Both Design Thinking and qualitative research have unknowingly been coexisting for a long time. The skills of both disciplines are (sometimes unknowingly) known to both designers and qualitative researchers. Design Thinking (DT) can be applied in any discipline ranging from information technology companies to the service sector. Qualitative research (QR) is also very wide-ranging and has been practised for a long time. Both disciplines seek to solve problems. However, DT is considerably a new arena compared to the posterior one. Both disciplines have evolved to cater to the need of innovation and solving problems. Arguably the actual usefulness of DT is soaring lately. This is largely due to the startup culture and global innovation practices. Qualitative research has become an integral part of the DT approach. Consequently, this opens up new avenues to leverage the strengths of both areas to bring innovation that works.
Design Thinking (DT)
Design thinking doesn’t really mean ‘designing someone’s thinking’. Rather it’s another way round – ‘thinking for designing or developing’ new product/services or features. This thinking part happens in a structured way and not muddling with millions of ideas. The term DT was initially tossed by the computer scientists as is now being widely used as a general approach for innovation. DT is nothing but an iterative process of solving problems. It considers human problems across its the whole process and finds solutions that work for people. It’s process-oriented, relatively non-linear and iterative. The entire process starts with understanding the problem, finding and exploring ideas to solve said problem, and finally testing or materializing the idea to actual product or service.
Qualitative Research
Qualitative research explores underlying reasons and motivations. Exploratory, open-ended, focus group discussion, ideation, flexible, ethnography are some of the quick associations with qualitative research. It doesn’t give a direct sense of process-orientation but aims to answer many unknown territories of human behaviour. For most qualitative research, clients generate a brief, researcher responds with a proposal, followed by ideas tested and results presented and billed to clients.
The Convergence
Qualitative research and DT both share plenty in common. Both qualitative researchers and designers are committed to turning human insights into action. Both seek to understand human behaviour to get appropriate solutions through observation, research and empathy. Qualitative research is more open-ended question-driven, and design thinking is focusing on solving particular problems. Design thinking emphasizes human centricity and is relatively non-linear in its approach. Whereas, understanding human behaviour is the end-goal end of qualitative research. Immersion, in-depth interview, group discussion, ethnography are some of the qualitative research methods which are used throughout the different stages in Design Thinking. DT is an iterative and sequential process where the results of an earlier stage are checked and remodelled. Keeping a design-thinking attitude towards qualitative market research projects can open the possibility of iteration and thus sustainable innovation for users.
Both approaches converge heavily. The ‘Empathize’ phase of Design Thinking is all about learning the audience. Ethnographic research is one of the integral parts of this phase, and often the ‘Empathize’ phase is synonymous to Ethnography. Then, identifying the personas is a key task in the ‘Define’ phase, which is almost a regular task of any Qualitative study. Similarly, the ‘Ideate’ phase requires internal brainstorming and often involves expert opinion qualitative validation. Furthermore, storyboarding is found to be very valuable in DT’s ‘Prototyping’ stage, which requires Qualitative interviews with the consumers. Finally, User Experience (UX) interviews involve gathering learning about the low fidelity (very rough and sketchy version of a product or a concept) prototype. Unlike market research projects, the DT process is iterative, and it doesn’t end at the Test phase, hence the loop continues, till the final product is ready.
Leveraging Design Thinking
Firstly, structure. DT has a clear path to lead the innovation process, omitting the sense of ambiguity in terms of process to be followed. It becomes easy to visualize the process and leads towards a common goal.
While qualitative research deals with people, unlike DT, qualitative research doesn’t use a ‘human-centric’ problem-solving approach though understanding ‘human behaviour’ is the common goal.
Thirdly, regardless of the nature of the objectives, iteration is often seen as viable in terms of cost and time in qualitative research. Often TVC (Television Commercial) scripts/storyboards tests are done at a stage when there is hardly a chance to go back to the drawing board to refine the idea itself.
Finally, qualitative research can be highly valuable for solving problems in technology-based companies. Coupled with design thinking, it can be an agile option to accelerate innovation in the startup ecosystem as well.
Key Points
- Immersing with DT, qualitative research comes out of variability of process
- DT helps reinforce ‘human centricity’ as a way to solve problems
- Having a design thinking mindset opens up the option for iteration in qualitative research projects
- DT brings an agile innovation-perspective in ad-hoc projects
In a nutshell, qualitative research can leverage the Design Thinking process to add structure and to re-think qualitative research from an evolutionary point of view.
