In the third article in the JooYoung Oh series here on Design Droplets, JooYoung shares insights into the actual processes behind Design Research.

Part One – JooYoung Oh Interview Part 1 | Part Two – JooYoung Oh Interview Part 2 | Part 3 – How to do Design Research (Currently Reading)

Marty Gage, my design research mentor, often quotes Kid Rock saying; “If it looks good, you’ll see it; if it sounds good, you’ll hear it, if its marketed right, you’ll buy it; but if it’s real, you’ll feel it.” The core value of design research is well stated here.  How do you create a design or branding [sic] that is real?

This is why when companies speak in brand language, I ask them to think and speak in experience language first.  You start with understanding people and their experiences.  What are you trying to achieve?  Are you truly what you say you are? Do you really want to be what you say you aspire to be?

Design research is about understanding people and the experience/s they are having.

Experience has three elements according to Elizabeth Sanders; memories – the experience you had in the past; the moment – the experience you are currently having; and dreams – the experience you want to have in the future.  When you understand all three aspects of experience you have a complete picture.  How do we get to all three aspects then?  It is a process: clarify questions; plan; collect the data; analyze and synthesize that data, and translate the insights into a meaningful format [so that clients/a design team can make use of the insights to inform product design and development].

Step 1: Clarify questions

When a company comes to me, this would be the first thing we would talk about.  “What questions are you trying to get answered?”  “Is this about understanding the purchase experience or usage experience?” “Is this about generating ideas or evaluating ideas you already have? Are you trying to evolve your current product line or transform the product category?”  “What are [the] time and budget limits?”

While I was at Lextant, a U.S. based design research consultancy, we had a sleep apnea machine manufacturer that came to us for user research.  Through several discussions, we decided that we didn’t want to name the research “the ideal sleep apnea machine” [instead] we called it “the ideal sleep experience.”  [In] This way, we came up with insights that could feed the company a strategy for the next 10 years rather than the next few months.  Insights that would help generate true innovative concepts for sleep apnea patients.  You can make a better sleep apnea machine but unless you think outside the sleep apnea machine and dive into the world of ideal sleep experience, you won’t be able to identify opportunities that would bring a true innovation to the company.

Asking these questions in the beginning determines what approaches we should take to collect the data.

Step 2: Planning

Planning starts with figuring out what the company already knows.

Often the very first meeting with the clients and design research team can turn into a meeting about the business and brand.  But, it is critical that clients bring out all their consumer knowledge onto the table for the [research] team view.  This way we won’t re-collect knowledge that the company already has, but rather, further build upon the existing knowledge.

It is also important to learn from all possible technologies, such as colors they may be developing or any aspirational themes they already know of.  For example, when it comes to learning about a sports drink, one can imagine it should be refreshing, quick and portable.  Yet learning what these words mean in consumer’s words and how to deliver those qualities will be most meaningful to the client company.

The planning stage also includes expert presentation to review previous research as well as desktop research.  I often do a little mini dive myself if possible.  Let’s say this is about coming up with a new sports drink concept.  I would document every time I exercise and drink something.  I would write down what I felt, what I thought, where I was, what I was doing, what I wished for before, during and after having a drink.  This way I can get all my subjective opinions out of the way to be able to stay objective as well as get a better understanding of what is involved in the study.

Now we have a plan.

Step 3: Collect the data

How do we collect data?  A typical data collection process

When collecting data, there are always 3 steps, whether it is a generative or an evaluative study:

1. Understand the current experience

Understanding the current experience is about learning the context of the experience.  Pay attention to the activities, steps, environments, interactions, objects and people involved in the experience.  AEIOU is a good way to remember this (Activity, Environment, Interaction, Objects, and User – and I am quoting from a DMI article).  Figure out habits and practices, wish for’s and barriers; here, you can create tools such as photo journals and diaries to help people document these.

2. Understand the ideal experience

Once you know what the current experience is you can next help people imagine their ideal experience. This is when stimulus such as words and images comes in handy.  These tools help people imagine the impossible without the interviewer asking 100 ‘what if you can do this’ type of questions.  You show all the possibilities in words and images and see which one/s resonate with the participant and why.  These words and image come from all your planning work.

3. Understand how the ideal experience translates into solutions

If design researchers stop after the discovery of the ideal experience, then we might as well be psychoanalysts.  We need to figure out how these dreams and ideal experiences turn into attributes and solutions so that they can inspire [the] design [process].  This is the step where we would show images, words and multisensory objects to tease out possible solutions from participants.  This kind of interview takes at least 2.5 hours of sit down time, yet most participants find it fun and playful.  It is important to make it clear to participants that anything is possible and there are no wrong answers.  A lot of creative ideas come out of this part.

Dig down further; emotions, attributes, and solutions

When collecting data it is also key to make sure you recognize attributes Vs. emotional aspects.  For example, when we defined for a mobile phone manufacturer what a rugged mobile phone means in consumer language, we started by identifying what makes people think [that] a mobile phone is rugged.

Shock proof was one of the big themes that came out as a lot of people had had the experience of dropping their mobile phones.  We then explored what makes a phone shock proof through its [various] attributes such as shape, color, and materials.  We found out that materials with grip, rounded corners, and a black and yellow combination that reminds people of construction sites, was the design language that communicates shock proof.  We presented this outcome along with objects that represent these qualities.

