designer and the organization as a whole. The body of knowledge gained and the information gathered will help in the quest to understand the impression that design creates.

Thus, research, design searches and the design process itself are interconnected and intersect many times. It is an ongoing process of learning and knowledge management. Figure 4.5 shows the relationship of research activities (we will discuss their types in more detail a little later) with the concept of search and the design process. The diagram clearly demonstrates that research is predominantly a designer's domain, especially early in the design process. Now we have to answer the question why this is necessary and what research methods are most effective.

Research to Minimize Risk

Any design is a risk. You can never know for sure whether an idea will work or not. But, as statistics show, effective research helps to minimize the risk. According to Gillian and Bill Hollins, only 5% of all design ideas that originate in industry lead to a commercially successful product 4 . About 80% of ideas are discarded before the design requirements are defined, and yet many of them are a necessary part of the idea generation process. But the further the design progresses in the process of developing a new product, the more expensive it becomes. Only one out of three products launched into the market achieves commercial success, and therefore, in order to reduce the risk and cost of failure, it is necessary to determine in advance the factors that contribute to the success of the product in the market.

Cooper and Kleinschmidt analyzed 203 new product launches, both successful and unsuccessful 5 . Their study revealed nine factors that are directly related to the success of new products; three of them had the strongest impact.

Advantages of the product - the product provided the consumer with unique opportunities; it turned out to be high quality, innovative, worth the money paid for it and helped to solve the problem that the consumer was facing.

High level of pre-project preparation - with products that turned out to be successful, a number of preliminary activities were carried out: preliminary review, preliminary market assessment, detailed market research and financial analysis.

A clear definition of the product - even before the product development stage, a clear definition of the target market segment, consumer needs, wishes and preferences, concept and specifications product.

In other words, the success of products is rooted in a deep understanding of the customer, the market, and the advantages of a new product concept over competitors. Obtaining all this information is often the prerogative of specialists in this field. In-house marketing departments, market research consultants and other professionals help the design process on its way to success. However, designers still need to understand the nature of existing research tools and how they can be adapted to their own needs while working on smaller projects.

Studying competitors

If successful design is to give a product an edge over competitive products, the first step is to carefully analyze and evaluate competitors. This will help either to discover those free niches in the market that the design will help to fill, providing right price, functionality, style or any other characteristic of the product that is created with its help, or to identify the initial inappropriateness of entering the competition.

Some companies literally take their competitors' products apart to find out how they are designed and manufactured. In 1960 the company Ford Motors undertook
such reverse engineering analysis BMC Mini*. After examining the machine down to the last weld and carefully determining the price of its assembly, the engineers Ford came to the conclusion that the production was unprofitable BMC Mini and, consequently, the futility of competing with Mini by price. Designer James Pilditch, while on a business trip to Japan, found that all electronics companies were doing this kind of engineering analysis of their competitors' products.

Market research reports provide useful background information about competitors, market-leading products, but these studies rarely provide detailed and descriptive information. Many designers resort to critical constructive analysis, extracting information from other, very different sources. These are trade fairs and exhibitions, industrial magazines, articles in Which?**, Kompass(a "who makes and sells" guide found in most libraries) and window shopping. As soon as a designer is armed with sales brochures, price lists, reviews and other information, he begins to understand something in it.

Market research

Welsh shoppers pay 5% more attention to color when buying pottery than Yorkshire shoppers. The durability of cookware is irrelevant for those over 65 and under 25. When choosing dishes, Manchester residents are more concerned about the price than residents of other regions. Last year, 56% of men purchased at least one T-shirt. 96.5% of consumers expressed their disapproval when they were shown a particularly outstanding designer teapot…

Market Research Reports (MRs) consist of observations such as those listed above regarding consumer preferences and behavior. Typically, the IR industry collects and collates information from producers, vendors, and consumers through extensive research. Sometimes companies commission research exclusively for themselves in order to compare their products with those of competitors.

Such formal market research is undoubtedly an important source of knowledge about the consumer, although not all companies

able to use them effectively. According to a study by the Design Innovation Group in the UK, about 90% of successful non-UK companies use formal R&D in product planning, compared to less than half of UK firms. From its results, it followed that in the process of product planning and design development, successful companies drew information from a variety of sources, supplementing formal R&D with other methods. Figure 4.6, based on the results of the study, presents the sources of information used by successful firms. Less successful companies showed a tendency to use only the first three sources of all listed.

As we will see a little later, formal IR is often imprecise and generalized and is more of a form of response than proactive action. Such research cannot help designers adapt existing products or come up with new concepts that can anticipate future needs. The term “creative marketing” is used to refer to inherently higher quality R&D methods (providing more detailed information about the views of consumers and about various alternative concepts). It involves teams of researchers, designers, and consumers who repeatedly discuss product ideas, first before the design specifications are defined, and again after the prototypes have been made.

One of the methods used to find out the opinion of consumers is focus group: A group of typical consumers of six or eight people come together to evaluate a product already on the market or some new concept. The facilitator* encourages group members to speak their minds openly and discuss proposals in an informal, open manner. Focus group research, a technique well established in new product development, also helped Tony Blair in developing new New Labour's principles and policies. Leaving aside the ethical doubts about whether policy decisions can be based on market research, let's consider the effectiveness of the focus group method and its inherent limitations.

A recent study at Loughborough University involved designers participating in focus groups to evaluate existing products. The benefit turned out to be obvious: designers begin not only to better feel and understand the end user, but also to more confidently develop designs for a wide variety of consumer groups; they receive useful information for their work, although the process itself takes a lot of time. However, according to Donald Norman, focus groups “show what matters in the present moment, but by no means what may be significant in the future. It is incredibly difficult for users to imagine how they could use this or that New Product in the future, and when it comes to completely new categories of products, it is better to forget about focus groups altogether. Norman goes even further, arguing that the behavior of focus group participants is dominated by a rational component, which does not always underlie the real behavior of people. In short, people can say one thing and do something completely different.

This is especially true for children. They are lying. And by no means because of innate deceit: children tend to say what they think adults want to hear from them, and not to answer sincerely - any parent will confirm this. Therefore, giving a child a prototype toy and asking him what he thinks of it is far from the best research method. IN THE USA Fisher price developed a research system known as playlab (from English - "game laboratory"). The company carefully selects a group of children and invites them to play in a room full of new toys. Researchers observe children through translucent mirrors and find out which toys children play with most actively and which arouse their strong interest.

Is that the whole secret of successful design - just gather a few customers, design according to their requirements, and wait for an avalanche of orders to fall upon you? Any research method requires a certain degree of caution in approaching it. The case we are considering is no exception: it is necessary first to make sure of the degree of representativeness of the group members as consumers. In addition, the whole process will benefit if the group includes more consumers who are interested in the future than consumers who are hostile to everything new.

In his book Liberation Management ( Liberation Management) Tom Peters tells how one firm was able to solve this problem. Company Hilti, a manufacturer of professional mechanical tools, used a method developed by Professor Eric von Hippel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology). The user-leading market research method involves first identifying the users most open to new ideas and innovations and then engaging them in product development workshops (where they, along with marketers and designers, help develop and evaluate design ideas). As part of the new product development process, the user-leader method has led Hilti to reduce development costs by up to 50%.

Lifestyle study

Rumor has it that the chief designer of the company Sony Yasuo Kuroki once said, “I don't believe in market research. They don't help us develop new products at all." According to Christopher Lorenz, the point of view Sony Deserves attention.

