The Dons on Design Research

There really is no simple answer for when designers need research, but we do. You may have encountered multiple organizations suggesting different research methodologies to accomplish the same goal. The reality is, recognizing the call for research and determining the appropriate method, timing, and scope takes a combination of brains, experience, and judgement.

To demonstrate what we’re talking about, let’s get into the minds of two guys named Don: Don Draper of AMC’s Mad Men and Don Norman, design guru and author of The Design of Everyday Things.

DRAPER ON RESEARCH

In the 2010 season of Mad Men, advertising executive Don Draper has a confrontation with his research expert Faye. Draper’s team has proposed a radical ad campaign to their client, Pond’s cold cream. The campaign suggests that busy young women want to indulge themselves once in a while. The show is set in the early 1960′s, so Pond’s wants proof this would resonate with their audience. Faye has just completed interviews with groups of young women to identify what inspires them to care for their skin, and her research has revealed that they are more interested in marriage than they are in pampering themselves.

The conversation goes like this:

FAYE

It turns out the hypothesis was rejected… I’d recommend a strategy that links Pond’s cold cream to matrimony… a veiled promise.

DON

[sigh] Hello 1925. [defiant] I’m not gonna do that. So, what are we going to tell the client?

FAYE

I can’t change the truth.

DON

How do you know that’s the truth? A new idea is something they don’t know yet, so of course it’s not an option. Put my campaign on TV for a year, then hold your group again, maybe it will show up.

FAYE

Well, I tried everything. I said “routine” I tried “ritual.” All they care about is getting a husband. You were there, I’ll show you the transcripts.

DON

You can’t tell how people are going to behave based on how they have behaved…

Draper is talking about an issue we confront all the time: market research is a powerful tool for confirming current behaviors, but not very good at predicting the future. Draper, Faye, and the ad team believe in the new ad concept, but they are having trouble justifying it to the client. Faye is even the perfect subject for the campaign: a confident, accomplished woman navigating a sea of 1960’s workplace sexists. Understandably, the client has asked for research before pulling the trigger on an expensive and risky concept. Draper is a visionary, and in TV land, visionaries hate being asked to do research.

NORMAN ON RESEARCH

These things don’t just happen on TV, folks. Don Norman has noted that radical innovation and new conceptual breakthroughs do not come from market research – they come from inventors. Research doesn’t create ideas, it helps refine them. Norman does not “know of a single radical innovation that has come from the people who do design research.”

In the late 90’s, venture capital firms poured millions into research to identify the next killer app. What did they get out of it? A very expensive pile of me-too sites: pets.com, webvan.com, kosmo.com – the list goes on. Why didn’t all of that research reveal the massively interconnected, meaningfully indexed, and socially powerful internet we’ve all learned to appreciate in the past ten years? Plenty of visionaries had predicted the future by then, yet we got more of the same.

The time was ripe for organizations like Google to take simple concepts, tie them to a business model and shake things up. Google was able to do that with the same disdain for innovation research that the Dons are talking about: if you want to be revolutionary, you’re not going to get your idea from market research. Back to Draper, “You can’t tell how people are going to behave based on how they have behaved.”

This is not to say that research isn’t valuable. Norman, Google, and Draper have their own ways of conducting research when they need answers to critical questions. Norman points out that “it takes good design research to transform that radical idea into something that is appealing to the world.” The solution is to do the right research for the right reasons at the right time.

THE RESEARCH DISCUSSION

Research comes in many forms and serves a very important role in the design process. Here are some conditions where we begin having the research discussion with our clients – and it always focuses on goals:

When we need to identify or define the goals of our users – We all think we know what makes our users tick, but the only way to be sure is to investigate. We are not asking them how to resolve their needs, we just want to know what they need.

When we want to test which ideas address a user’s goal - This helps us determine which ideas will ever see the light of day. This often happens in the form of an A:B test, but there are many ways to test a list of ideas. We do this once our ideas have some form and we have something meaningful to present to users.