It is also important, in the data collection stage to go to where the experience occurs.  Go to the surgery room and watch the surgery if you are studying medical tools.  Go into people’s homes, talk to them while they are cooking something if you are trying to study kitchen organization.  When my Lextant research team and I were in Brazil to study the mobile phone experience, the findings coming from being in each participant’s home became a great clue to one of the key insights [discovered].

We met this one guy who lives alone and sells black market baby products.  We weren’t really sure about what makes him all that different from US consumers.  He gave us a look around his place and there wasn’t anything particular about it; same TV set, same family photos etc.  The interesting part was when he pointed out a room with a pile of trash [in it] and called it his kitchen.  So this guy, who doesn’t even have a proper kitchen set up to eat, spends all his money on electronics and a mobile phone.  That was the first time we realized that a mobile phone to him is more than a phone; it is a social status symbol.

If this it is an evaluative interview you are doing, it is important to show the mock up in its most realistic form as possible and to make sure they are placed in the appropriate context.  A focus group setting is popular for evaluation and it is still better than no research at all when it is combined with homework, but I highly recommend that an interview takes place in its experience context.

Step 4: Analyze and synthesize the data

Visualization of the data is the key to analysis and synthesis.

This process starts at the planning phase.  When planning for the [research] methodology, we should think about what data to capture and how.  Creating discussion guides and a note taker’s template helps this process.  You want to make sure that you capture all the essential data consistently.  The analysis model should be designed in the planning phase as well.  Once you come back from collecting the data all the [data] points that could be a clue to figuring out the big picture should be put up on the wall.  This includes quotes, pictures, charts, and artifacts.  The visualization process helps the team to think together and to find patterns intuitively.  As you go through all the data – which takes from at least one week to 4-5 weeks or more depending on the sample size – you want to identify big themes.  Synthesis is about creating a framework that embraces all these big themes from the research. [Refer to JooYoung’s Part 2 interview for discussion about synthesis]

I personally come from a very data driven approach to analysis, which is the style at Lextant.  At least 2 weeks of time would be devoted to rigorous data analysis which included the process of quantifying the qualitative data with hundreds of charts.  This won’t be the case if I am only talking to 3-6 people.  Notes will be taken to refer back to the quotes, but not to analyze the notes the same way that I would for a bigger sample size.  For the small sample size, I’d rather summarize each person’s interview and even use the summary for final presentation so that designers can see the various consumer types in a given limitation.

Step 5: Translate the insights into a meaningful language

Communicating the insights is the art of storytelling.

After analysis and synthesis comes the delivery of the insights.  Communicating insights in a concise format is extremely important.  This is not only because the CEO of a corporation doesn’t have time to read a 100-page report, but also because nobody wants to read a boring report.

When you deliver the key insights in a simple and visual form, it becomes a reference point.  This is especially important when you have hundreds of people working on the project at the same time.  The research is responsible for creating a common consumer language that everybody involved can remember easily.  I often use a story format.  It is a great way to describe the current and ideal experience in its context, and how to achieve the ideal experience all at the same time.  The report should be entertaining, like a movie.  If it is a report, it should look like something that you would want to take on vacation and read while drinking beer on the beach.  It should be engaging and fun to look at.

Combine it with a concept generation workshop.  A PowerPoint presentation is a common way of communicating insights yet I found it most effective when you combine this with brainstorming workshops.  You not only deliver the insights, but also facilitate concept generation.

These workshops can be divided into three parts; immersion into research findings, trying out the exercise, and concept generation.

Immersion into research findings

For immersion, you can chunk out the research insights and share videos and participant snapshots. Videos of participants are always the most popular part of a presentation as it is engaging to peek into what people really do, especially if the clients could not be present during the interview.  For example, we had moms take the temperature of their kids and video document the process themselves (often the dads would do the videotaping).  Some of the most amazing insights came out of watching those videos.  We found for instance, that a lot of moms were using the thermometer wrong.  Sharing video clips of interviews and having clients hear some of the key points from the participants themselves is powerful to support your findings and recommendations.

Trying out the exercise

Trying out the exercise means you have the client team go through the exercises [that] the participants went through, such as creating a collage of their current and ideal experience.  In this way, you can help clients become aware of what they think their consumers want Vs. what their consumers really want.

Concept generation

Concept generation is easy to facilitate, as the immersion and trying out exercise are a great warming up process for the team.  While you want to keep this part loose and fun, having a solid design criteria coming from research helps the team to focus on solving the right problem.  For this, it is important that research findings are presented in a measurable format.  [For example] “What would be 5 absolute criteria that each concept must communicate?”  Giving evaluation criteria for concepts makes sure that the team is heading in the right direction.  To give an example of criteria, let’s say we are generating ideas for a baby stroller.  One of the criteria could be portability.  Portability is about its size and flexibility; can it be folded small enough to fit in the trunk of a car yet still give a sense of security. Security could be about ruggedness of parts and etc.

Think in metaphor.  A group exercise for thinking in metaphor is a great way to help people think outside what they are designing.  For example, let’s say one of the main insights is delivering a ‘secure’ feeling for the baby stroller concept.  You can give people an assignment to think of things that represents security.  It doesn’t have to do with baby strollers.  Send them to a nearby Target or Home Depot, or give them a stimulus kit to pick from.  It can be an image of a person wrapped in a blanket, a couple hugging each other, a chain bike lock, or insurance policy card.  Have them talk about what elements of the things make them think of security. This step feeds creative thinking into the concept generation phase and ultimately the products design.

