Design research can tackle big, gnarly problems
So, you know those big, gnarly problems that just won't go away? You may call them wicked problems or systemic problems or problems that just keep on keeping on. They're tough, and traditional approaches just don't cut it. And that's where design research comes in.
Now, I’m not talking about user research. No, no, no. I’m not talking about looking at how long someone stays on a webpage and understanding what's keeping them there. No, no, no.
Design research is, and invites us into, SO much more than that.
Design research is a process of understanding a problem and finding creative strategies by relating to the people, places, and systems involved. It involves methods such as observation, interviews, prototyping, co-creation sessions, building frameworks, diverging & converging, and simplifying & complicating.
“Complex problems ask us to shift our focus from looking at the content, the things and instead, look at the relationships between those things. It is the interconnections that matter.”
And unraveling the interconnections is where design research shines! It does so through a continuous search for the right problems, well-framed problems to solve.
Yeah, a continuous, loopy, process.
CASE STUDY
When Connective embarked on a design research sprint to understand the renting experience during COVID-19, we started with tenants. We then did another sprint with just landlords. And then another sprint with “small landlords”.
With each loop of research, we got closer and closer to some of the root causes. So then we could design solutions that address the real problem!
One of the things we uncovered: to decrease evictions, we needed to help tenants and landlords rebuild their relationships. Many tenants weren’t communicating with their landlords, out of anxiety or shame of missing rent. Very valid. However, landlords were seeing this as flaky, suspicious behavior, feeling an urgency to remove such tenants. With this insight, the City of Houston quickly built and distributed a one-pager on how to compassionately yet effectively communicate with your landlords during the pandemic.
Let me tell you… when you start design research, it's like a whole new world opens up. You start to see the problem in a different light. You see the connections and relationships between different elements of the problem. And that fresh perspective leads to some seriously creative and effective solutions.
CASE STUDY
When Connective did design research focused on how mothers of older children were thinking about work during the pandemic, we quickly identified the quiet quitters or those with little trust in corporations. However, the interesting persona was the previously ambitious, corporate-ladder-climber who was now a ‘corporate skeptic’. These folks are grappling with their new identities: they are grieving their old outlook and embracing the new. It wasn’t much a leap from there to ask: to rebuild corporate culture, how can we empower leaders to hold space and uncertainty for the ‘corporate skeptics’?
But here's the thing. To really, REALLY, make it work, to move the needle on those big, gnarly problems:
We have to reimagine design research in a way that breaks down traditional systemic & power dynamics.
Step one in doing so?
We have to stop thinking of us — the researchers, designers, builders — as the experts and start thinking of the people impacted by the problem as the real experts. We have to continuously and ruthlessly center the people impacted by the problem even over other stakeholders.
Easier said than done. I know.
But as Tish Melton and Brandie Carlile remind us, we can do hard things.