In 1960, the American electronics giant General Electric abandoned plans to produce portable televisions after market research showed that consumers did not see a need for such a product. In the same year Sony launched an 8-inch TV that sold for twice the retail price of 21-inch TVs. The product was a huge success and provided a launching pad for the Japanese companies that would eventually dominate the American TV market.

Yet success Sony was by no means ignoring market research. Rather, it was the result of the use of new and more adequate methods. Instead of relying on the opinions of consumers who are often skeptical or distrustful of change, Sony decided to analyze patterns of behavior and changes in culture. Virtually every American family had a television with multiple channels and was subject to a process of cultural fragmentation as the younger generation chose to entertain differently than their parents. Add up all these facts, and you get the need for an extra TV for the kids to watch and listen to Elvis, or for the housewife, and then Lucille Ball* can help her cook dinner.

Now, the study of lifestyle has become a main activity in many of the leading Japanese companies: in the design departments of some of them, units such as trend research centers or lifestyle research centers have appeared, where sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists work alongside designers. In company Mazda The job of the Design Research team is not just reading technical reports on carbon fibers. Magazines included in the must-read lists Vogue and The face, and designers are sent on business trips to observe people (which they do when visiting European bars and restaurants). These trends have led to the emergence of a more powerful form of ethnographic research, which we will explore later in this chapter.

Studying Trends

Increasingly, design is associated with the satisfaction of humanitarian needs - with lifestyle, fashion, changing tastes, cultural significance. Closely intertwined with design, trends are a collection of various developments in the technological world that give rise to new areas of design application and new needs. How can a designer understand these processes of change and predict their further development?

The shapes, colors and materials that are popular today influence the nature of the objects that designers design. A number of factors determine the types of communication and environmental objects. But technology capabilities are crucial, and this is obvious. For example, plastic molding technology became a key factor in the dominant aesthetic of the 1950s and 1960s. The manipulation of the computer image set trends in graphic design in the 1990s, and today new production techniques and materials are driving more diversity in design.

It is quite obvious that trends in design are also influenced by the state of the political economy. Thus, James Laver, a fashion historian, goes so far as to link the length of women's skirts with the state of the country's economy, believing that economic growth and women's skirts rise and fall in apparent harmony with each other 13 .

In addition, of course, there are also social and cultural relations. Thus, over the past 30 years, our attitude towards the environment has undergone significant transformations. Instead of disposable furniture from the 1960s, we increasingly prefer things made from recycled materials. Substances as subtle as taste and fashion also influence style. What you need to be especially aware of is that fashion today is much more diverse than in the past. And the trends in the design itself are far from the same type.

But instead of diving headlong into the existing diversity and surrendering to the ever-increasing rate of change in fashion and design trends, we must find ways to unwind this tangle of threads and understand what factors are causing the changes we are interested in. Perhaps in this way we will be able to predict the direction of these changes in the future.

Technological changes such as the development of microelectronics, information technology, the emergence of new materials, advanced manufacturing technologies and the development of biotechnology will continue to affect all areas of design (module 4.2). It is quite obvious that we need to keep pace with these phenomena and plan for their future development. In textiles, for example, new design possibilities are offered by the use of metalstyle, developed for use in industry, today used by fashion designers such as Helen Storey, who created fashion concepts for ICI(using insulating material for greenhouses). In the future, design innovation is likely to be the result of technology convergence, resulting in hybrid products that combine functionality and technology.

Module 4.2. When clothes merge with electronics

In 2000 Philips design started production of its portable electronics ( wearable Electronics), launching on the market products that combine electronic and textile technologies. Design experts in electronics, consumer and fashion have collaborated to develop garments with integrated electronics. According to Peter Sarangi, Head of Research Laboratories Philips in the UK, where the concept clothing was developed, “people carry more and more electronic products, such as mobile phones, PDAs, radios or players. And the trend is only getting stronger. So it makes perfect sense to start embedding these products right INSIDE of our clothes.”

Modern fabrics, in which the cable is embedded, become a wearable network, to which various components are connected at will. Children's clothing can be embedded with mobile phones and tracking systems, allowing parents to never lose sight of their children, or equipped with gaming systems and diversify children's entertainment. With the help of clothes made of interactive fabric, nightclub lovers will be able to choose club music and lighting. BUT Philips already offers pager sneakers that light up when a person who shares your interests is nearby.

Source: press releases Philips, http:// www. research. philips. com/ press media/ releases/990802. html(date of treatment - August 16, 2000).

As any historian will tell you, it is easier to predict the future if you remember the past well. One method that helps us better understand the nature and pace of change is the change chart; compiling it involves analyzing the evolution of design or products in general, or products of a particular company. Such diagrams help to see the speed of change and can serve as a basis for further development and improvement. They can be made very detailed and include photographs, details of performance and features, prices, sales data, etc. Change charts allow the designer to see the pace and nature of stylistic and technological changes, suggest whether it is time for a design change, indicate the presence of free niches in the market.

Since the 1960s there have been more than 50 trend forecasting agencies in the UK; they are engaged in predicting future changes in fashion in the field of color, style and form. At first, the services of these agencies were used exclusively by clothing manufacturers, but now among their clients you can find both sellers and manufacturers such as Ford. Forecasters make money doing what they say designers should be doing and which designers simply don't have time for. Agencies study cultural and social trends, the market, events in the world of fashion, media and music, and all the data obtained is presented in the form of so-called emotional maps.

A matter of taste

Several years ago one of us, the authors of this book, was involved in a discussion with the managing director of a ceramic tableware company (the conversation was broadcast live on the radio). The controversy unfolded over the apparent reluctance of his industry to seriously consider using a variety of modern designs. In defense of his preference for century-old design, the managing director said, "At the end of the day, design is a matter of taste." The company in question was recently placed in receivership.

To some extent, the director was right. Historically, design in the UK has seen its mission as improving the taste of the mass market, with the Design Council's key mission ( design Council) was to set standards for good design. But the ardent desire to cultivate the middle class ran counter to the interests of the industrialists and their supporters. In 1951, the British Treasury announced in an internal report that it saw no future in good design and consequently recommended that the Design Council be abolished. The report stated: “It turns out that the worse the design of an object, the better it sells in the foreign market. It is obvious that china dogs are especially popular abroad.”

If modernism saw its goal in smashing to smithereens the china dog and everything that stood behind it, then postmodernism prefers to see more dogs, and very different ones, and preferably plastic, made in China. Globalization, diversity and consumer choice have supplanted the questionable tenets of good taste, and the Design Council has long since abandoned its role as tastemaker. As discussed in Chapter 1, taste is the system of discrimination and individualization that literally makes us who we are by shaping our identity. Design is no longer about trying to impose modernist tastes on the mass market. Today, design is all about understanding the tastes of individual consumer groups, giving products forms and feel that express the meaning behind those tastes. Form is no longer determined by function, form is determined by value.

Mirja Kalviainen from the Design Academy of Kuopio ( Kuopio Academy of design), Finland, believes that an understanding of consumer taste should be embedded in the design process: “The element of taste in the designed objects should not be based on the preferences of the designer himself. Reflectivity, the ability to question one's own concept of taste, is at the heart of design processes that take the taste of the consumer into account." Kalviainen offers three lines of research to help the designer understand taste preferences consumers.

objective frames. This refers to the demographic characteristics of the consumer group, the context of use and the history of the product in this context.

Creation of meanings. Here the focus is on the area symbolic meaning, from the perspective of which it is studied
the life story of consumers and how, in the process of consumption, a product acquires its own meaning.

Interaction system. Designer explores social world, in which the consumer lives, which includes social codes and rituals, rules of interaction and key sources of influence.