In the following two part interview and accompanying case study JooYoung speaks about the various aspects of Design Research including data analysis and designing tools to support the process. Other discussion points include co-design and involving stakeholders in the research process. I hope you enjoy this interview and please take the time to share your thoughts on it in the comments. ~ Raph Goldsworthy, Editor.

Part One | Part Two (Now reading) | Part 3 – How to do Design Research

People are naturally judging or, discerning. What checks and balances do you have in place in your process to ensure that your influence does not affect the outcomes of the research?

At the beginning of a project the research team does a brain dump and lists their assumptions and then they go out into the field; this either verifies or refutes the assumptions made by the research team.

We also go through a rigorous data analysis once we enter all the data from interviews.

Once you have gathered information, you have all these data points from observing people; things such as their current experience, ideal solutions. Our brains cannot process all this stuff; it has to be organized, in order to see the patterns begin to emerge. We begin with our initial assumptions and then we confirm or refute these assumptions with the use of the gathered data.

The first set of analysis is to visualize the data. You have to create a visual representation of the data and by doing this you will begin to identify the patterns in the data. You check your hypothesis by going back to transcripts to stay objective.

How do you know when you have analyzed the raw data enough?

The process resembles lateral thinking by Edward De Bono. It’s a very intuitive and also a very collaborative process. First, we visualize the data so that everyone on the research team can intuitively understand the information, so that it is not one researcher’s ‘secret code’. By visualizing data, we will make sure that we immerse ourselves in the all data points including the photos, videos, quotes and artifacts from the interview so that we can debate our hypothesis. It often looks like a homicide investigation meeting with all the visuals.

The second step of analysis after visualization is to identify patterns. When the patterns arise you then ask “What does this mean?” And these usually become insight themes. We usually have many insight themes at the end of these from a week to a month’s analysis session. And at the third step, we ask ourselves what framework will best represent all the insights that we have found through sketching up diagrams.

These steps ensure that the research insights are an unbiased, pure and honest representation of the experts – the people.

I really like reading what Elisabeth B. N Sanders says when she discusses participatory design research methods and how people (users/clients) become partners (with designers/researchers) through the use of tools in a process of co-creation. How do you approach the design of tools to support the research process?

I love this topic.

The objective of tool creation is to enable people to express their current and ideal experiences and imagine the ideal solutions. When you interview a participant and try to get to their pain points and their frustrations, it’s not easy to get them to open up to a complete stranger. There are many ways of breaking the ice and I found using stimuli such as words and images help people to open up and recall their memories. When you use stimuli in the interview process it also helps the interview becomes less about the researcher and more about the participants and their stories. Another big advantage of using stimuli is that you gather visual data points as well as verbal. When you are sharing the insights, these visual stimuli can support your points.

There are stimuli for experience that assist people explain their emotions and experiences, and there are stimuli to help people explain their ideal SOLUTIONS. Designing stimuli for solutions very much resembles a reverse design process. We consider all the elements that a design team would consider when developing design solutions such as weight, size, proportion, color, material, shape, interaction, icons, the mechanism, information…etc. Once we make a list of all the elements, we find possible solutions for each element. Then, participants will use these multisensory stimuli to build their ideal solutions. The stimuli are often up to 100 things that represent an aspect of [the] solution. We tell the participants that anything is possible and to feel free to explore and pick things that they like, to paint the picture of their ideal solutions.

Do you think participatory design research can ever answer every question? Do you find this frustrating and does it ever concern you that within the process something fundamental may be missed?

No, not at all. Participatory design research can only answer part of your question and it always needs to be accompanied by observation and trend research so that you can have the complete picture.

What is the typical or optimum size of a sample?

This depends on the market, its segment, and the constraints of budget. I’d say if you have a few segments try to talk to at least 5 people per segment for analysis. I’ve done 5 to 100 sample qualitative research, yet prefer about 15-20 for its manageability. I’d say even if you only have 5 in the sample, it is better than nothing.

What do you find personally compelling about design research? What scope beyond traditional product and service outcomes, can you see where participatory design research can make a contribution?

I sometimes feel like I am a forensic scientist investigating a case. I love going through people’s houses and see what they have in their refrigerators. It is fascinating that everybody has an interesting story and I get to take a good peek at it.

Design research can be used anywhere that requires an understanding of people’s dreams and desires. It does not have to be for money making organizations it can be used within NPOs; it could go back to where it comes from, psychology and psychoanalysis. Another thing I really like to do, is use it in trends forecasting and analysis.

I’ve been working with a nonprofit political activist group called Not An Alternative. One of the projects we’ve done together includes a building occupation event in 2008 for a homeless group. You can see the case study on the Not An Alternative website. I’ve also participated in a lecture series organized by NAA in the fall of 2009; Part of Symbols, Branding and Persuasion: an Art and Politics Presentation Series. I gave a lecture and led a workshop for political activists, about techniques used to brand the ideal experience.

How do you expect design research and design as practices to evolve in the future? What type of future market place would you like to see?

I think that the tools design researchers develop and use can easily be used by anybody doing interviews; teachers trying to open up troubled kids, and even in psycho therapy sessions. I can see the tools used to predict the future trend. I sometimes day dream about traveling around the world interviewing designers and thinkers using participatory tools to gather their vision of the future. How [much] fun would this be?

I’d also love to see more collaboration between design researchers, designers and political activists for social change. Since we had the Art and Politics presentation at the Change You Want to See Gallery, the event organizers and I have been talking about ways to make the collaboration happen. We are brainstorming ideas around workshops that can bring activists and design researchers together.

Jooyoung Oh, thank you for your time today and all the best from Design Droplets.

