Ian Flude

Design Research Skills: 

Useful design research can be problematic for many students. Even adults can have huge problems working out firstly, the right question to ask, but also how to phrase it. This is particularly prevalent when working with students for whom English is not their first language.  

So how do we get to a point where students can develop useful research questions that will bring them useful knowledge that will inform their design process.

1. Group discussion: 

I often find it useful for students to get into groups and brainstorm on the question "what do I need to know in order to make a successful product?". This will typically bring up broad "category" questions such as "how will I make it?"

Once broad category questions have been brainstormed, students can then be asked to focus on one question and drill down deeper into more specific questions such as "what materials are available?", "what methods are available to join wood to aluminum?" etc. 

Once groups have brainstormed genuinely useful research questions, they can then usually proceed on an individual basis to prioritize and choose the questions that are most relevant to their own particular set of circumstances.

It important in the later stages of this process that students are encouraged not only to define what they need to know but also begin to clarify the methods they will use to gather the data they need.

2. Categorization of research types:  

I have also found that it proves useful for students to categorize their research into four different categories which cover almost all types of design research.  This enables them to develop research topics that cover the most common aspects of how a product is manufactured, chosen, used and enjoyed by the end user.

Inter-product compatibility research:
The analysis of how the product the student is about to design will interact with other products. Students will need to think about what pre-existing components will need to go inside of or work together with the product they are about to design as well as where their product will be placed or used. Examples of useful research could be gathering dimensions of parts that will fit inside the product or investigating the characteristics of a surface a product may be placed on in order to make decisions about finishing or non-slip solutions.

User Interface research:
The analysis of how the user will use the product and the resultant demand on the student as the designer to make a product that is easy, safe and pleasurable to use. An example of this kind of research could be a simple experiment to work out the most convenient angle to place a screen of an iPod or other music device to enable a user to interact with it when used in conjunction with a set of speakers. 

User taste research:
This type of research looks into how the designer makes decisions about how a product should look. This is important since many students make aesthetic decisions based on the "because I like it" justification. This becomes less and less acceptable as a student moves through the MYP and needs to design products with a specific market in mind who may not share their tastes.

Different methods are looked at with the major theme being that the way a product looks is never an accident, with the designer needing to justify his aesthetic decisions in quantifiable terms. This kind of research also enables students to develop the “language of design”. This is essential in enabling them to unpack and verbalize complex visual information and then inject essential aspects of that information into their own work.

Manufacturing methods research: 

This type of research looks into the characteristics, qualities and limitations of available resources both in terms of materials and processes with the goal of enabling students to make informed decisions about materials while designing their product.

Students are not bound to specific manufacturing techniques during projects. Rather they are encouraged to consider the full range of different material types as possibilities and, if they develop ideas that require material combinations that lie outside of the usual norms for a specific product type, are required to research the specific required knowledge to enable them to use that specific material. This enables students to remain open-minded about material choices while knowing that all choices when designing have consequences that one would do well to try and predict.