To sum up Kalviainen's reasoning in a nutshell, in order to achieve a meaningful understanding of consumer tastes, a designer must conduct an empirical study of the world in which these consumers live. And it is necessary to approach this way of knowing from the standpoint of the social sciences (which try to explain the creation of meaning through consumption), backing it up with reflective introspection on the part of the designer himself. Some consulting firms already specialize in this kind of research. So, in the US, the company Image Engineering has developed a qualitative research method that is said to elicit consumer emotional responses to brand visuals and product design, thus charting the creation of meaning 17 . The study of consumer taste is of great importance for design, which purposefully seeks to emotionally affect the consumer. Taste is an element of the social-humanitarian function of any product or service, and according to McDonagh-Phillp and Lebbon, “humanitarian functionality cannot be applied to a product like gloss. It must be intrinsic to the design concept. And it will only increase the value of the product if it is culturally and emotionally close to the target audience.” Understanding taste and emotional contact with the material world is a job for an anthropologist.

Anthropology - active contact with the context

At Palo Alto, California's high-tech hub, anthropology jobs almost outnumber those of programmers. In February 1999, an editorial in the newspaper's financial section USA Today published under the title Hot Corporate Assets: An Anthropology Degree ( Hot asset in corporate: anthropology degrees). The article stated: “No amount of research can tell engineers what women really want from a razor. Therefore, marketing consultants Hauser Design They send anthropologists into bathrooms to watch women shave their legs.” Anthropology is very cool.

Indiana Jones was probably the first anthropologist to demonstrate how cool it is to be an anthropologist. Garrison Ford's character was an archaeologist who studied artifacts to understand people and their cultural systems. Archeology is the branch of knowledge within anthropology concerned with the study of historical cultures. Another branch of knowledge, applied anthropology, studies cultural systems and human behavior as applied to real-world problems, although this is probably what Indiana Jones did in an attempt to outsmart the Nazis.

Ethnography, which draws on the methods, techniques, and theory of anthropology and other social sciences such as psychology, sociology, and communication theory, has been called "a methodology that is used to provide a perspective on everyday life." Judy Tso is an anthropologist whose consulting firm Aha Solutions Unlimited (www.ahasolutions.org) applies ethnographic methods to product development issues, offers this explanation:

Once upon a time, ethnography was the preserve of those intrepid anthropologists who spent years doing fieldwork at the end of the world. Conducting field research required the anthropologist to spend a long time among the people he studied and carefully observe them. It is a specific approach to qualitative research that can take the form of an oral narrative or literary work. The anthropologist observed local life, participated in it, and after two or three years of study collected his observations, essays and stories in one document, which was called "ethnography".

If you want to know something about water, never ask a fish about it. Traditional market research methodology relies on structured research methods. One of the main problems with this approach is the following: fundamental needs, aspirations, habits and values ​​are so deeply rooted in the culture of a particular group of consumers that people can no longer find an adequate verbal expression for them or explain their reason. If we set ourselves the goal of understanding the context of life, then perhaps only observing the behavior and interaction of people and then analyzing what we see can help us in this. By studying the life of fish, we can actually learn a lot about water. Or photocopiers.

One of the first high-tech ethnographic studies was carried out in 1979 by anthropologist Lucy Sachman, who worked for the company's Research Center Xerox in Palo Alto Palo Alto Research center, PARC). Her video of office workers struggling with copying jobs on the machine Xerox, helped the design team realize that ease of use is far more important than having a lot of extra features. As a result of the design refinement, a large green button appeared on the photocopier, by clicking on which you get one very ordinary copy of the document. This button is still present on any, even on the most multifunctional photocopier Xerox. Sachman's work was a breakthrough in product development and opened the way for anthropologists in almost every high-tech company.

Not so long ago the company Kodak conducted an ethnographic study as part of the Global Consumer Experience program ( Global user experience, GLUE) in order to develop product design and user interface for Kodak markets in Japan, China and India. The study combined elements of ethnography, product and user interface prototyping, and design validation using focus groups in all three countries. Detailed report published in design management Journal, illustrates how ethnography can directly contribute to the product design process.

While Kodak quite obviously engaged in the development of consumer products, created taking into account the context of their use, Intel, at first glance, is just a supplier of high-tech components. However, on Intel there is also a team of anthropologists who are exploring a range of different contexts of use in which a device with Intel inside. According to Genevieve Bell, who is a member of this team and works for Intel since 1998, ethnography “is based on the idea, the essence of which can be expressed briefly: you best absorb the culture, being in it and being a part of it. One of my old teachers called it deep diving. You have to actually be there, communicate with people, take part in their daily life.” Intel uses deep diving to identify new uses and new users of computing technology, thereby expanding the market for its microprocessors (more on this in Module 4.3).

To inject their microprocessors into even more digital products, the company Intel decided to see what was outside. For one of the latest studies Intel sent her anthropologists shopping. Ultimately, it was required to formulate terms of reference for web designers to create e-commerce sites and suggest Intel what technologies will need to be developed in the future.

Genevieve Bell and her collaborators used surveys of shoppers, e-commerce enthusiasts, online merchants, and brick-and-mortar retailers as their research method. The actions taken also revealed the openness of the US market to new shopping experiences.

The researchers joined a group of women from Seattle and filmed one day of their shopping trips. The video showed the importance of the tactile, social, and playful aspects of the shopping experience, which helped to get to the heart of the problem facing e-commerce: “None of this happens on the Web. All you can do is look at the photo of the item and find out its price. While working on design e-commerce and m-commerce [ m-commerce - a kind of commerce carried out using a mobile phone; very popular in Japan] we need to understand the expectations people have about the buying process.”

As a result, a model of four ecological niches of the buying process was created (the model is presented below). The buying process as a service is like buying gas or renewing insurance. Consumption is associated with self-indulgence. Supply refers to household and family life. A pilgrimage is a process of going shopping in order to communicate and take part in some events. Each model imposes its own limitations on the design, but also provides new opportunities. The researchers also noticed the national characteristics of shopping trips. So, in the US, buying food is related to the “supply” level, while in Italy it is more of a “pilgrimage”. The identification and understanding of the designated ecological niches has helped develop suitable e-commerce models.

Some of the external research Intel led to much more concrete results. One ethnographer visiting a salmon fishery in Alaska noticed that the operator who took the day's catch from the fishermen taped his laptop to the outside wall because that was the best place to enter data. A follow-up study called fish and chips(from English - “fried fish and chips”) led to the development by the company Intel microprocessors capable of operating even at sub-zero temperatures.

Ethnography is called the process of creating a map of everyday life. Along with qualitative research methods, scientists use participant observation, interviews, reporting and, of course, deep immersion. Another method, behavioral flow chronicling, involves observing or filming people's behavior, which is particularly suitable for studying human interactions in the workplace. Next, the researchers study the videotape and formulate questions or hypotheses regarding the characteristics of the activity, or use the technique of forced recall when the subject comments on what is happening in the frame. Then, finally, categorization is carried out and an index of activities on the tape is compiled. Ethnographic interviews can be conducted using a range of techniques and techniques, from travel surveys, in which the research subject is asked to take the researcher on a tour of their workplace or home, to personal experience surveys, the purpose of which is to examine specific examples of experiences. Conducting such research is a process consisting of a repeatedly repeated cycle of observation, recording and analysis, which results in a huge amount of written notes, video materials, audio recordings and entire collections of artifacts; the process is boundless, fraught with a lot of discoveries and considering the object from two sides - from inside and outside. In essence, "ethnography is based on a philosophical position that recognizes that people themselves know the answers to all questions and better than others understand their lives, their problems and the circumstances in which they live and work."