If you enjoyed this interview, please take the time to share your thoughts and feedback in the comments. Next week in Part 3 of this interview Jooyoung Oh will illustrate typical scenes of the design research process.

Design Droplets contributor Anna Lorenzetto recently conducted an interview with US based design researcher JooYoung Oh. JooYoung has extensive experience conducting design research for companies such as Dell, Whirlpool and Samsung.

In the following two part interview and soon to be accompanying case study JooYoung speaks about the various aspects of Design Research including a definition, it’s benefits and the utilisation of stimuli in the research process. Other discussion points include co-designing, involving stakeholders in the research process and JooYoung speaking about her design practice. I hope you enjoy this interview and please take the time to share your thoughts on it in the comments. ~ Raph Goldsworthy, Editor.

Part One (Now reading) | Part Two | Part 3 – How to do Design Research

Jooyoung Oh, welcome to Design Droplets and thank you for speaking with us today. You are a design researcher who has experience conducting research for companies such as Dell, Whirlpool and Samsung to name a few. I am sure most people involved in design today, have heard the term design research, but, pretend that we haven’t and tell us what design research is about, and the benefits that can come from undertaking the process.

Well, if you view Wikipedia, you won’t find the precise meaning of the term; in fact you won’t find a complete definition anywhere because this is an area that has evolved in the last 30 years, and is still evolving. Basically, it is about getting to the core of people’s dreams and desires in order to acquire an informed view point for product development. Market researchers have been doing this for a while, but design research is differentiated from market research, because we focus on people and their experiences rather than the business side of it – I don’t like using the term users – people [is a better term]. At its core, this is really what design research is all about. Treating people as individuals that exist and experience through their lives, whether they use your product or not.

In design research, numbers and ranking are not as important as meaning behind those numbers. Numbers and rankings can’t tell you why people say what they say, or why people do the things they do. Because numbers can’t give you the insight into what people really desire, we use different methodologies to understand what [a person’s] core experience is and how it can inspire design. People are not always honest. They will tell you what they think you want to hear.

To be able to understand their underlying motivations and their desires, you need the qualitative information. We often do a combination of quantitative and qualitative research. We do qualitative observations and verify [these] through quantitative information. As a design researcher you have to be able to help designers understand what exactly needs to be done.

What are some of the benefits of design research? I guess the ultimate benefit is about the bottom line; what are some of the other benefits?

To be honest, I am a big fan of not relying on making purchases from corporations for various reasons, yet it is pretty much impossible to live a life in today’s world without purchasing a product from corporations. If people have to continue to buy things every day, then it is better for companies to respond with products that are appropriate to our life; there are ways that we can make this whole system work better for all.

So, for example, if we look at moms and diapers, a lot of environmentally conscious moms are reluctant to purchase diapers as a lot of it goes directly to landfill. If companies understand this and come up with diapers that are more appropriate and better for the environment, the company will increase profits [and] the consumer will be happy purchasing their products as well.

This is all good, but, if you stop at the point of mere improvement, you won’t stand out in the world of millions of products. Instead of merely providing better products, design research provides the power of imagining what has never been thought of. This is called the ideal experience. Instead of telling designers what to design we study why the design attributes have to be a certain way. We study underlying desires and how it translates into design attributes. It’s not just about coming up with amazing insights, but also, how to make these insights useful to multiple stakeholders.

Elizabeth Sanders discusses the evolution of product design as having gone from being a features based to a needs based process. Tell us about this.

It’s natural for companies to shift from a functional to an aspirational focus. Differentiating with features and functions doesn’t help you stand out in the market anymore. You cannot invent another mouse trap and expect to succeed. You have to differentiate yourself by creating emotional connections with your target audience. For example, MP3 players all play music and you can endlessly add functions yet the most successful MP3 players are not the ones that have the most features; they all work equally well. Products that are able to steal our hearts are going to stay and people will come back to you over and over.

This then becomes distilling the aspirational into business strategy. Does this mean that research teams will include people from the client company?

Absolutely. Sometimes I would take employees from the client company and I would train them in the steps we were going to take in the research process. If people don’t understand the process or see the value of the insights we discover, they will not act on the research findings. Chances are that you are going to produce reports that nobody cares about.

I witnessed that a lot of my clients who were involved from the very beginning until the end, including methodology development, field interviews and data analysis, were more likely to carry the insights through the whole product development process.

In your description of your design research practice you say that the focus is upon the ‘translation of ideal experience into attributes and ideal solutions (insight translation). Could you explain what you mean by this?

Whatever methodology you use, you want to be able to deliver the insights to the people coming up with the product in a ‘feelable’ form. Sometimes all this amazing data gets lost because it’s in a wordy report format. Insights should be delivered in an experiential form through which people can experience how their target audience feel and think.

The representation of insights and information is extremely important. It should be easy to digest and multisensory. To be able to achieve this, I start designing the research tools [to be] multisensory and experiential. When we provide participants tools that are already experiential and multisensory you have less work to do to represent insights in such a format.

Would you call your practice method a co-designing approach to design research? What are the major differences between user-centered and co-designing approaches to design research?

People mix the two terms all the time. When I use the term co-creation, designers often misinterpret it and think, “Oh, you think regular people can do our job”.

In the co-creation process, designers are still the [design] experts, yet we acknowledge that people are experts of their own experience. One cannot exist without the other. We do encourage non-designers to be creative and express their ideal experience and solutions during the interview process but we never use this information as it is. We turn the information into design cues and principals to feed the design process later.

