Well, We've Done All This Research, Now What?

1
Well, We've
Done All
This
Research,
Now What?

URF2010 ‹#› Portigal
Click to edit Master title styleAgenda
9:00-10:50 Turning field data into insights
Introduction 05 minutes
Observation Process and Exercise 50 minutes
Synthesis Process and Exercise 55 minutes
10:50-12:00 Turning insights into solutions
Ideation Process 20 minutes
Ideation Exercise 40 minutes
Wrap Up 10 minutes

Click to edit Master title style
Introduction

Launch
What to
make or do
Refine &
prototype
Iterate & improve
Typical development lifecycle

Launch
What to
make or do
Refine &
prototype
Iterate & improve
Take a fresh
look at
people
Where we work

Iterate & improve
Use existing
ideas as
hypotheses
Where we work
Launch
What to
make or do
Refine &
prototype

Iterate & improve
Where we work
Launch
What to
make or do
Refine &
prototype
Is it working
like we
hoped?

Iterate & improve
History provides
context to
explore new
ideas
Where we work
Launch
What to
make or do
Refine &
prototype

Development
Synthesis
Ideation
Fieldwork
Synthesis & ideation process

Detailed
solutions
SolutionsStrategies
Insights Opportunities
Analysis
Synthesis
Ideation
Synthesis & ideation process

Cultural
data from
fieldwork
Case study: iPod accessories

Click to edit Master title styleCase study: iPod accessories
URF2010 12 Portigal

Observation

Click to edit Master title styleHomework Check-in
Your mission: Dedicate at least
half an hour to walking around and
observing people in your
neighborhood
Who was able to do the
assignment?
Was this anyone’s first experience
doing observational fieldwork?
Is there anyone who has not done
user or observational research in
the field?
Props to Jennifer Lum and Nick Leggett!

Click to edit Master title styleMethods & inputs (not today…)
Generally we integrate methods, aka triangulation
We choose, mash-up, or create methods based on the
problem. Today we’re doing an abbreviated version of
observational fieldwork
URF2010 15 Portigal

Click to edit Master title styleObserving
Notice what… people,
places
Notice how… processes,
sequences, interactions
Suspend your point of view
Avoid conclusions
Allow confusion
Do it “out loud” Steve, practicing his “noticing.” You can tell
because he looks like he may be a little
confused.

You’re observing people within
their culture. Notice how cultural
artifacts reflect and define the
environment; and reveal what is
“normal”
Normal isn’t “right or wrong” – it’s
the set of background rules that
define much of what people
choose or ignore
Media
Products
Advertisements
Street Culture
Trends/ Fads
Cultural context
What are these gentlemen trying to get you to buy?

Click to edit Master title styleCultural context
URF2010 18 Portigal

Click to edit Master title styleCultural context
URF2010 19 Portigal

Synthesis naturally begins in
the field
• Resist meaning (for now)
• Focus on observations
• Get the detail
Create time to talk after each
fieldwork experience
• Over multiple sessions and
participants, over time
Write up real-time summaries for
the team, ASAP
In-field debriefing (not today…)
Fieldwork highlights captured in the wild.

Your mission: Imagine you are
working on a new project for
GeNtrfY, a company looking for
ideas to redevelop SoMa
Form groups of 2 – 3. Mix it up
• Wander and observe people,
interactions and environments
• Do it out loud!
• Capture (photos, notes)
• What, who, where, when?
• Why, how?
This is not a design audit of
signage or merchandise displays
Exercise: Explore!

Click to edit Master title styleNeighborhood observations: Noe Valley
URF2010 22 Portigal

Click to edit Master title styleNeighborhood observations: Noe Valley
URF2010 23 Portigal

Click to edit Master title styleNeighborhood observations: Montara
URF2010 24 Portigal

Be back
by 9:55
Exercise: Explore!