Conducting ethnographic research to develop a new product or brand has become serious business. California consulting firm Cheskin (www.cheskin.com), a consumer research firm, has developed specific ethnographic methods for its clients. Applied Research aims to study consumer behavior in order to obtain results that can be used to take specific actions. Moreover, the emphasis is on the study of the life context, which is necessary to identify the understanding of the consumer. An example of such an approach is the development new form dealership for Mitsubishi, based on an ethnographic study of car buyers, as well as an analysis of the lifestyles of teenagers for the company Pepsi. With help Digital Ethno™ company Cheskin unites ethnography and the Internet (Fig. 4.7).

Whereas traditionally ethnographers have been physically immersed in specific situations and cultural formations, digital ethnographers instead use wired and wireless technologies and expand the scope of classical ethnographic methods beyond geographic and temporal boundaries… Consumers can receive powerful tools and technologies in order to observe per own worlds and capture their features, and then share these impressions with others through the Internet and other digital technologies 31 .

Meanwhile in brand New Corporation developed a project called Getting Started Closer™ , which uses what the company calls photographic ethnography; its purpose is “to give participants the opportunity to explore their own lives and behaviors through the use of a camera. It allows you to penetrate deeper into the motives of behavior, attitudes and intentions of the participants and fix them. Like qualitative research, this method is also applicable to a small number of participants, and in structure and internal sensations resembles a focus group. But that's where the similarity ends."

Evidence of the great value of ethnographic research comes from specialist consultants and corporate advisory groups.

When in 1995 the company Canon produced the first color printers for home use, sales were far from impressive. The company hired GVO, a Palo Alto consulting firm, to find out exactly what families print and what prints they exchange. Conducted GVO study of refrigerator doors and bedroom walls led to the development Canon Creative - software that comes with your printer to print posters, T-shirts, and greeting cards.

Kimberly- Clark conducted an ethnographic study on potty training in children and identified, through interviewed parents, questions, concerns and concerns that would not be detected using traditional methods (eg focus groups). As a result, the company has developed Huggies Pull- ups - training disposable panties that can be used after diapers, which allowed the company to increase its share of the corresponding market to $ 400 million.

Research conducted in China by the company Motorola, helped to discover that businessmen who were in rural areas where there was no telephone connection came up with an ingenious system for exchanging coded messages using pagers. As a result, the company developed Motorola two-way pager specifically for the Chinese market.

Ethnography is serious, cool, and a very lucrative branch of design consulting. Of course, an objective assessment of the effectiveness of ethnographic methods in the process of developing new products is a matter for the future. Much of the available literature, however meager as it may be, is devoted to the analysis concrete examples, journalistic reports and reports written by the ethnographic consultants themselves. Although, no doubt, Morrow's review of the literature on the application of anthropology to product development is a very useful source of information. Despite the paucity of existing documented examples in this area, it is possible to draw some conclusions and identify the benefits that anthropological research can bring to designers.

Design is designed to meet the needs of users, not designers. Marietta Baba, Head of Anthropology at Wayne University ( Wayne State University) in Michigan, says, "It used to be like this a long time ago: a bunch of middle-aged white men sat and everyone said, 'This is what I like, and this is what my wife likes, so let's do it' 37 . Relying on ethnography encourages the designer to proceed from the life context, needs and preferences of users.

Research may reveal an unexpected group of users or use cases. Technology often has various applications and contexts of use, which can only be revealed by ethnographic research methods (as happened in the case of two-way pagers in China described above). This leads to an expansion of markets and an increase in the number of product options.

Emphasis on meaning and identity. Ethnography is engaged cultural significance objects, rituals and other activities, as well as the social identities associated with them. In the age of consumer culture, when products become a means of expressing meaning and individual identity, it is through this approach that cultural experience becomes the true basis of the design process.

The last of these advantages is decisive. According to the cultural historian W. Bernard Carlson, “A successful product is much more than just a set of technical solutions. It is also a complex of cultural solutions. Unlike inventions, products succeed when they reflect an understanding of the values, established customs, and economics of a given culture.”

Transition to the study of design impressions

In our experience, consumers are more likely to tell you they want bigger buttons, fewer features, and a better price. But these are relatively superficial needs. Digging deeper, it's hard for consumers to articulate or even imagine what products they can't live without for the next few years.

Robert Logan is the head of user interface design at the company. Thomson Consumer Electronics. The company has always considered its main task to be more consumer-oriented and to develop new products that the consumer needs, which would contribute to an unforgettable experience. To achieve the goal in Thomson developed a new method and organizational focus of the company called "new research and design" ( new R& D) (from English. research and design- a counterweight research and development- Research and development).

Company Thomson relied on the experience of companies such as Apple Computer and Xerox that take a similar approach to experience-driven design. According to “new research and design”, three groups of specialists work together to develop products, as shown in Figure 4.8. The "artists" group brought together industrial and graphic designers, artists, photographers and contemporary media designers. Ergonomics specialists, marketers, psychologists and anthropologists are classified as "humanists". "Technologists" are mechanical engineers, engineers CAD and computer scientists.

Although the members of each group have their own specific research and design responsibilities, they are actively involved in all types of research, which allows each element of the process to be seen from different perspectives. According to Logan, "the challenges that researchers face are to define today's consumer space, identify current trends, and provide a vision for future opportunities." Company approach Thomson, which combines subjective, non-factual types of research on the one hand, and highly objective methods on the other, is a combination of approximation and accuracy.

If the impression really is born at the intersection of art, technology and the humanities, then Thomson has chosen the most appropriate approach. In the previous chapter, we looked at the idea of ​​technology designers metamizing, that is, creating designs that go beyond products and address the most meaningful consumer experience. This is a kind of variation on Pine and Gilmour's idea of ​​reviving a thing, which we mentioned in the chapter. Thomson is just one example of how research and design processes can be organized to achieve the ultimate goal of creating an experience.

This reflects a general trend in design management in the 1990s and early 21st century to create more effective methods research, the purpose of which would be not only to individualize products and achieve a competitive advantage, but also to enhance the consumer experience.

As the examples in this chapter show, the consumer electronics and software sectors have been pioneers in many ways. They have gone from being consumer-driven, early adopters, for whom technology and innovation are already a value, to a more mature stage, when the company is looking to a more diverse market, in which technology as such no longer means much, but a key role. play convenience, reliability and a positive impression. This shift is described in the writings of Donald Norman, a psychologist turned design. His book The Design of Everyday Things The design of everyday things), published in 1988, is a seminal essay on usability and ease of use. The book makes a compelling case that designers and manufacturers need to start designing and building things that are simple and easy to use, as well as a set of practical techniques to help achieve this. Using the example of objects such as doors, gas stoves and telephones, Norman shows the need for "user-oriented design", "with an emphasis on the production of convenient and understandable products."

Ten years later, in The Invisible Computer ( The invisible computer), Norman moved even further and moved from the idea of ​​usability and design to a broader concept - the development of products focused on people. The author defines this concept as a process that unites many disciplines, the purpose of which is "to create technology that serves the user when it fits the task", and "it is the task that is difficult, not the means of solving it." Norman defines the user experience as a necessary key element to enable products to meet the needs of today's markets: “When a technology reaches its maturity phase, customers begin to expect convenience, high quality, low cost and reliable performance from it. A successful product relies on a solid business case and three pillars: technology, marketing, and user experience.”