Do you think that a user-centered approach (where the user is observed by an expert) is vulnerable to a less objective analysis and synthesis of the data compared with data from a participatory approach? How does co-designing avoid this?

You can’t just do co-creation exercises without observation or contextual research. For example, when we were conducting mobile phone research in Latin America, the co-creation exercise was always combined with contextual understanding coming from being there in the participants’ own environment.

A lot of valuable information comes from inserting yourself into the participant’s life. One should always follow Do-Say-Make. Observe what people DO, listen to what they SAY and give them tools to MAKE things that represent their ideal experiences and solutions. Depending on your subject matter, you may plan your approaches. For example, if you are trying to help a company create a new surgical tool, you may want to start with days of observation followed by a co-creation exercise in order to gain knowledge around the particular situation that you are unfamiliar with.

If you enjoyed this interview, please take the time to share your thoughts and feedback in the comments. Next week, Part 2 of this interview with Jooyoung Oh

Michele Azzopardi

In this interview, Design Droplets New York correspondent and contributor Anna Lorenzetto spoke with the Director of Design Victoria, Michele Azzopardi.

Design Victoria is a Victorian State Government initiative that aims to increase the competitive skills of Victorian designers in local and export markets and develop the innovation and excellence capabilities of small to medium enterprises (SMEs). Design Victoria also have a fantastic website that is full of informative articles for both designers and businesses.

Follow Design Victoria on Twitter.

Highlights

• The term design is used in a variety of contexts. It is quite commonly used in reference to an aesthetic value, which doesn’t necessarily reflect the value and power that good design can have. While aesthetics are important, they are only a sum of the parts when it comes to design.

• Skills shortages pose a potential barrier to the increased dissemination of design use – the design industry may be significantly hindered if consultancies cannot meet demand for their services and if businesses cannot recruit designers to fill in-house positions.

• There is a strong correlation between a company’s ability to launch new products, services or processes and the importance it places on design.

1. Michele, welcome to Design Droplets and thank you for speaking with us today. You are the Director of Design Victoria; for those who are unfamiliar with Design Victoria, could you give an overview of the organisation and what you and your team are responsible for.

Design Victoria is a State Government initiative that aims to increase the competitive skills of Victorian designers in local and export markets and develop the innovation and excellence capabilities of small to medium enterprises (SMEs).

The Case for Export - This publication was recently launched to inspire and assist Victorian designers to export their products and services with confidence

Through a range of informative and practical programs Design Victoria is helping design professionals and SMEs achieve commercial success.

Design Victoria’s Business Ready program delivers seminars and workshops that empower Victorian designers, design consultancies and in-house design teams with skills and knowledge to grow their business and better engage with industry. The events target various design disciplines including urban and landscape, industrial, multi-media, graphic, architecture, interior design, fashion and textile and design management and are tailored to address knowledge and skill gaps identified in the industry.

Through the Design Ready program, Design Victoria demonstrates to Victorian businesses how to use design to create innovative and profitable products and services to improve their competitiveness. This occurs through workshops, seminars and the Business Immersions program, which provides funding support for eligible businesses to receive hands-on design expertise to solve a business challenge and improve performance.

In the Design Knowledge program we conduct research and develop and distribute information that provides a better understanding of the cultural, social, environmental and economic impact of design, and practical, design-related resources for businesses and designers. This program is steadily developing a world-class body of localised knowledge on design, including how it is successfully being used by private and public enterprises.

Design Victoria is currently in our third year of delivery and to ensure we achieve the highest standard of outcomes in the delivery of our programs we partner with professional associations, leading business experts, industry peak bodies, tertiary education institutions and government.

2. Design is difficult to define; it’s an ambiguous term – a noun and a verb, it’s the doing, the result and the practise and it is now used to describe a multiplicity of ‘stuff’ from tampons to organisational planning. Is design a bastardised version of its former self and has it simply become a marketing ploy? What do you think people think of when they hear the word ‘design’? How does Design Victoria define design and which design disciplines does Design Victoria focus on?

Melbourne First Aid - This brand and identity was developed through Design Victoria's Business Immersions program, where a small business is partnered with a designer to produce a solution to a business problem through design. In this case, graphic design agency, Studio Round, developed a new brand and identity to assist Melbourne First Aid in export markets

The term design is used in a variety of contexts. It is quite commonly used in reference to an aesthetic value, which doesn’t necessarily reflect the value and power that good design can have. While aesthetics are important, they are only a sum of the parts when it comes to design.

Design is a capability that transforms products or services to improve their function, efficiency and style. We work across a broad range of design disciplines (as identified above) in identified knowledge and skills gaps areas, including intellectual property, sustainability, business development and export, to equip them with the ability to grow their business and better engage with industry. Further to that, Design Victoria focuses on increasing the proportion of design-using businesses in the Victorian government’s priority industry and research sectors which includes biotechnology, information and communications technology, advanced manufacturing technologies, energy and environmental technologies and retail.

3. Why has the Victorian State Government decided to focus on design; why at this point in time and what are the hoped for outcomes of this effort?

Although the Victorian Government has long recognised the importance of design (identifying it as one of state’s strategic capabilities in its 2002 Innovation Statement “Victorians. Bright Ideas. Brilliant Future.”) the inception of Design Victoria was inspired by two reports published in 2003 which highlighted the number of people employed directly and indirectly in design in the State [of Victoria], and the vital flow-on effect of design and its ability to inspire and transform other industry sectors.

