Reflection on Theme 5

This weeks topic was about design research which was a totally new concept for me and was really interesting to discuss.

During the first lecture Ylva talked about their study about controlling and programming robotic comsumer products. First she briefly explained what they did during the research which was by studying semiotics and other previous researches and findings, designing a new concept to control and program robots behavior through studying comics and fashion(clothes). After that, we had a discussion session which in my opinion was the most interesting part of the lecture. First we searched for the answer for the question what would be different if that research had been done today and one of the most important answer for the question was today there are lots of differences in products(robots) which probably would affect the outcomes of the research. In my opinion this could indicate how time dependent the qualitative methods are. According to her trying to understand and find out the challenges about the idea and design instead of presenting the results and the way they do analyzing were qualitative about their method. With the same qualitative approach as she mentioned I think they could find out new challenges or different outcomes today.

In the afternoon session we had a lecture with Haibo Li which was more interesting for me. He explained how to come up with an idea and how to become “successful” with that idea. Firstly the most important starting point is defining the problem. Not like the common approach in public which is solely concentrate on solving problem that is already defined by others it is better to step back at first and try to understand and redefine the problem. Second step is filtering ideas, at this point we have to think with a business mind. After that by using proof of concept we should be able to validate our ideas. Then by prototyping, ideas should be evaluated. In my opinion prototyping is very important step while evaluating the ideas. As Li mentioned, after building prototypes of new ideas and potential products based on our interest and needs, we could invite companies to look at our prototypes and learn their opinions on our prototypes. Moreover it enables researchers or producers to do usability analysis earlier and continue developing according to results. The last step he mentioned was how to communicate the idea. When we communicate our ideas we should neither use very scientific language nor salesman language. We should use a business language as an entrepreneur when we are presenting on our ideas.

It was really interesting and beneficial for me to learn design research from different lectures, perspectives. Briefly what I learned from both lectures is that knowledge about the previous studies and researches about the content is one of the key factors in design research. Furthermore while studying on new concept it is very important to define requirements clearly, validate and evaluate ideas efficiently and at the end communicate those ideas attractively.