Donald Norman sees the user experience as an interdisciplinary activity within the product development process that involves six groups of people. These are:

• specialists in anthropology and sociology involved in field trials;
• designers of behavioral models with knowledge in the field of cognitive science and practical psychology;
• modelers and rapid prototypers* who specialize in programming, engineering and industrial design;
• test users with skills in rapid user testing and preferably knowledge in experimental psychology;
• graphic and industrial designers "who possess a design skill that combines science and rich experience with art and intuition";
• technical writers "whose job should be to show technologists how to do things that don't require a manual."

Donald Norman's user experience is very close to the company's new research and design Thomson. Both approaches place design in an interdisciplinary context that spans specific humanities and technical disciplines. In both cases, the main goal is to enrich the consumer experience. Therefore, we must consider the organizational, disciplinary, and exploratory aspects of design more broadly than before. So far, research and practice in design management has focused on the relationship between design and marketing. For example, many studies have sought to 1) explain how marketing can drive design, and 2) pinpoint the meaning of design for each element of the marketing mix: product, price, distribution, and promotion. What has received little attention in the literature, however, is the interface between design and experience and the ensuing research problems. To draw an analogy with the marketing mix, which consists of four R(from English. product, price, place, promotion), we propose the concept of four FROM impression complex - context, connection, consumption and completion (from the English. context, connections, consumption, closure) (Table 4.1).

These steps roughly correspond to those of Ree's design impression model, which was described in the previous chapter.

Each of the four stages of an experience - its context, initial emotional connection with the consumer, continued consumption, and completion or rejection - can be explored using a number of different methods. This is necessary in order to understand what the consumer requirements for the experience are, and to do everything possible to ensure that all design elements meet these requirements. Brand, packaging, product, environmental and information design must be harmonized to provide a holistic experience of using a product or service.

Market research and forecasting techniques contribute to a more accurate definition of the context. Taste studies and other visual methods help to clarify the connection of a product with the intended consumer. For example, a design company Ashcraft design developed a method called “interactive consumer audience analysis”. This method involves an interdisciplinary team (consisting of marketers, engineers, salespeople, and designers) examining the entire product experience to see what values ​​it contains can be used to develop a brand image strategy. In terms of studying everyday consumption, focus groups, traditional usability testing, and other methods can be useful. Company TSDesign developed a methodology for online designers called "user experience analysis" to look at a website from the user's point of view: a team of designers, information architects and business strategists analyzes a website based on its stated commercial goals.

The last two methods discussed in Table 4.1 deserve special attention because they provide designers with significant advantages. While both originated in the design of organizational computer systems, their scope is expanding; they are increasingly being used in interactive media design and (to a lesser extent) in industrial design.

Interview in context

Company Usability Study Group Microsoft (Microsoft Usability Group) uses interviews in context (IC) to determine the needs that new software systems must meet, while Hewlett Packard applies the same method to identify new needs in the PC printer market. Thus, it turns out that IC originally arose in the high-tech industry, but as a research methodology it can be applied in other industries.

IR is a research technique in applied anthropology that is most commonly used to explain the processes, actions, and needs of people in the workplace. The founders of this technique, Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt, give it this definition:

A way to understand exactly who our customers really are and how they work day by day. The design team conducts one-on-one interviews with clients in the client's workplace to find out what exactly matters to their work. The interviewer observes users in the process of work and asks questions about their actions, step by step finding out the motivation of their actions and the strategy of their activity. During the conversation, the interviewer and the user develop a common understanding of what the latter does in his job.

IR has two key features that distinguishes it from many traditional methods for determining user needs. First, the researchers conduct field research using the craft apprenticeship model; second, the research is done by designers, not anthropologists or some other user researcher. Both of these characteristics increase the value of IC as a research tool.

The effectiveness of this method is also ensured by the direct participation of the designers themselves in it: “It is the designers who are faced with the task of understanding the client in order to develop a product design ... We believe that designers absorb information better if they conduct interviews themselves, and then analyze them together with specialists in other fields, and not just getting ready-made results from someone else.”

We will not go into methodological details, as this is beyond the scope of this book, but there are several very useful sources on the issues at hand. IC has evolved into a more holistic approach to software design - contextual design, which is detailed by the developers on their own website ( www.incontextenterprises.com).

Joint design

Collaborative design (SD) originated in the Scandinavian democratic model, which found its expression in the commitment to industrial democracy - the participation of workers and trade union representatives in the management of industry. Since the late 1970s, the issue of introducing new technologies into the workplace has given rise to many projects aimed at giving workers a voice in decisions about technologies and systems that were supposed to change their work. One of the first such projects, which paved the way for collaborative design principles, was Utopia ( UTOPIA). Within this program, the researchers worked together with the Scandinavian Union of Graphic Designers ( Nordic Graphic Workers' Union). The purpose of the collaboration was to "develop powerful support tools for graphic designers." Thanks to the Utopia project, some progress has been made in the development of electronic layout systems for newspapers. These systems were built on the skills that graphic designers and printers already possessed and were simultaneously expanding.

In the UK, somewhere on the periphery of the trade union movement, there have also been similar initiatives. The most famous of these was the attempt by the Joint Committee of Trade Union Representatives of the company Lucas Aerospace design and develop a range of socially useful products that could be produced in degraded defense factories Lucas Aerospace. However, the Scandinavian culture of collaborative decision-making that led to Utopia stood in stark contrast to the British policy of the 1980s to reduce the power of trade unions. Thatcherism appreciated the benefits of new technologies in terms of the effectiveness of their use as political leverage - to subdue the unions.

It is possible that the imposition of technology gave the right some short-term political advantage. However, 20 years after the bitter fighting in Wapping, when Murdoch ended once and for all any influence of press unions, one can look at these events as part of a broader and more ambiguous position. With few exceptions, British industry tended to underestimate the knowledge and experience of workers and the needs and lifestyles of consumers. The fate of the British automotive industry is a good example of the consequences of not appreciating the quality of the working environment and consumer experience. Poorly organized work and low-quality goods have no future.

Once again, we turn to the American computer and multimedia industries as engines of change that see collaborative design as a way to get closer to the consumer. According to experts Tec- Ed Inc. - a consulting firm that has introduced collaborative design in companies such as Sun Microsystems, Logitech, Cisco Systems and etc . , - joint design looks like this:

A group of people most interested in product design work together to develop product design options based on how the product will be used by consumers at work. Users play a major role in collaborative design meetings. They tell us about their work environment, the tasks they need to complete, and what tools and tools they have at their disposal help them and which ones don't. This active user intervention results in improved product design and shortens the development and testing cycle.

AT Digital Equipment Corporation designers in collaboration with a group of chemists developed a portable apparatus feedback torque using a five-step collaborative design process.

1. Building relationships. The selection of the group of users to be addressed was initially done through Internet e-mail announcements, and then meetings were organized to familiarize users with issues and technologies.
2. Interview in context. IC principles and methods were applied to understand the working context of users.
3. Conducting brainstorming. It was carried out among users to determine possible approaches to solving the design.
4. Storyboard. Based on the most promising ideas from brainstorming, users and computer design created illustrated scenarios on the topic “a day in the life of a user”.
5. Iterative design*. The storyboards were used by the engineers as design specifications to create prototypes that were tested by the participating users and then refined. Design thus took the form of a cyclical process.

Based on the above example, it can be argued: “Co-design has shown chemists and computer scientists some new directions in design. This project shows that collaborative design can be used to develop new computer technologies in the same way that it is used for new computer application systems.

Collaborative design offers the design team a range of benefits. First of all, it helps to determine the implicit knowledge of users and, therefore, to discover possible problems in the design area, as well as their solutions, which could elude a working group consisting of (including) users. As a result, the design is more tightly tied to the real requirements of the product and the user context, thereby improving the user experience of this product. And when designing for a particular user group or user environment, SD can give users a sense of value and a sense of ownership of the new design.