Synthesis

Sense-making through an iterative
process of refining gathered data
Early, Informal data in your head
First, process the experience you
had collecting data
• Refer to debriefs and conversations
• Articulate and identify themes
• Outcome: Topline Report
Process-based, Formal heavy lifting
Then, process the data itself
• Individual and group analysis
• Pattern-identification, clustering,
models, frameworks
• Outcome: Opportunities
What is synthesis?
Review, Refine, Rinse, Repeat

After fieldwork, collate reflections
and quickly externalize a starter set
of 5 to 10 thematic areas based on
•Pre-identified areas of inquiry
•Refer to debriefs and
conversations from the field
•New patterns that we observed
Identify interesting areas;
acknowledge that you don’t
understand details yet, identify
questions
Outcome: Topline Report
This sheds light on what excites the
team and the stakeholders; brings
focus to the next stage of synthesis
All right researchers… what did you see?
Early, informal synthesis (data in your head)

Go back through your raw data
very closely to move beyond the
Topline Report
Individually (heads-down) and
collaboratively (heads-up) develop
clusters, identify patterns, collate
and refine findings
• Process maps, eco-systems
• Frameworks, models
• Design implications
i.e.: What did other public announcements in
the study look like? What are the layers of
information and cultural context? What form
factors are favored? Why?
Process-based, formal synthesis (heavy lifting)

Heads down!
• Video
• Photos, field artifacts
• Transcripts
Transcript analysis
• Make marginal notes on
patterns, quotes, or what
seems interesting
• Ask yourself questions; give
labels; propose solutions
• Don’t worry about
implications, be descriptive
and reactive
Individual analysis (not today…)

If you can’t get transcripts, watch
video (even sped-up) and in near
real-time jot down the rough
narrative of the session
• When you make an observation
in your own voice, do something
typographic to call it out (ALL
CAPS, highlight, etc.)
Individual analysis (not today…)

Heads up!
Tell stories, narrate highlights,
give each its due. Use notes,
transcripts, and other artifacts
Voice and document reactions,
ahas, support and questions
• Clustering
• White-board notes
Develop a new shared POV,
beyond “findings”
Outcome: Opportunities
No discussion of the synthesis process would be
complete without a reference to Post-It ® Notes
Collaborative analysis

Keep the human touch in
communication
Allow people to move
seamlessly between places
Allow people to integrate
seamlessly across different
devices and systems
Opportunities are not
• A reporting of “interesting
findings”
• A list of solutions
Opportunities are
• Change we can envision based
on what we heard and observe
• About people
• In the context of but reframing
the business questions
• Generative, inviting many
solutions
Developing opportunities
What should we do?

Topline Collaborative Analysis Opportunities
10 minutes 15 minutes 15 minutes
communication
Allow people to mov e
seamlessly between
places
seamlessly across
different devices and
systems
Summary of synthesis exercises
Externalize the
data in your head
Share the heavy lifting Determine generative
directions

After fieldwork, join forces with
another group
• Quickly review what happened
(today and from your homework)
and what you saw. Collate
reflections. Resist the urge to
move too far towards conclusions
• Don’t refer to notes or photos yet
• Keep your own experiences,
existing hypotheses, cultural
clichés, etc. in the background
• Develop 3 - 5 themes as a
“Topline Report” sketching out
the big takeaways, leading into
further synthesis
• Don’t wordsmith
Exercise: Develop a topline (10 minutes)
All right researchers… what did you see?

Evolve your “Topline Report;” flesh out
and enrich themes
• Write your themes and put them up
• Leave space for new ones too
• Now (!) tell stories from the field (from
your neighborhood and today), using
photos, notes and memory
Rethink the relationships between the
themes, pick your strongest themes
and write a sentence with a point of
view
• Go from “Graffiti abounds” and “Teen
gangs hanging out” to “Public spaces in
the neighborhood are used to
communicate identity and
belongingness”
Exercise: Develop findings (10 minutes)

Build on your findings
• Start each opportunity with a verb
Opportunities are not
• A reporting of “interesting findings”
• A list of solutions
Opportunities are
• Change we can envision based on what
we heard and observe
• About people
• In the context of but reframing the
business questions
• Generative, inviting many solutions
Exercise: Identify opportunities (10 minutes)
What should we do?
communication
devices and systems
What should we do?
communication
devices and systems

Click to edit Master title styleExercise: Pitch it back!