Through the Design Victoria Strategy, the Victorian Government is encouraging the design-led growth of Victorian industry through a comprehensive strategy backed by a $15 million investment over four years. Design Victoria aims to drive design excellence, create a more globally competitive design sector and encourage the design-led growth of Victorian industries, enriching the economy and the Victorian community.

In 2008 we launched the research report “Five Years On. Victoria’s Design Sector 2003-2008” which examined the characteristics and capabilities of the design sector, how small to medium enterprises use and value design, and the impact of design on Victoria’s economy to enable industry and the design sector to benchmark and improve performance. It found Victoria’s design sector to be highly competitive, contributing $7 billion annually to our economy and accounting for over $300 million in design-related exports. Importantly, it found that there is potential for significant growth.

4. Why is design important?

Design fosters a culture of innovation and creativity not only in business through the development, presentation and branding of products processes or services but it also touches and enhances our lives through enriching cultural and social experiences, uniquely shaping Victoria’s future as an enjoyable, creative, vibrant and sustainable place to live, work, play and visit.

5. Who should drive the use of design, the consumer or commerce?

Both. Business inevitably designs products and services in response to consumer needs and wants. However, design by its very nature fosters new innovations and can create consumer needs.

6. In the United States, where the ‘industrial designer’ was created, there is a 90 year history of designers working with and for commerce to further sales; design is seen (in the US) as an embedded cost of getting a product to market and design as a function is woven into the strategic planning of businesses and retailers. A great case in point is mainstream retailer Target which has dedicated in-house design teams working across many diverse product categories, but which also makes use of outside industrial design consultants. How does a country like Australia, where this is not the case, make up for ‘lost ground’? How do you enculturate a mainstream commercial sector into embedding design as an ‘on-road-cost’ and not an ‘optional extra’?

It’s certainly something that will take some time – to change the mindset so that design is considered integral to business, as important to the bottom line as R&D or marketing.

Oscar Furniture - This chair design was also developed through the Business Immersions program. Oscar Furniture, a manufacturer in the lift-assist chair market, was partnered with industrial designer agency, Ideation. Having previously developed a medical procedure chair prototype for the healthcare industry, Oscar recognised they required assistance with the functionality and marketability of the design.

Although the number of Victorian SMEs using and benefiting from design is positive, there are opportunities for a greater use of design. Our research identified several barriers to businesses using design – many don’t understand the value a trained designer can add to their business while other non-design users cite a lack of perceived need. The ‘pay back’ from using design is also not apparent to many businesses. If it were perceived that good design would save time and increase profits in the long run it would seem likely that they would find the time and resources to engage design consultancies.

Design Victoria is demonstrating to businesses the value of design and the ways it can be used to achieve higher business gains through market share, profitability and improved competitiveness. Our Design Ready seminars and workshops aim to impart this knowledge and equip businesses with the necessary skills to embed design into their business.

Oscar Furniture

We are also building a world-class body of localised knowledge on design. This wealth of information showing the benefits of design to business can be found on our website – there are some really good case studies there that document the experiences and outcomes of businesses working with designers to solve business problems.

7. Design Victoria’s report, “Five years on, Victoria’s Design Sector, 2003-2008”, refers to the Design Innovation Ladder (developed in Denmark), a tool that is used to demonstrate a company’s level of design activity. The report highlighted that only 4% of businesses in Victoria are positioned in the top level of this ladder, signifying that those businesses use design to drive innovation and that 72% of businesses are positioned in the bottom tier, where design has little or no presence in the business overall. Can you give us a profile of what a business in the top level looks like? What are your hopes for the other 72%; what reduction is Design Victoria aiming for?

Victorian businesses are embracing design at a similar rate to countries of comparable populations, such as Ireland and Denmark (an early design leader). In 2004, 36% of all business in Denmark made some use of design; in 2008, 37% of all businesses in Victoria (totalling 69,000 organisations) benefit from using design services. While Victoria compares well internationally, there are opportunities for still more effective use of design and greater business value for those organisations currently on the lower rungs of the ladder.

SMEs with profit growth of 90% or more over the past three years, were more likely to use design than other businesses, and much more likely to be on the higher rungs (3 and 4 ) of the ladder. Common to those businesses positioned on the top rung of the Design Innovation Ladder is the valuing of design as a strategic, core business activity – a large proportion credit the introduction of new products and services and increased sales volume to the use of design.

Through the Design Ready and Business Ready programs, Design Victoria is working to develop the design innovation and excellence capabilities of SMEs positioned on these lower rungs, creating innovative Victorian industries where design underpins competitiveness and export performance, to progress them up the Design Innovation Ladder.

8. The report also states that, “…a new generation of industrial designers are [sic] required to exploit emerging opportunities in the environmental and energy sectors”. Can you explain what this means and what the future implications will be for established designers, young graduates and the role of design education?

Skills shortages pose a potential barrier to the increased dissemination of design use – the design industry may be significantly hindered if consultancies cannot meet demand for their services and if businesses cannot recruit designers to fill in-house positions. The research looked at the extent to which recruitment of suitable personnel was a problem in design consultancies and businesses with in-house designers. Concerns are around those staff available, lacking the right skills and not enough graduates in relevant disciplines. The situation was amplified among industrial design consultancies with 59% indicating it is a problem.

Skill shortages in design need to be addressed, particularly within the industrial design sector. This is essential to underpin and ensure the success of new growth industries, including environmental and waste management and alternative energy products and services.

9. There is a clear correlation between the demand for a company’s goods and services and its use of design. Can you give us an explanation of the relationship between profit and the use of design?

