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Design Research 2022 was a memorable event, supported by fantastic sponsors, hosted by amazing speakers and attended by a bunch of talented individuals.

It sets a high bar for all our 2022 events, but we are ready! Here’s a wrap up of the days.

 

Day one - Prototyping workshop & sponsor sessions

Day one is the traditional workshop day and Karina Smith and Alexandra Almond of Meld Studios ran a successful session about Prototyping as a research tool. There was nothing but praise for the day from participants, who learned how to get the most from low-fi designs to learn more about your audience.

Those who didn't attend the workshop could come to optional sponsor social sessions in the afternoon. Starting with a panel discussion by new sponsors Concentrix Catalyst, whose team talked about the pitfalls of design research based on their own work, and how to get better buy in from stakeholders. 

Next, in a fun session with Sh8peshifters’ Alan and Diana, we developed the Design Research 2022 mascot and came up with DRUX. See below. 

Rounding out the afternoon, Our Very Own ran a design trivia session (well, it wasn’t all design trivia) and awarded prizes to the winners. 

Day two talks

Steve Baty took the emcee reigns and Robin Beers kicked off the day as our keynote speaker. She set the scene and set us up for a day of smart and insightful talks. 

Robin imparted valuable messages about becoming more responsible researchers, extending our focus from just users to the world, systems, ethics and the environment. She cautioned us to take care when democratising our research, and to be risk aware, and think about the operationalisation and management of the insights we uncover. 

Jen Blatz was fabulous as ever, telling us stories of the different kinds of cognitive bias that exist when we research. And how to harness some of them for good. She also taught us a few new words too, including ‘pareidolia’, which is a kind of visual bias where our brains make sense of patterns by reaching for familiar images.

Next, Jax Weschler took us deep into our own minds and bodies, using neuroscience principles to explain how our thoughts and feelings work, and how they impact research participants. She encouraged us to cultivate self-awareness, and to focus more on positive change and creativity, rather than pain point discovery. She left us with some great cognitive tricks for engaging research participants. 

A clear and very effective talk by Janani Venkatraman took us into the afternoon. She made a solid argument for incorporating marketing research into the product development lifecycle, and showed that there are advantages to breaking the silo between marketing research and product research.

Tim Dixon’s talk about philosophy, psychology and our research origins had us all scratching our beards thoughtfully. There’s some big concepts to be considered when doing research, including the way time flows and how deeply we can empathise. We were left feeling deeply connected to a history of practices that each sought to understand humans more clearly.

And just when we thought our minds were taxed enough, Taylor Black delivered a cracking talk about how to respectfully and constructively bring rebellion into design practices. She described the good that can come from being a constructive rebel, a principled insubordinate, an empathetic challenger, and a non-threatening non-traditionalist. She encourages us to not just get outside the box, but smash the box and look at things afresh.

UX research contributes big dollar values when it comes to enterprise projects, potentially saving millions as well. Thanks Ajay Chopra for sharing your great tips and learnings about large project UX research. A complex area in which the stakes are high!

Taking research care and empathy to new levels, Brigette Engeler and Alison de Kruiff talked to us about the unique requirements of doing research with people living with dementia. Apart from the critical ethics, challenges include creating an environment of reassurance and familiarity, adapting to rapidly changing conditions, and supporting individual needs. 

Rounding out a fabulous day, Adrian Howard brought us home with a practical talk about pace layer mapping, a technique for visualising active research. It’s a shared, manageable canvas for mapping research and insights in a connected, contextual way. It can be used to discuss product direction and decisions, with the potential to offer research weather patterns for projects. 

 

Day 3 talks

Lydia Penkert started the day coming to use from Germany, with a fantastic discussion about research for voice interactions, including in device assistants and robots. Some very interesting implications about race and gender, and the perceived relatability of human-shaped devices. A unique approach is needed to research in this area because not everyone is ready for the robot revolution. 

Ana Filipa Couvinhas talked us through the versatility and scalability of systems thinking for improving design for small projects (like machine design) to large projects (like water efficiency on a whole island). Working back from your organisation’s goal, systems design research is improved with inputs from users, communities, processes, the environment, and full research context. 

Luella Paine kicked off the second half of the morning with an insightful discussion about the challenges of conducting research interviews with participants across 7 countries and 12 timezones. All while moving house! She had some great tips about scheduling, recruiting, avoiding public holidays, using interpreters, minimising leading questions, and so much more. 

One way to unlock creativity and feedback in research sessions, is to incorporate play. Anthony Bertuzzi talked about gamifying design research, even using actual games like Minecraft to collaboratively experiment and design new spaces. Games and play change our perspective, opening participants up to new possibilities and encouraging new ideas.

How can startups do better at design research? Jithesh Ramesh suggests that we start by understanding the startup’s goals, vision and landscape. Begin with internal research and work outwards towards customers, to build the basis of a design research practice and get some quick wins. Then apply your most effective research potions to eke out every insight. 

Katy Tullington brought her anthropological lens to a talk about the ‘insights economy’ and the pressure to deliver revelatory truths and impress stakeholders and prove our value. By setting clear expectations, researchers can participate in the insights economy through better alignment, instead of hunting for the ‘wow’. 

Words matter. So when we interchange the very different concepts of co-designing, collaboration, and consulting, we devalue all of them. Bec Purser got us all fired up about the important differences and how misusing the very distinct activity of co-design can be detrimental to design processes and our outcomes for our users. 

Storytelling is talked about a lot in research, and Chris Ellis showed us some ways it can be used to create impact with stakeholders and help them relate better to insights. We all know data tells a story, but it’s all about the story we choose to tell. Great talk Chris! #ResearchStories

Next, Stas Krupenia explained how stories are driving research practice at Scania, a global transport manufacturer. The narratives are created in conjunction with people in the business, and used to get buy-in from leaders, provide a vision for workers, and help set goals for technology owners. The internalisation of stories to enhance research practices within the business had many advantages..

Erietta Sapounakis closed out the day by demonstrating how mental models are a key underpinning of large transformation projects. Beyond understanding user needs, the mental model reflects concerns, lived experience, context, unexpected side-effects. It can be used as a touchstone for user stories, project planning, design ideas, and more. 

That concluded the conference and we said goodbye reluctantly. Again, thanks to all our sponsors, speakers and attendees.

You won’t want to miss the rest of our 2022 events if they are anything like this!!