Design Research 101
If there was one aspect of the AC4D program I was looking forward to most, it was getting a chance to implement the design research process. What is design research? It is learning from people in the context of their lives to obtain emotional insight, build narrative, and create value. In our AC4D orientation week, we focused on bite sized lessons followed by hours long working group sessions to build our own “fast and furious” attempt at design research. Here’s my understanding of the process paired with some insights gained from our directive: explore the topic of mental and physical health of frontline workers.
Step 1: Identify participants and develop a focus
In our respective groups, we gathered a list of frontline workers we know and love to talk with about their experiences. Our group consisted of healthcare workers (doctors, residency students, a dentist, a physician, a pharmaceutical worker, and a physical therapist) as well as a vaccine manufacturer. Our group brainstormed open-ended questions to develop a focus, which became we are researching how the relationships that frontline workers have (both in and outside of work) influence their physical and mental health.
Step 2: Create questions to gain insight on the research focus
Timed brainstorming sessions became the method of choice for our group this week. Developing a list of open-ended questions was a step that frankly deserved more time than we had to give. But when the theme of orientation is “fast and furious” – deliberation falls by the wayside. We decided to ask three key basic questions and developed a series of follow up questions in response. We wanted to understand a little about the following:
How healthcare workers spend their time (and wish they could spend their time) between shifts.
Who is important in their lives, and how work impacts their relationships with those people.
Who they work most closely with and how that relationship has changed with covid.
Step 3: Interview the research participants
In one afternoon, we interviewed eight participants back to back, pushing the limits of what a Sunday afternoon typically looks like. With one interviewer and one notetaker, we held short but meaningful conversations with these frontline workers. Our follow up questions managed to dig a little deeper, however we ran into a few instances where interviewees were asking us to clarify what we were looking for. However, I’m learning that designers are really working from a mindset of “no right answers,” so in order to get genuine “nuggets” of information from their participants, it is necessary to reassure them that whatever comes to mind is most helpful. Another trick we learned was to ask someone to tell us about a time when. For example, after asking “who is most important in their lives,” we asked the follow up, “tell me about the last time you spent time with them”. Overall, the value they provided helped us gain some valuable insights that we took to the next stage of our process.
Step 4: Synthesize insights based on interview “nuggets”
After reflecting on main themes from each interview and transcribing all interviews, we had a very large stack of printed “utterances” (or statements from our interviews). We learned a bit about pairing off statements with an “inferred likeness” and how to develop a connection statement - or what bonds those two statements. After separating many of our utterances, we were able to see several main themes develop. Some of ours included:
Participants long to be with family
Shared experiences sustain the healthcare workers we talked to
The toll of work can cause loss in relationships
Coworker relationships have become integral to their daily survival
From these insights, we could see some of the joyful and difficult aspects of the relationships that our healthcare workers sustained. We understood that in all cases, they relied heavily on several key people in their lives; and in some, that their co-workers had a shared understanding of working on the frontlines that was irreplaceable.
Step 5: Develop provocative insights based on your insights
The first piece of developing provocative statements was asking “why” following each insight. Then, zeroing in on a potential answer to that question, which can serve as a jumping off point for the next step in the process. The following questions were leveraged into (semi) provocative statements that allow us to begin to understand why our interviewees felt a certain way.
Why do participants long to be with family? They can be themselves and feel comfortable around family.
Why do shared experiences sustain the healthcare workers we talked to? They see some shit that the rest of us don’t understand because we don’t live and breathe it like they do.
Why does the toll of work cause loss in relationships? It is painful to lose a piece of yourself when giving an inordinate amount to your job.
Why have coworker relationships have become integral to their daily survival? Coworkers are a part of the team and help shoulder the burden.
Step 6: Develop many ideas that can address your provocative statements
At this stage, we had a lot of great insight, a few provocative statements, and a long way left to go. We used timed brainstorming once again to come up with nearly 300 ideas that we liked to act as solutions to our provocative statement. Here’s the secret: not all of them were good. In the “fast and furious” spirit, we developed many really bad ideas such as a petting zoo to help boost the morale of healthcare workers. With our few (potentially) good ideas, we placed them in a grouping as top choices that could be developed as actionable prototypes.
Step 7: Prototype your top idea and user test
After we finally narrowed down our top idea - a quick and easy way for healthcare workers to thank their colleagues. With the amount of time we had left in our orientation, we opted to keep our solution simple - an interface on healthcare worker computer systems that would allow e-card thank you notes to be sent between colleagues and an icon on the computer/system to display a thumbs up so healthcare workers could be reminded throughout their day of the positive notes they have received from colleagues. Ultimately, I know we will experience a much fuller scale iteration of future projects at AC4D, and I really look forward to understanding how prototypes are developed and refined in that process.
Overall, this initial orientation week has left me with a lot to look forward to throughout my time at AC4D. I am really interested in diving into this process with multiple iterations, and in all its messiness, retaining some valuable insights that can carry us forward to positive solutions.