What is Eco-design? is an online eco-design resource for industrial, graphic, fashion and textile designers

There is a strong correlation between a company’s ability to launch new products, services or processes and the importance it places on design. Analysis by the UK Design Council found that a portfolio of design-led companies outperformed the stock market average by 200% over a 10 year period.

Businesses that embrace design are better prepared to open up new local and export markets, attract investors, meet the changing demands of markets, improve sustainability practices and business processes to become more competitive. They profit by using design to build brand and identity, reduce production costs, increase price premiums and to create innovative and profitable products and services.

Obviously there is a more complex relationship between innovation, design and business success than simply the greater the influence of design within an enterprise, the greater the success it will have. However, our research contributes to the growing body of international research that clearly demonstrates that users of design are more likely to show a growth in profits, and to show a higher rate of growth of profits than non-users.

10.Michelle, thank you, but before we wrap –up, some really important questions for you. You travel a lot, list for us some hits and memories:

(a) What and where was your most memorable meal?
An Indian Banquet at Raffles Hotel in Singapore where the flavours and fragrances were so exact, delicious and memorable.

(b) What place superseded your expectations once you got there?
Most recently the Mediterranean island of Pantelleria.

(c) What is the best airport to be stuck in and why?
I don’t believe any!

(d) If you were despatching your nemesis where would you send them?
Somewhere where I wouldn’t have cause to happen upon he or she…

Michele Azzopardi, thank you for your time today and all the best from Design Droplets.

I didn’t attend his year’s ICFF looking for particular products to write about.

I knew what I didn’t want to write about: any products that explored concept at the expense of quality and the inverse of this; anything by a rock star – music, design or a famous just-for-being-famous person, I’m not fussed; they all push my buttons – anything made of felt and anything over –stuffed. I was happy to walk away empty handed.

Only four products made me curious enough to want to speak to the designers.  They are all intelligent, beautiful and accessible products of exceptional quality that will remain timeless.

The first three are all related by virtue of training.  It wasn’t my intention to select a group of people who were alumni of the same design school; but it happened (something I only became aware of as I interviewed each about their work) which says something about their formative training.  When you speak to the three graduates from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) – Searle, Adelman, and Takagi – and they tell you about the environment in which they studied, you understand why it is that they are capable of designing the furniture and lighting that they do.  The fact their design education takes places within a “culture of curiosity” where they are “taught to use their eyes” means they have learnt the language that creates products that are other-worldly.  Humble, knowledgeable, confident, kind – these are the professionals that are needed now.  I have to agree with her, when Adelman, says, “RISD, doesn’t just produce good designers; but good people as well.”

The final product you will read about is a gem – okay, I have a bias as you’ll discover.  But even if I wasn’t biased, I would still say it is a fun, smart and practical product that deserves success.

Here is my ICFF best in show 2009:

ELEGANT UTILITY

C-Beam Table by UM Project – Brooklyn, USA

Photograph by Francis Dzikowski.

François Chambard and Colgate Searle are the partnership that forms UM Project, a “hybrid between a workshop for fabrication, a laboratory for discovery and a consulting practise for design.”

Originally founded by Chambard – Searle only recently was made a partner in the firm – UM Project’s C-Beam Table is one of around 50 products that the company has designed and manufactured to date.  The table was developed with multiple uses in mind; a work desk, conference table or for casual dining, and thought has been given to eco-friendly ingredients; the materials are renewable, recycled, responsible or post-industrial.

Part Jean Prouvé and part American Arts & Crafts movement, the C-Beam Table gives you a sense of monastic security: austere, but not cold; present, but not daunting it is perfect for sitting at without distraction.

Searle, who designed the table, has managed to retain an honesty of simplicity often missed by designers who mistake simplicity for ease.  There is no self consciousness to its pared back, bare-bones look, “I design for an economy of means”, says Searle, and you can see the authenticity of his words when standing beside this product.  It looks simple and it is; but it is not facile.

Graduating with a BFA in Furniture Design (RISD), and growing up in New England surrounded by various craft traditions, most notably furniture (“our house was full of Windsor Chairs”), Searle says has given him a particular type of aesthetic ingenuity that supports his ability to design a piece such as the C-Beam Table.  This ingenuity is evident when he divulges the solution for the top-to-leg join (I have sworn to confidentiality), that allows the legs to simultaneously punch through to the table’s top while splaying out at a 5% angle towards the ground.

Searle has been thorough in his details; the color choice is unusual, a little whimsical, and a combination few designers would immediately think of: drab, civil service gray for the table top has been paired with canary yellow legs, but, it looks stunning and the result is a surprisingly neutral effect that will work well in most environments.

The C-Beam Table is simultaneous in its nature – robust and delicate; grounded and floaty, scholastic and homely; it would be easy to place this in the domain of minimal; doing so would cause you to miss exploring the substance underpinning its style.

DOMESTIC JEWELLERY

Lindsey Adelman Studio – Brooklyn, USA

If one were to track the typology of Lindsay Adelman’s various lighting designs, lineage could be extracted from Alexander Calder, the 1970’s, scientific instruments, and the metal work of the Bauhaus.  But of all the familial resonances that her products conjure, the most beguiling is Art Deco.  In particular, Adelman’s lighting can be likened to Art Deco jewellery.

These designs are exuberant, optimistic pieces made for adornment, where slender metal work supports multiple bosses of glass jewels at its end, which if viewed through quick glances, can convince you that they are multiplying.  Rapidly.  All around you.