Practice Oriented Research

The last method we would like to analyze is not a method, but a set of techniques that facilitate the integration of users' implicit knowledge and creative design approach into a coherent whole of a research process guided by well-defined goals and priorities. Practice-oriented research has contributed to the transition of design activity into the category of those fields of activity in which it is possible to obtain an academic degree 62 . The ongoing methodological debate about practice-oriented research will remain outside the scope of our discussion. We would like to dwell on only some of the issues first raised in these disputes or that arose in the few documented examples of such research in practice.

The relationship between theory and practice in design is tense at best. In the 1960s and 1970s, the design methods movement was seen as an attempt to graft the "rational cricket bat" of method onto the "gentle, intuitive tomato sprout" of practice. As a result of its activities, the movement raised some important questions, but it distanced itself so much from everyday design practice (and the real world of designers) that it remained an isolated academic doctrine. As a result, the theoretical basis of design was largely undermined, vulnerable to anti-intellectualism. There was also this, probably fair, observation: “Very few practicing designers feel that their knowledge of design theory has any bearing on what they do.”

At present, practice-oriented research can be seen as a series of heterogeneous approaches, each of which, in its own way, seeks to combine practice with theory. According to one approach, practice is considered a kind of research, since the product of the designer's work embodies information, and therefore is actually the result of research, and only minimal effort is needed to formulate its theoretical conclusions. Perhaps this model is more based on research in the field of fine arts. Other models are now emerging ubiquitously that seek to draw theoretical knowledge on design from design practice, which, in turn, is a manifestation of theory. This latest model is a manifestation of the recent desire of designers to assert their own hidden creative methodologies, making them part of the overall process of academic research and at the same time recognizing the need to maintain links with other disciplines and methodologies. Some of the adherents of this model refer to the historical contribution of craftsmanship and design practice to the accumulation of knowledge and, accordingly, to the theory created on the basis of this knowledge. Kevin McCullough argues that the goal of design should be to merge theory and practice - design-practice: "practice based on theory and theory derived from practice."

Today, the designated concept is much more promising than during the days of the design methods movement. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, compared to the 1970s, design has become much more complex, it can no longer be imagined without proper research and development. theoretical developments. If then design was nothing more than a handicraft, today it can be compared to the international hotel business - global scope, application of modern technologies, close relationship with various functional divisions of the company. The methods described in this chapter are not theoretical constructions taken out of thin air, but the result of the practical work of designers and design groups, which we observed at work in London, Seoul, Palo Alto and other places. Second, today design departments at universities and art colleges have a strong financial incentive to continue looking for new ways to combine theory with practice.

Some design researchers argue that design should become a more scientific activity, while emphasizing that this approach is in no way inconsistent with the creative nature of design (module 4.4). Ken Friedman and Anti Aynamo are the most vocal proponents of this approach.

Science and scientific methods do not necessarily lead to positivism. Modern science and scientific methods involve various kinds of links between theory and practice, and not just a positivist approach. But what really matters is our desire to consciously master the knowledge of design, to understand what a thing is and how it works based on fundamental principles. The main difference between design as a science and design as an art is that design as a science does not begin with visual or other sensations, but with the definition of the conditions of the problem. Visual, tactile and other sensations, intonations, feelings and shades appear at the stage of solution, already when, based on the conditions of the task set for the designer, the main requirements for its solution are determined. Thus, the scientific approach to design does not in the least contradict its artistic aspect 66 .

Module 4.4. DIY research

An example of a practice-oriented study focused on user experience is one of the research projects at the University of Sheffield-Hallam. In his research into the design of a prosthetic hand, industrial designer Graham Whiteley applied creative design approach and practical techniques for solving those problems that were previously thought to be exclusively within the competence of scientists and engineers.

As a result, physical models of the naturally articulated skeleton of the hand and the entire arm up to the shoulder were obtained, which, in terms of quality and functionality, completely repeat the anatomy (bones and joints) of the human hand. It was also possible to attach tendon extensions to the models, forcing the actuator muscles to communicate the driving force to the automatic hand. This example- a simple and visual demonstration of the use of practice-oriented design research in an interdisciplinary context. Evidence of this is the ease with which the information obtained in the process of research and embedded in the created models is quickly and fully read by a wide variety of specialists and user groups who were able to study and evaluate these models without any auxiliary texts and materials. Whiteley and his advisor Chris Rast have published their reflections on the development of design research based on creative practice, and, importantly, they are involved in scientific discussions in two areas: design and design medical equipment. The project itself demonstrated the value of design practice as a means of testing usability and as a field in which the theoretical principles of a number of different disciplines find their expression and integrate into a single whole.

The emergence of the concept of practice-oriented design has led to a useful and long overdue reassessment of the relationship of design to theory, science, and methodology in a scientific, academic context. The diverse nature of design types means that sometimes artistic practice quite naturally leads research, as in the case of the applied arts. And yet practical design activity must be based on social sciences and culture - this is the main priority of modern industrial design. Only in this way will we achieve what we want: design will be driven by real needs and meaningful experiences.

Research impression

The development of design in the 21st century is entirely driven by research, which should be based on an understanding of culture and technology that combines art, science and the humanities. This state of affairs makes new demands on designers and makes it necessary to take on new obligations. Perhaps one of the main requirements is to strike a balance between the need to conduct the most thorough preliminary research and the time pressure caused by competition in the development of new products. Therefore, we conclude this chapter with a rating of five best advice for a designer who is short of time (Table 4.2).

Our top five research tips for hastily we formulated by studying the experience of the designers themselves. Perhaps the design should be more scientifically based, and quite likely based on scientific knowledge and methods. However, according to Donald Norman, “Applied science does not need the precision of traditional scientific methods. In industry, an approximately correct answer is sufficient. Speed ​​is more important than accuracy."

Good design is the embodiment of knowledge and understanding, while bad design is the recognition of one's own ignorance. In this chapter, we tried to prove: 1) the design must necessarily be based on research; 2) only such an approach will guarantee that the subject environment will give users a maximum of pleasant impressions and enrich their life experience. In particular, we have shown how crucial techniques drawn from market research, ethnography, and other fields are to design success or failure. We saw that the user can be not only a source of marketing information, but also a necessary participant in the design development process. We have also found that practical design can be the core of a well-defined research program that expands our knowledge and helps to more effectively integrate the theory and practice of artistic design.

• evidence-based medicine

• Medical research design

• Pivina L.M., PhD, assistant

• Department of Internal Diseases № 2

Previous events

• Reducing infant mortality and rapid population growth

• Change in the structure of morbidity from acute diseases to the predominance of chronic

• Changing the etiological nature of diseases - from infectious agents to behavioral factors

• The rapid development of medical science and the growth of medical technology

• Development of social insurance systems

What does evidence-based medicine mean?

• “…conscientious, accurate and meaningful use of the best results of clinical research to make decisions in the care of a particular patient.”

• (Sackett D., Richardson W., Rosenberg W., Haynes R. Evidence-based medicine. How to practice and teach EBM. Churchill Livingstone, 1997.)

The concept of evidence-based medicine

• The purpose of the concept of evidence-based medicine is to give doctors the opportunity to find and use evidence-based facts obtained in the course of correctly conducted clinical trials in making clinical decisions, to increase the accuracy of predicting the outcomes of medical interventions.

• The concept is based on two main ideas:

• Every clinical decision of a physician must be based on scientific evidence.

• The weight of each fact is the greater, the stricter the methodology of scientific research, during which it was obtained.

