The Steps to do Applied Design Research

Few things make me more forlorn than work that goes unapplied — here’s how and why to apply your design research!

The person hours that went into contributing to, organizing, analyzing, synthesizing, creating, and presenting the work could have been better used in other pursuits or in rest.

Sadly, design research can be particularly tricky to take from finding to decision to observable change — and this is why I specify ~how~ and ~why~ research will be used for decisions whenever I am putting a research plan together, or scoping a project.

Defining how you’ll use research forces:

• defining how to store and code the research, based on who’s using it and for what purposes.
• clearly articulating objectives
• naming owners, decision-makers, and others responsible to use it, and how

I find myself creating a step by step framework for project kickoffs, or when I work with teams to deepen design maturity around iterative research practices.

Here’s an example Applying Design Research framework: