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DECO1100/7110
RESEARCH FOR DESIGN (20%)
Due 18 March 14:00, 2024.
Submit your research portfolio through Blackboard. This will be a Turnitin assignment
(plagiarism detection).
Purpose
Primary research (i.e. original research you conduct yourself) is an essential skill for human-
centred design. Your current life experiences, whatever they are, enable you to imagine what
people you haven’t met are like. But people will always surprise you. In this project you will do
user research, you will study a context and the people within the context (users) with the aim of
trying to identify problems or design opportunities where you can improve the existing system.
This project requires you to go out and observe people, places, and technologies, you will need to
interview people, study how (and when) people interact and use technology, collect data, analyse
it in order to develop interesting design insights, and to identify design opportunities.
Choose one open space area, where lots of people normally visit every day, e.g. outside a food
court, a busy corridor, a market square, green spaces, a waiting area, a library, a museum or any
open space you prefer.
Deliverables
You will conduct your own research and collate a research portfolio. The research will be
delivered in the form of a PDF (word processed) report (minimum of 6 A4 pages and a maximum
of 10 A4 pages, excluding references and pictures).
Following sections should be included:
1. Introduction. A short introduction to the research you have conducted. Describe the
context you have chosen and what kind of people are normally active in your chosen
context. Introduce what methods you have used for the user study, your process for
analysing your data, a short summary of the insights you have found, and what problems
or design opportunities you have identified from your research.
Your project needs to include interviews, observations and a probe.
2. Analysis. A section that presents in-depth analyses of at least three excerpts from your
data. These might be narratives that were collected in interviews, outcomes of activities
that you conducted with people, actions or reactions that you observed, or other forms of
data you have collected. For each excerpt, go beyond/behind the surface features of the
data. For example, if analysing an interview, do not just tell us what they say, but identify
what values are implied by what they say or how they say it; consider how their answers
convey something of their own identity or sense of self; how what they talk about (and
avoid talking about) suggests latent needs.
3. Themes and outliers. In this section you need to present your data holistically and
attempts to organise and makes sense of it together.
Include at least one of below:
-excerpts from your data (interviews or observations) that you have organised into
themes;
-affinity diagrams of your other data (e.g. from your observations, notes or returned
probes)
-annotated site maps that identify common or uncommon happenings.
Present the diversity of the data you have collected by describing at least one group of
‘outliers’. Explain how this group is ‘outliers’ in comparison to the themes or
commonalities you have found.
4. Insights and implications for design. This section highlights the insights that you gained
from your research. Present at least 2 design opportunities or problems you have
identified and relate to your research findings so we can verify how you came to your
conclusions. Explain what the problems or design opportunities might add or change for
the kinds of experiences the users in the context will have. If you can, try to identify
design principles.
5. Conclusion. Write a paragraph that concludes the research report, reminds readers of its
purpose and presents its contribution.