When we want to test whether a design addresses a user’s goals – Here we test designs that are fully formed before we go to the expensive task of building it. We can do this with simple models, paper mockups, or even complex interactive prototypes.

In Mad Men, Draper’s clients hire him because his ideas are revolutionary, but they often ask for proof that his ideas will work. Draper rarely has the patience to have a meaningful conversation with his clients about research. As a TV character, it’s more dramatic for him to walk out of meetings, fire clients, and be a grumpy genius.

In the real world, we also find that most clients want to have the research discussion. In the end, the decision may be made by time or budget, but it’s not hard to sit in a room with your client and say, “Here are the questions we have. We don’t want to spend your time and money guessing, so let’s talk about all the ways we can get the answers.” Not nearly as dramatic, but way more effective.

Keep a look out as we discuss cases and kick around various research methods over the coming weeks and months.

SXSW “Interactive”? So Far, Not So Much

A few months ago, Russ and I decided that 2011 would be the year we headed down to SXSW Interactive to see what all the fuss was about. We noticed quite a few friends of Brownstone are presenting and we’ve tossed around some of our own session ideas. We like to attend a conference to get the vibe for the audience before we pull the trigger on session design, so we registered, booked flights for Austin, stopped shaving, and went shopping for ironic sunglasses.

Full disclaimer: after almost 20 years of attending and speaking at professional conferences, I’ve become more of a fan of smaller conferences. In fact, I’m a huge fan of single-track conferences like AEA or something of the TEDx variety. While SXSW Interactive has grown into a megaconference; the SXSW reputation, recommendations from our pals, my film background and a longtime desire to visit Austin convinced me that it’s worth checking out.

I’m still hopeful, but I have to say I’m disappointed so far. It would be kind to say the SXSW online experience has been difficult. Apologists may defend it, but c’mon.

After registration, create your schedule by re-registering on the schedule site, which flips you over to SXSocial to register there. Got it?

I could enumerate the issues users encounter as they navigate registering, paying, finding a hotel, re-registering for SXSocial and picking sessions to attend – but if you’re going to SXSW, I suspect you know what I’m talking about. If you’re not attending, well, let’s just say they don’t follow the principle of “design it so it just works.” It’s more the principle of “eventually, they’ll figure it out.”

But maybe it doesn’t have to just work. SXSW Interactive is successful enough to book the entire Austin Convention Center and every hotel in town. Maybe the online issues are because it is so huge. That’s a lot of information to manage. But isn’t that enough justification to take the time to design a more effective online experience? At the risk of upsetting the SXSW Gods I hesitate to point out that the word “INTERACTIVE” is in your title. From where I’m sitting, it doesn’t feel like any of the decision makers said, “The service the site provides is the beginning of the SXSW experience. It needs to be integrated and seamless.”

If it’s so huge and so successful, can’t a few more dollars be invested in some thoughtful online experience design? Wouldn’t that be in line with many of the tenets proposed by the interactive sessions?

I’m still looking forward to the conference and checking out Austin. If you’re going to be there, let us know. If not, we’ll do a few reports from the road.

(Design) Thinking About Bernard L. Brock

Years ago in graduate school I had the honor to study with Bernard L. Brock, a profound critic and theorist who was passionate about rhetorical criticism — the process and methods for conducting comprehensive and systematic analyses of persuasive communication. Dr. Brock cultivated, in me and countless other students, a deep appreciation and disciplined approach for analyzing rhetorical acts, simple to complex, to evaluate their “dramatic” impact on our attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. Many of his students, friends and colleagues referred to him as Bernie. But, despite the fact that I felt a personal connection and sincere appreciation for his scholarly devotion and guidance as my advisor, I referred to him as Dr. Brock.