Every product from the range is unique; no two glass bubbles are the same.  Each bubble is mouth-blown and hand finished (in Seattle) and therefore impossible to standardize – thankfully – adding greater sentience to each.  As a counterpoint the metal work (also produced to spec off-site) shows how adept Adelman is at perfecting the details.  Connections between metal components seems magical; no slack or allowance within the joints is apparent, “I like the idea of combining something that is honest, exposed, and vulnerable”, she says.  Little is hidden in these pieces, which is why the attention to detail matters and the nature of the work echoes silver smithing and jewellery making.  By virtue of scale a jeweller works by travelling further into the micro-environment of their piece; Adelman, works by exploding the details of junctures and over emphasizes the points of articulation.  The detailing and level of perfection of the metal work that she has directed into these pieces are a testament of her ability to translate the most delicate of details into the physicality of a material.

A lighting designer since graduating in 1995, from RISD’s Master of Industrial Design program, early employment took her to Seattle where she worked for a lighting company that had its own metal work and hot glass shop.  Here her affinity for glass really came to the fore, and Adelman gained the knowledge needed to design with the material, “humans have a visceral relationship with glass”, she says, “glass is organic and fluid, it is very feminine in nature”.  New York born and bred, she returned home, and in 2000 began the partnership Butter, with fellow lighting designer David Weeks.  After a successful 5 years, the two went their separate ways to pursue solo careers.

The eponymous Lindsey Adelman Studio was started after the birth of her son, “I wanted to know what, why and how; if something was going to take me away from my son, then, I thought, this had better be good.” That mandate has produced a “healthy business” that combines the creative with the practical, “I have designed the process [of manufacture] – I don’t want a stressful environment; if I had to be there doing it all, it’s not worth it – every stage is considered.” All products are shipped disassembled and assembly is carried out on site by an electrician; Adelman never gets to see her work assembled and in situ, “I only ever see a piece in its parts”.

Adelman naturally designs products that intuitively spark the emotionality of beauty.  Which is why, when she says, “I wanted to create beauty”, you get the sense that perhaps she knows something about it that the rest of us have yet to learn.

URBANE COLONIAL

American Gothic Table by Atelier Takagi – Washington DC, USA

“It’s not particularly anything”, says Jonah Takagi when speaking about his table American Gothic.  I intuit that he actually means the table is not one particular style, but a fusion of influences instead.  In fact here is a product that is the sum of its many parts, which Takagi has merged noticeably well, without conceptual or aesthetic loop holes.

Takagi holds a BFA in Furniture Design (RISD) and, like Searle and Adelman, he mentions the traits of authenticity, honesty and appropriateness when speaking about design process and final products, “the fact I grew up in New England surrounded by a blue blood Yankee, puritanical sensibility has something to do with it – the way I approach the work”.  Further add into the mix his Japanese background (Takagi’s father is Japanese), an appreciation of tinker toys and a “nebulous, surreal design process”, and you might be able to imagine how this particular table could be thought up.  These influences show themselves in the radial connector designed to join the legs and the black lacquer finish which unifies all of it.

The most fascinating aspect of this table is the sense of tension felt when you look at it.  I had cognition of something being unsettled and not quite right, and then I realised that there are 5 legs.  This one element is what gives the table its edginess; picturing it with less (4 or 3 even), I realise that if Takagi had not engineered this quirky mutation, it would be just a table with mismatched elements of style.

It would have been easy for Takagi to lose the design of this table to self indulgence and finish with a piece that was stylistically over-cooked and lacking quality of construction; instead the constraint and discipline used in its development has resulted in work that stands with assurance, in the spaces in-between styles.

KITTY KAT KOOL

The ModKat Cat Litter Box – New York, USA

When the partners of ModProducts – Brett Teper and Rich Williams, embarked on the design for The ModKat Litter Box, they wanted to “design a product with no compromises.” What started as a lamentation by Williams about the mess from his cats’ litter box is about to be manufactured in a production-run of 800+.  Finding this product was especially enjoyable for me, as I, like Williams have a cat, and live, in a space-challenged New York apartment.

Necessity is the mother of all invention.  The issues faced by pet owners who live in small spaces with their animals means that we often have to tolerate having horrid looking pet products on permanent view in our apartments; the lack of room typically means there is no practical area where bowls or litter boxes can be discreetly stored.  It was the restriction of Williams’ apartment; the fact that his bathroom was a capsule too tiny to fit a normal litter box in, that prompted Williams to think that another style of litter box was needed; one that looked so good, hiding it would be redundant.

The ModKat is a smart, compact and tasteful version of the hooded litter tray that discerning cat owners will want to own.  Although what was on show was the final prototype, the quality and finish are faultless.  The swinging lid (at the top of the piece) hinges effortlessly, the construction is sturdy and with a built in poop-scoop/brush and removable internal liner, it is a self-sufficient, all-in-one, unit.

There is one other delight which I found a joyful experience of the ModKat; the product has this great aural quality to it – yeah, you read right – it sounds great.  It’s got a deep and rolling sound, not echoic and empty.  This product sounds, as though it is quality.  It had, for me, such a familiar sound that I finally remembered; this product sounds like the Kartell Componibili Modules.

I consider the ModKat a great house-wares product, and I know they will be purchased and appropriated for other storage means, and why not?  Little wonder it won 2009 ICFF Editor’s Award for Best Accessory.

See it in action in the video below.

Available in cyan, lemon, red and white (black is coming soon).

I will be buying one; in black of course.