DESGN

“Give em what they never knew they wanted.” ~ diana vreeland

“Out of nothing, something.” ~ a mantra in my 4th street studio

“The way you do anything is the way you do everything.” ~ tom waits

This seminar is centered around the three quotes above that have informed my work as an anthropologist, fashion designer, salonniere, strategist and Chief of Staff over the past 20 years. That balance between not knowing and thinking you know, of an idea and a thing, of a singular iteration and a constancy of process ~ is what we will be critically thinking about throughout this semester. Can we as designers ever really know what others want, or think we know what they might want? If we conceive of and make what doesn’t exist (yet), how do we create distinct methods of research that help us answer those questions that our prototypes and products, our experiences and expertise, and our platforms solve for?

The structure of this course, alongside the readings, videos, and 2 personal projects and one salon dinner research project, is designed to help build your skills in ethnographic design research, learning from people and their user contexts to inspire what we create. Also embedded within the assignments is the field research method of participant observation which was popularized by Bronislaw Malinowski in Britain and Franz Boas and Margaret Mead in the US.

We will start by asking research questions and defining ‘users’ and other people whose experiences we need to consider in designing whatever it is we are transforming from an idea or concept into something physical, interactive, experiential. Then we’ll practice methods for gathering data; interpret what the data means for design; and build collaborative presentations to reflect and share that understanding. You will practice these methods with your classmates and on your own, and use them to complete the three afore-mentioned projects. As you do the projects, you’ll modify and adapt the methods as you need to answer your research questions and present what you learn. 

The course is roughly divided into three sections: an historical context and analysis of different aspects of culture that we can design for (based on your interests), and then applying two types of research to solve for different types of design questions. Generative research (also called exploratory or discovery research) which is a method that helps to define a deeper understanding of users or customers/clients to innovate around an idea and to solve a problem ~ to essentially create a need, or “give em’ what they never knew they wanted,” like Steve Jobs, Jony Ive and the industrial design team did for Apple. On the other hand there is evaluative research which is used for assessing a specific design or experience problem and help to ground it in real wants, needs and desires of actual customers. This type of research is part of early iterative design and is helpful in creating anything from design products, clothing, recipes to streaming video and map services like Netflix, Amazon and Apple TV plus to Google versus Apple Maps. 

Each project within each section will look at the product or service across its different stages, and  how ethnographic research and tools will increase the impact of design research in the company or organization you might someday work for or create. 

Course Motivation 

Design ethnography is the art of learning from the people, culture and contexts you are designing for. If design is in fact a human-centered discipline, the question becomes not only who are the humans we are designing for, but also why and when, how and why. Whether we call this type of research market research, usability research, user experience research, or ethnographic research,  such methods can be applied in such a wide array of disciplines. 

This course will look at how it is applied by anthropologists, sociologists, journalists and artists more generally in the fields of fashion design, food and film as well as larger corporate entities like Pixar, Apple, Netflix and Intel. 

As a designer of things that people use or experience, products and services, you need to understand the various methods of research that can shape your process and outcomes. What are your goals, how will you get there and what happens when you do? At this stage it’s all about experimenting and coming up with a set of questions you might be curious about. Then, how might you learn more by interviewing processes and focus groups, and then what? Implement and even changing behavior. This class hopes to ignite your curiosity around how and why we come to make the things we make, by studying the how’s and why’s of previous designers and visionaries, and how they might have integrated research into their design processes, or not. Ultimately, it is about our own personal explorations of why we do what we do, and how to do it more thoughtfully with an end user in mind, whether to give them what they want or what we think they might want, or to give them something they never knew they wanted.