Dr. Brock is the reason why I devoted most of my mid-twenties seeking to understand the symbolic actions that drove the fatal struggle between the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People in Nigeria and the Royal Dutch Shell oil and gas company; or conducting a dramatistic analysis of news coverage surrounding the “500-year flood” (now one of many) to argue that the widespread use of the “unjust war” metaphor could ultimately impact our attitudes toward the environment; or applying experiential criticism as a lens to describe the  Grateful Dead concert experience and the profound lessons that Jerry and the band taught us about the power of community.

Some of Dr. Brock's Books & Those He Contributed To

Dr. Brock is the reason why I continue to share my passion for rhetorical criticism by mentoring students on the St. Joseph’s University speech team as they analyze and articulate answers to critical questions about The Onion’s deliberate use of political satire during the mournful days after 9/11; or David Horowitz’s controversial act to denounce reparations for slavery; or the socio-politico impact of the LA Gang Tours.

Dr. Brock would often repeat: Describe, Interpret, Evaluate… Describe, Interpret, Evaluate during our round table discussions about rhetorical criticism. As a lifetime scholar of Kenneth Burke, he favored the Burkeian approach as a theoretical framework through which to analyze communication as symbolic action. He believed that a dramatistic analysis of human motives and the forms of thought and expression, conveyed through language, could help us understand and respond strategically to the situations around us.

In many ways, Dr. Brock was a Design Thinker. Design is rhetoric – it is symbolic, motive-driven, representative and persuasive. It has consequences. It serves as a narrative of our social reality, is driven by our belief systems and spurs collective action. It demands our descriptive and interpretive judgments about its effectiveness so that we may respond accordingly. Rhetorical theories can serve as our lens and provide us with the language and structure to dig deeper and draw conclusions that go beyond the obvious – to make more informed decisions in the future based on a better understanding of its impact on the human condition.

Sadly, Dr. Brock passed away on March 31, 2006. It had been years since I last spoke to him and it wasn’t until years later when I had learned of his passing. I’ve thought of him often since my mid-twenties and always intended to express my sincere gratitude but life got in the way. Something I’ll always regret.

So, to Dr. Brock –thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your wisdom, your passion and your critical impulse. It was contagious and the experience design community can learn immensely from your thinking. I intend to help further that cause.

Inspired By The “Think Truck”

When was the last time a dump truck made you think?

I snapped this picture about 2 weeks ago and I have to admit, this dump truck, in all its classic soot and grime, has stuck with me. At first I spent some time thinking about the dump truck industry and how that truck in particular driving down route 263 fits into a global puzzle of more-than-epic proportions (perhaps you might be able to intuit my political leanings from this, just maybe). But what are we to do with all our garbage?

Then the Think truck made me wonder what might be boldly painted on the back of its fellow fleet-members.  When the dump trucks are all tucked in at night is it a modern version of the seven dwarfs with, “Question,” “Decide,” “Challenge,” “Do”, “Learn”, and “Change” snoring away beside lovable ‘ol “Think”?

Then I noticed something else, I’m reading the backs of cars and trucks all the time now.  Hunting for the gems in the rough.  I pull up close to make out the messages on the back of the snow- and salt-encrusted cars.  Today I was behind a Tastykake® truck that had a bumper sticker saying “This Truck Equipped with Tasty Breaks.”  I have to admit, I’m a total sucker for things that make me think, if only for a split second and no matter how cheesy– but think!  And then the light turned green and I drove off looking for more.

It’s sort of like an example of real-world Easter Eggs – those hidden messages and bits of fun embedded in digital designs – albeit maybe not as hidden. But like their digital counterparts, these little messages can make the routine a bit more interesting and engaging, while capitalizing on the “fun factor”. Though I’ve created this game myself across a wider system that may be oblivious to me as a target audience, it speaks to the human tendency to turn things into games, to explore, and to want to be surprised. Food for thought in our designs – digital and otherwise.

So here’s to the Think truck that gets it.  One well-placed, unexpected word has got me thinking and seeing the world with fresh eyes.  I hope Think’s fellow truck-dwarfs are out there somewhere cause I can’t wait to find myself behind another and to see where it takes me.