• Fingers M.A. 2006

When did evidence-based medicine appear?

• 1940 - First randomized trials (use of streptomycin in tuberculosis)

• 1960 thalidomide tragedy

• 1962 - The US Food and Drug Administration introduced regulations requiring controlled trials of new drugs.

• 1971 - Cochran raised the issue of lack of scientific evidence

• 1980-90 - Drawing attention to the need to include systematic reviews in clinical guidelines

• 1994 - First Cochrane colloquium at Oxford

• 1994 - EBM term

• 1996 - most British doctors already know the term EBM

• 1996 - The British Minister of Health declared that his main task was to promote the concept of EBM

• 1996 EBM headlines in leading British newspapers

• 1999 - BMJ publishes EBM handbook (US circulation ½ million)

• 2001 - German, Spanish, Russian, Japanese editions

• DM was named after Archie Cochrane, an English epidemiologist, who pointed out the need to assess the role of a particular clinical intervention using controlled clinical trials and store the results in a special database on the effectiveness of medical care.

• He was the first to formulate the concept of evidence-based medicine.

• Research has shown that

• for 2/3 patients doctors

• need information, but

• receive it only in

• a small number of cases. Where to get the necessary information?

• Observations show that in some domestic journals up to ½ of the articles are of an advertising nature in terms of content, design, or are associated with print advertising.

To keep up with the times…….

• “… a doctor needs to read 10 journals, approximately 70 original abstract articles per month….”

• Sackett D.L. (1985)

• "... you need to read 15 articles 365 days a year ..."

• McCrory D.C. (2002)

• Less than 1 hour per week available to practitioner for reading

Relationship between practitioner and medical information

• Information boom

• Difficulties in finding reliable ("evidence") information

• Difficulties in analyzing information

• Difficulties in making effective clinical decisions

• medical errors

• Appointment of unreasonable interventions

Justification for the need for regulation

• In the US, 98,000 deaths per year from medical errors (IOM, 2000)

• Only 30% of medical interventions with reliably proven effectiveness

• Ineffective (and sometimes harmful) interventions are widespread

• Interventions with proven effectiveness are far from being received by all those in need

• The use of cocarboxylase, riboxin, asparkam

• Parenteral administration of vitamins as an adjuvant treatment

• Appointment of angioprotectors, absorbable drugs

• Prophylactic administration of iron and folic acid to pregnant women– positive impact on maternal and newborn health

• Mammography for early detection of breast cancer

Effect of rehabilitation training programs on CAD outcomes in patients with myocardial infarction over 3 years of rehabilitation (meta-analysis)

Components of quality medical care (Haynes et al'96)

Clinical Epidemiology

• DM is based on clinical epidemiology which is a branch of medicine that uses the epidemiological method to obtain medical information based only on strictly proven scientific facts, excluding the influence of systematic and random errors.

Feelings that scientific research evokes in us

FraminghamHeartStudy ( Framingham Study ) Massachusetts, under the auspices Heart, Lungand Blood

FraminghamHeartStudy ( Framingham Study ) a typical example of clinical epidemiology. This study began in 1948 to investigate cardiovascular health in Framingham, Massachusetts, under the auspices National Heart Institute (later renamed National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute: NationalHeart, Lungand Blood Institute; NHLBI). Initially, the study covered 5209 men and women. In 1971, it included 5124 representatives of the second generation of participants - “offspring”. Now the researchers are planning to start a survey of 3,500 grandchildren of those who entered the study more than 50 years ago - the "third generation". The study is unparalleled in terms of the duration and size of the cohort, and its significance for modern medicine, and primarily cardiology, can hardly be overestimated. Over the years of careful monitoring of the study participants, the main risk factors leading to diseases of the cardiovascular system have been identified: high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, smoking, obesity, diabetes, etc. Since its inception, the results of the study have been published in about 1,200 articles in the world's major medical journals.

• Deviation from the norm Healthy or sick

• Diagnosis How accurate are the methods

• Frequency How common is the condition

• Risk What factors are associated with an increased risk of the disease

• Prognosis What are the consequences of the disease

• Treatment How will the course of the disease change with treatment?

• Prevention Are there methods to prevent disease in healthy people? Does the course of the disease improve with early recognition and treatment?

• Cause What factors lead to the disease?

• Cost How much does this treatment cost?

• disease?

Frequency

• Frequency

• Risk

• Forecast

• Treatment

• Prevention

• Cause

retrospective

• retrospective(retrospective study) - past events are evaluated (for example, according to medical records)

• prospective(prospective study) - first, a research plan is drawn up, the procedure for collecting and processing data is established, and then a study is conducted according to this plan.

Classification of research by design

• 1. Observational studies (studies - observations)

• one or more groups of patients are described and observed for certain characteristics

• 2. Experimental studies

• the results of the intervention are evaluated (drug, procedure, treatment, etc.), one, two or more groups participate. The subject of research is observed

Classification of scientific clinical trials

Research structure

• By time:

• Cross-sectional studies

• Longitudinal studies

Longitudinal Research

Description of cases

• Descriptive reviews- the most "readable" scientific publications that reflect the author's position on a specific issue

• Most often present the medical history of one patient

• One way to comprehend complex clinical situations

• But no scientific proof

Series of clinical cases and clinical cases

Types of observational studies Case series or descriptive studies

• A case series description is a study of the same intervention in individual consecutively included patients without a control group.

• For example, a vascular surgeon may describe the results of carotid revascularization in 100 patients with cerebral ischemia.

Types of observational studies Case series or descriptive studies, features

• describes a certain number of characteristics of interest in observed small groups of patients

• relatively short study period

• does not include any research hypotheses

• has no control groups

• precedes other studies

• this type of study is limited to data on individual patients

Study case - control (case control study)

• A study that is designed to compare two groups of participants with developed and non-developed clinical outcomes (usually poor) in order to identify differences in the influence of certain risk factors on the development of this clinical outcome.

• This study design is most useful when trying to determine the cause of rare diseases, such as the development of CNS disorders in children after pertussis vaccine.

Occasions:

• Occasions: the presence of a disease or outcome

• Control: no disease or outcome

• Possible causes or risk factors for the disease are assessed retrospectively, but this is not a historical control

• Answers the question "What happened?"

• Longitudinal or longitudinal study

Case-control studies

• Design

Advantages and disadvantages

• Advantages

• Best design for rare diseases or conditions that require long time spans
• Used to test primary hypotheses
• Very short term
• Least Expensive

• Flaws

• A large number of biases and systematic errors
• Depends on the quality of primary descriptions and measurements
• Difficulties in selecting an appropriate control group

• A study that is designed to follow a group (cohort) of participants and identify differences in their rates of certain clinical outcomes.

• A group of patients is selected for a similar sign, which will be traced in the future

• Begins with an assumption of a risk factor or outcome

• Exposed to RF and Unexposed

• Prospective in time, determination of the desired factors in the exposed group

• Answers the question "Will people get sick if they are exposed to a risk factor?"

• Mostly prospective, but there are also historical cohort (retrospective)

Design

• Design

Advantages and disadvantages of cohort trials

• Advantages

• The best design for studying the causes of conditions, diseases, risk factors and outcomes.
• Enough time to obtain rigorous evidence
• Many systematic errors can be avoided (occur if the outcome is known in advance)
• Evaluates the relationship between exposure to a risk factor and several diseases

• Flaws

• Longitudinal
• Expensive (research more of people)
• Evaluates the relationship between disease and exposure to a relatively small number of factors (those identified at the start of the study)
• Cannot be used for rare diseases (sample size must be larger than the number of individuals with the disease under study)

Types of observational (descriptive) studies Cross-sectional study (prevalence)

• Data is collected at a specific point in time

• Types:

• Prevalence of disease or outcome
• Studying the course of the disease, staging

• Answer the question "How much?"

