Download Generative Research

Generative Research
Observe people using products in their contexts to gain a nuanced understanding
of their behaviors and perspectives
Why?
It helps to discover what people know and feel to later inspire the
design of an artifact, a service or a system. Generative Research is
a great tool to empathize with users and collect knowledge that is
difficult to express with words.
What?
Generative Research is a series of collaborative activities
involving people (designers and non-designers) using
tangible artifacts to represent aspects of their personal
experience with the aim of generating meaningful
solutions for the issue to solve.
How?
These co-design activities are flexible and can be adjusted to the particular needs of each research. The main point
is to get direct insights from the users’ unique point of view.
Define the problem
Formulate a hypothesis of the problem you are trying to solve.
Describe the challenges of your research, the aspirations, focus
areas, the guiding principles and the design objectives.
Plan your activities
Tacit Knowledge
MAKE
SAY
Based on your hypothesis prepare the toolkit and materials
needed to represent the experiences of the user within the
defined framework
Generative
Research
Activities
Explicit Knowledge
Set the stage and the size of the research group
DO
Construct and sequence your own co-design activities
Explicit Knowledge
Make a workshop pilot to spot opportunities for improvement
Facilitate the workshop
Use your communication skills
Empathize with the participants in a human way
Identify leaders and opposers in the group
Capture everything that happens during the session
Actively engage with people
Interpret the results
Dispose irrelevant insights
Single out the most relevant quotes for each
individual person
Look for emerging patterns
Visually document your findings in a story form
Brainstorm design ideas
Takeaways
1
Direct collaboration with users allows to discover the mindset of people regarding a specific problem and later
translate it into a feasible solution
2
Users are no longer perceived as passive consumers, instead they actively participate in the design process
of a product
3
People are creative by nature, they are after all the experts at understanding their own ways of life
4
Generative Research is great starting point to develop innovative ideas through collaborative efforts
References
Frog Design
Bringing Users into Your Process Through Participatory Design
http://www.slideshare.net/frogdesign/bringing-users-into-your-process-through-participatory-design
By Elizabeth B.–N. Sanders
Perspectives on Participation in Design
http://www.maketools.com/articles-papers/Sanders2013Perspectives.pdf
By Elizabeth B.–N. Sanders
A Framework for Organizing the Tools and Techniques of Participatory Design
http://www.maketools.com/articles-papers/PDC2010ExploratoryFrameworkFinal.pdf
theuxclinic.com