Design Research Process Model v2

Created October 14, 2022 | Modified October 25, 2022 by Erika Hall

Clarity Questions Refinement Methods Analysis and Synthesis Integration

GOAL
What are we
trying to
accomplish?
Observation/
QUESTION Field Study Generate DOCUMENT
ROLES Gather notes Identify Report findings
What do we need Code the notes themes/
Who is doing and transcripts patterns accurately
to know? hypotheses
what? Interview

Diary Study SHARE

TOPIC PRIORITY Contextualize and
Where are we By urgency, Review and communicate
focusing? importance, and [Other Qual] discuss
uncertainty Generative critically
APPLY
Descriptive Literature review
Review decisions
DECISIONS Strategic FOCUS CATEGORY
in light of findings
What do we need On selected What type of Evaluative
Tactical
to decide by priority question? Survey
when? Targeted questions Causal REFLECT
Discuss meta
Usability Test lessons of this
INPUTS Qual Statistical study
What data and DATA
Analysis
experience do Descriptions
Quant Analytics
we already have? and/or
REMEMBER
measurements? Mixed Connect insights
A/B Test to future work
ASSUMPTIONS CONFIDENCE
What do we think What is the
we already agreed upon Other
standard? GENERATE
know? Experiments
What additional
questions
Test hypothesis emerged?
GAPS
Where are our
areas of Use qualitative research to generate a hypothesis and quantitative research to test it.
uncertainty? Choose the method that will answer your questions to a
sufficient level of confidence by the decision date.
The methods listed here are merely popular examples.
If you don’t have any areas of significant uncertainty with
regard to the decisions at hand, there is no need to move
forward with a research project.

Topics Decisions Categories NOTES:

Organizational/Internal Strategic: Framing the problem Generative: What problem might we solve? The specific roles, research cadence, tools used, methods, and other specifics of planning and
Competition/Marketplace Tactical: Identifying the right solution Descriptive: What is happening currently/historically? execution will vary from project to project and org to org. This is a basic process, not dogma.
Users/Customers/Prospects Targeted: Specific aspects of a given solution Evaluative: How well is our solution working? Variations are to be expected, as long as they serve the quality of design decisions within given
Product/Service/Etc. Causal: Why is [x] happening/did [x] happen? constraints.