Prevalence studies

• Design

TERMINOLOGY

• Prevalence- prevalence. Example: CHD prevalence in a population number of people with CHD/total population as a percentage.

• Incident- primary morbidity. Example: asthma incident in children in Semey = number of new cases of asthma in children in Semey / number of children living in Semey.

• The higher the incidence (I) and the longer the disease or condition, the higher the prevalence (P)

• P = I x L

RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TEST (RCT) (Controlled Clinical Trials, CCT)

• - THE GOLD STANDARD FOR ANY DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT METHOD.

• Typically, this is a study in which participants are randomly assigned (randomized) into two groups - the main group (where the intervention under study is used) and the control group (where a placebo or other intervention is used. This design of the study allows you to compare the effectiveness of interventions.

Scheme of a typical RCT

Design

• Design

placebo control

• placebo control

• Active treatment

• Comparative characteristics of doses

Flaws

• Flaws

• often takes a long time
• Very expensive
• Not suitable for rare diseases
• limited opportunity generalizability

• Advantages

• the best data for patients
• less bias (systematic error)
• best for evaluating effectiveness and validating interventions
• If randomized, most rigorous in design and valid

Development of the Study Protocol

• The protocol (program) of a clinical trial is a document that contains instructions for everyone who takes part in a clinical trial, with the specific tasks of each participant and instructions for completing these tasks.

• The protocol provides qualified research, as well as the collection and analysis of data, which are then submitted for review to the authorities of the control and licensing system.

Development of an Individual Registration Card

• The Individual Registration Card (CRC) is a means of collecting data from a paper-based study conducted at a study center. Some studies also use electronic means for this purpose.

• In the first phase (Phase 1) of a clinical trial, researchers study a new drug or treatment in a small group of people (20-80 people) to first determine its safety, establish a safe dose range, and identify side effects.

• In the second phase (Phase II), the study drug or treatment is given to a larger group of people (100-300 people) to see if it is effective and to further test its safety.

Stages (phases) of a clinical trial

At the third stage (Phase III), the study drug or treatment method is prescribed to even larger groups of people (1000-3000 people) to confirm the effectiveness and safety, control side effects, as well as to compare with commonly used drugs and treatments, to accumulate information that will allow it is safe to use this medicine or treatment.

The fourth stage (IV phase) of research is carried out after the drug or treatment method has been approved for use by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan. These studies continue testing the study drug or treatment to further gather information on its effects on different groups of people and identify any side effects that appear with long-term use.

• A review is a solid scientific study that clearly articulates the question under study, describes in detail the methods used to search, select, evaluate and synthesize the results of various studies relevant to the question under study. A systematic analysis may include meta-analysis (but its use is optional).

Meta-analysis (meta-analysis)

• Summarizing the results of several studies on the same topic

It is mainly compiled on the basis of systematic reviews. A method of statistical analysis that combines the results of several studies and presents the final score as a single weighted score (with more weight usually given to large studies or studies of higher methodological quality).

Medical Research Design Conclusions

• RCT– maximum strength, but often expensive and time-consuming

• well prepared observational studies give good results in identifying the causes of diseases, but not enough evidence

• Cohort studies–best for studying the course of diseases and identifying risk factors

• Case-control studies fast and inexpensive

Choice of research methodology

• Quantitative research: designed to answer the questions: “How much” and “How much?” Aimed at identifying relationships, usually causal relationships between variables.

• Collection of information on the problem of interest and mathematical analysis of the obtained quantitative data.

• The goal is to identify general patterns that are characteristic not only for the surveyed group of people, but for the entire population as a whole, which will allow the researcher to interpret the problem and make predictions.

Qualitative Research

• It is designed to answer the questions: “Who? Why? When? and where?" and aimed at a deeper study of the problem.

• The problem is considered from different points of view.

• The purpose of the study is to reveal the principles (patterns) characteristic of the studied population, according to which the phenomena of interest to us proceed and which will allow us to give a deeper understanding of the problem.

Qualitative Research

Data collection methods:

• quantitative

• Tests and various measurement methods

• Questionnaires, questionnaires

• Formalized data collection

• Important elements are:

• Presence of a control group
• Randomization

Data analysis

• quantitative

• Statistics

Reliability of evidence

Research types and focus

How, with the help of research, to turn an unorganized creative process into a technological chain of actions that lead to a predictable result.

Designers with a lot of experience sometimes skip the research stage, riding on the fact that they have accumulated many patterns of ready-made solutions in their heads. But there is a high degree of randomness in this - you can make a mistake and use the wrong pattern, or simply not find what you need. For beginners, it's even more difficult.

Research helps both of them, allowing them to formalize the design process, to qualitatively (with deep immersion and at a high level) develop analytics and a creative concept in the allotted time.

Any unorganized creative process is like a black box. You give a designer a task, he disappears for a week, then brings something. What happened at that time and where it came from is not clear. Magic. This creates two big problems:

1. The solution strongly depends on life experience designer. The more a designer knows about the world around him, the more likely he is to draw a good design. This is a limitation. Quality is determined by subjective parameters, and should be stable.

2. Impossible to plan work by time and result. If you rely only on inspiration, insight and divine providence, then sometimes it happens that the result is obtained in three days. But if you didn’t guess correctly, then the solution of the problem stretches for three weeks.

To open the black box, you need to understand what stages the process consists of and formalize it. Then the result will be predictable.

It is very important to analyze the design process in order to move further beyond the initial ideas and emerging images. As a result, you do all this on autopilot, freeing your head to get an extraordinary result.

A sign of stagnation - if you think the same as before. This is a signal: most likely, you have stopped in development. A good sign is when from project to project all processes look more and more technologically advanced and the range of processed conventions tends to infinity. This is the only way to “dig up” truly worthwhile solutions.

Better not to use the word "guessed". It is better to appeal with facts, whether it was possible to solve the problem or not. "No" - when the decision does not stand up to criticism, and this happens if the result is based on an intuitive search. The result should always be based only on the rational and logical.

What does research provide?

Immerses the designer in context, and decisions are justified. The designer offers not just something cool, but builds logical relationships.

Allows you to build better relationships with your customers. Research is communication. You study not just the business, but also the customer and his client, and in the process you begin to better understand what the user needs, what the customer wants and how to implement it.

Primary Research

Primary research is a method of collecting information through direct interaction: interviews, observation, experiments, etc.

Primary research is divided into qualitative (in-depth interviews, observation of a person all day long) and quantitative (statistics, surveys, site analytics).

Among qualitative research allocate:

ethnography- a method of studying the daily life of consumers. The name of the method is borrowed from historical science, when ethnographers, exploring unfamiliar tribes, describe the way of life of people in order to understand their motives and actions. Ethnography is used when information about the target audience is minimal. Observations make it possible to understand different scenarios of user behavior and "entry points" - in what situations a person needs to use the product.

reflection- observation of oneself, analysis of one's own experience. Fixation and awareness of their feelings and experiences.

Shadow method- repetition of human actions. For example, you capture user behavior on the site, and then copy it, marking significant points.

Observations are recorded using a camera, audio and video recordings. Record the conversation on a voice recorder, give the recording for transcription, and you will have a ready-made document that will help you return to any point in the conversation. Take pictures of the people you are interviewing. If another person will work with the material in the future, the photo will help to better understand the user. Capture the interaction with the product on camera, and then you can watch the video and see some moments that you didn’t notice right away.