Re: Who is in favour of empirical research approach?

I fall somewhere in the middle of this. My clients are often small  
enough that the cost of finding out much about what would be effective  
would exceed the value of knowing.

My experience with "researchers" has not all been good. For example,  
my students are currently working on a project with a "research"  
project here at East Carolina University. I believe that I understand  
the research in their field better than they do. They hide behind  
being "scientific" even when they wander away from anything backed by  
actual research. When pressed for reasons for their decisions and  
demands they resort to "we like it" even though they are working with  
my students because they say that research shows that designers who  
are closer to the target audience are more effective. They are among  
the least strategic people I have ever met.

Most of the time when marketing people have told me "research says x  
is better" I have discovered that they either misunderstand the  
research or are speaking in third hand generalities learned in class  
somewhere. It is easy to understand designers taking the position that  
research is an impediment to good design.

That said, I strongly believe that certain (not all) research can  
inspire creative and effective design and move it forward. Even if  
that were not true, the research faction has a more effective bit of  
rhetoric than the traditional design faction so clients will believe  
them, thus research is inevitable.

If the research is controlled by designers, it will be inspirational  
at best and harmless at worst. If it is controlled by others, it will  
be a hindrance to design unless we educate researchers. One way or  
another, designers need to participate in design-related research, if  
only for self-preservation.

As much as I am not a Jakob Nielsen fan, he is right about how much  
information you can get out of very little testing. It is worthwhile  
to see if people understand what we assume they understand. That  
doesn't lead me to believe that A/B testing every design decision or  
trying to find or follow a set of rules for design is a worthwhile  
future.

A lot of worthwhile empirical information can be cheap and casual,  
comparable to making dummies and quick prototypes of various sorts. I  
try to get my students to think in terms of what they could learn that  
would be helpful as designers. I discourage them from asking friends  
and roommates questions like "Which of these do you like?" and instead  
try to get them to be at once more specific and more general--"What do  
you think the coffee in each of these tastes like?" or "Tell me what  
you feel about the company behind each of these."

Gunnar

----------

Gunnar Swanson Design Office

1901 East 6th Street
Greenville NC 27858
USA

[email protected]
+1 252 258 7006

all new website:
http://www.gunnarswanson.com

On Mar 12, 2010, at 1:57 PM, Jose Marconi Bezerra de Souza wrote:

> Randal,
>
> I appreciate your sincerity.
> I think that there are many others who think just like you.
>
> However, how do you test if your design ideas are really working?
>
> José.
>
> On 12 March 2010 15:22, Randal <[email protected]> wrote:
> At 2:35 AM -0700 3/8/10, [email protected] wrote:
> >Jose's title was not clearly formulated in line with his intention:
> >"Who is in favour of empirical research approach?" I doubt somebody  
> in
> >this group could not be in favour.
> >
>
> Personally, as a designer, I have never ever seen ANY empirical  
> research results that didn't either:
>
> 1. Merely state the obvious.
>
> 2. Indicate preference for a design direction that any half decent  
> designer could have directed you to in five minutes.
>
> 3. Create results that are essentially useless or at worst  
> completely misleading.
>
> Empirical design at its best only prevents really bad and stupid  
> design decisions at about ten times the cost of a good designer who  
> could do exactly the same thing.
>
> -- Randal
>


[email protected]
+1 252 258 7006

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