On Friday 25 June, the concept team of Waag organized a Design Research Hot Pot. Designers and researchers in the field of User & Design Research waren were invited to share insights, but also discuss the most important issues. In total, 20 participants were present to show some interesting projects and tools. But also some acute questions from Design Research practice were discussed. During the evening meal we clustered all questions, so that we could elaborate on these in small groups in the second half of the evening. These questions were:
- How can we incorporate Design Research in Academic Research? How can we validate the results of this? How to use Design Research in a non-design context?
- Can we use online research to obtain rich data? How can a community help? What is the right scale of your research?
- How to get efficiency and structure in a qualitative research? How to document the results, what is a good way to communicate these internally and externally?
- How to create a sustainable impact of your research project? How to implement your results?
- How ca you create empathy with both your target group, collegues and stakeholders? How to keep them involved with your project and what can be done to make clear the neccessity of a human-centered approach?
The hot pot was a good starting point for talks and get to know each other. But we need more time to really get into this matter in a profound way. Let's hope we can continue our efforts! Some of the participants announced they would like to organize a follow-up meeting to dicuss a specific case. So hopefully we see you all again!
