David, Thank you for the detailed view of your process. You raise one point that I'd like to tease out: although you have a separate stage that is solely focused on synthesis activities - Consolidation; your Research stage includes other, smaller but no less significant, synthesis activities. Did I understand that correctly?
Things like: "visually sketch out other relevant models (sequence, flow, physical, etc.)" One of the things I'd like to understand better is the way in which these smaller tasks - right across design research - are intertwined. It's that intermingling which makes them so difficult to identify, understand and improve. Thanks again Steve 2009/3/30 David B.Rondeau <david.rond...@incontextdesign.com> > For me, the work is broken down a little differently. (I work at > InContext Design and so use the Contextual Design methodology created > by Holtzblatt and Beyer). Using this methodology, the process is > broken more into Research and Consolidation (or synthesis), with > analysis being part of Research. > > The Research phase consists of gathering information: we talk to the > client and other stakeholders to understand the business needs and > technical constraints, and we do Contextual Inquiry interviews with > users. As part of this Research phase we have an interpretation > session after each interview%u2014this is our analysis. We recount > the interview and capture the details that are relevant to our focus. > This includes capturing notes to later build an affinity diagram, and > visually sketch out other relevant models (sequence, flow, physical, > etc.). We do this so everyone on the team can have a shared > understanding about what happened during the interview. For me, this > analysis is just part of the research%u2014but it is separate from > synthesis as Steve initially suggested. > > After enough interviews are completed, we then consolidate each model > across all users. Using our process, we take each individual sketch > and combine them to create new consolidated sketches. This is where > the synthesis takes place and you begin to see the larger picture of > the work across all the users. > > The sketching that we do in these phases is different than the > sketching that Brad Nunnally discussed, but similar to what Dave > Malouf raised. In these phases, we use sketches to understand the > data and to share and communicate that understanding to the team and > eventually to the client. (Yes, the sketching here is synthetic, but > that's not the main purpose.) We don't sketch solutions until > consolidation is done and we have a full picture of the work across > the user population. > > Once into the design phase though, I agree wholeheartedly that > designers should be sketching their ideas. We have a saying, "If > nothing is being captured, then you are just talking in the air." > Without a shared representation, it's hard to build a shared > understanding and make a decision. Personally, I find it very > difficult to even think about design without sketching. > > I suspect that our process may be different than most. If so, I'd be > curious to hear how other processes differ in terms of research, > analysis, and synthesis. > > David Rondeau > Design Chair > Twitter: dbrondeau > -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Contributor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