Ideation

A simple step moves you from
Opportunities to Ideation
Questions, reframing them into
actionable language
How can we
Ideate!
keep the human touch in
communication
allow people to move
allow people to integrate
devices and systems
How can we
How can we
Ideation questions

Solutions exist across many
different business areas
Functionality
Visual design
Marketing
Architecture
Public Services
Partnerships
Events
Software
Form factor
Packaging
Policy
Retail design
Even if you are unlikely to impact
certain business areas, it’s crucial
that you set that constraint aside
for ideation
Scope of solutions
How many business and civic areas to impact
can you spot in this picture?

Responses to any ideation question can lead in different strategic directions
Finding: Students have to smoke outside, but they get cold and wet
Opportunity: Improve the experience of students who smoke
Ideation Question: How can we improve the experience of students
who smoke?
Developing strategies
Create a protected
environment for smoking
Support underlying needs
and behavior by embracing
the finding
Eliminate smoking
Question needs and
behavior, seek change by
challenging the finding

Ideation Question: How can we improve the experience of students who
smoke?
Strategies
Solutions
Strategies can inspire solutions
Create a protected
Facilities
Build a
pavilion
Admin
Allocate
interior
room
Partners
Align with
nearby
cafe
Eliminate smoking
Online
Smoking
cessation
games
Admin
Ban
smoking
Partners
Stop
smoking
coaches

Ideation Question: How can we improve the experience of students who
smoke?
Solutions can suggest strategies
Create a protected
Eliminate smoking
Admin
Allocate
interior
room
Admin
Ban
smoking
Strategies
Solutions

This is a collective, out-loud activity!
Talk, listen, build on each other’s
ideas
• Don’t worry about a “bad” idea… it
may lead to a “good” idea
Don’t correct; generate alternatives
• “Yes, and…”
This is a visual activity! Sketch,
draw…
• Quantity over quality; go quickly
Individual ideas matter less than
what the collective produces overall
• Channel your inner Locutus of Borg
Lemons provided, if necessary
Collaborative generation

Click to edit Master title styleStuck?
Come up with bad ideas
• Immoral
• Dangerous
• Bad for business

Questions Business Areas Ideation and Sharing
2 minutes 3 minutes 35 minutes
How can we
Ideate!
keep the human touch
in communication
seamlessly between
places
allow people to
integrate seamlessly
across different devices
and systems
How can we
How can we
Summary of ideation exercises
Shift to “How can
we…?”
Figure out where
we can play
Remember, “Yes, and…”

Apply How can we…?
to each of your Opportunities
How can we
Ideate!
keep the human touch in
communication
allow people to integrate
devices and systems
How can we
How can we
Exercise: Ideation questions (2 minutes)

Let’s collectively list possible
business areas to design for
• Think about whatever GeNtrFy could
do or affect
Use this list as a starting point
Functionality
Visual design
Marketing
Architecture
Public Services
Partnerships
Events
Software
Form factor
Packaging
Policy
Retail design
Incentives
Exercise: Business areas (3 minutes)
How many business and civic areas to impact
can you spot in this picture?

Use your ideation questions to
generate strategies and solutions
• Out loud
• Visual
• Collaborative
Consider the range of possible
business areas
Bounce back and forth between
generating strategies and
solutions
Most ideas will not turn out to be
winners; the goal is to practice
connecting research data to
solutions
Exercise: Ideation (20 minutes)
Apply lemon as needed.

Rapidly align on your team’s best
ideas and message
Choose a messenger
Exercise: Prepare to share (5 minutes)
The wise team will choose a bold, expressive
spokesperson

Click to edit Master title styleExercise: Pitch it back! (10 minutes)

Wrap it up

One new
thing I
learned
today is…
I’ve got a tip
(that you
didn’t cover)
that works
well for me…
Yeah, I’ve
got a
question
for ya…

Portigal Consulting
www.portigal.com
Steve @steveportigal
steve@portigal.com
415-894-2001
Julie julie@portigal.com
Wyatt wyatt@portigal.com
Thank you!

Well, We've Done All This Research, Now What?

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