When designing products, services, and experiences to meet customer needs, it’s essential first to understand those needs. However, customers’ needs are constantly changing; this makes it difficult for designers and researchers to design products relevant to the target audience at any given time. The iterative design research (IDR) process is a proven solution for addressing this challenge through flexible and scalable research. The IDR approach entails a cycle containing the Observe-Analyze-Intervene phases. This article explains the benefits of using iterative design research in your product development processes and illustrates how you can incorporate it into your workflow today.
Design research can create new value for your business by optimizing the user experience, gaining customers’ insights, and increasing customer satisfaction. Design research can be used for all stages of the design process, from ideation to execution, and is an excellent way to start building a collaborative relationship between designers and customers. IDR is flexible and scalable. The design research cycle can be adapted depending on the project’s objectives, available time, and budget. Allowing designers to collect data at each stage of their process enables them to use their creativity and imagination to generate ideas and solutions while also being supported by concrete facts and figures. It’s also important to remember that design research methods can be used at any stage to inform the design team’s decisions.
The IDR process comprises four phases: Observe, Analyze, Intervene, and Reconnect. Each phase has defined goals that are then used to inform the next phase. This cyclic approach allows designers to collect data and insight throughout the design process continuously. The Observe and Analyze phases can be used at any stage of the design process, including during ideation, creation, and validation, while the Intervene and Reconnect phases can be used throughout the execution phase. The Observe phase is where designers observe the users in their context, such as where they work, learn about their behaviors, and collect contextual data. This phase provides context for all other phases of the design process and is used for generating ideas and understanding customer needs. The Analyze phase is where designers analyze the collected data, including quantitative data such as surveys and qualitative data such as user interviews. This phase provides insights into customers’ needs and the opportunities they present. The Intervene phase is when designers intervene in customers’ context and experiences. Designers can do this by testing ideas, prototypes, or mock-ups with customers or by running experiments. This phase provides insights into what works and what doesn’t and customers’ reactions to the tested solutions. The Reconnect phase is when designers are reconnected with their customers to synthesize the data and insights from all the other phases of the design research process. This phase provides designers with a holistic view of customers’ needs and opportunities and what was learned from all the data collected throughout the design research process.
Design research is a critical part of any design process. It’s one of the design process’s most important and insightful elements. Breaking out the IDR approach entails a cycle containing four phases:
The Observe Phase focuses on understanding customers in their context — where they work, live, and collaborate — to generate relevant ideas for their needs. During this phase, designers can observe customers in person or virtually, collect qualitative and quantitative data, and create user personas for a deeper understanding of customer groups. Observing customers in person is to understand their behaviors — how they interact with the world around them. This can be done through contextual inquiry, a great way to collect deep insights and ideas around customer problems. This phase can also collect quantitative data, such as information on customers’ demographics, attitudes, and current needs.
The Analyze Phase focuses on understanding customers’ current needs and the opportunities they present. During this phase, designers can break down qualitative data and create maps, snapshots, and personas to better understand their customers’ problems. They can also use tools to analyze quantitative data collected during the Observe phase. The goal of breaking down qualitative data is to understand what customers say in more detail. This can be useful for visualizing the stakeholders’ words, pain points, and motivations for a deeper understanding of problems and opportunities. Visual language tools, word clouds, and influence maps can be useful for this process.
The Intervene Phase focuses on testing ideas and solutions to customers’ problems. During this phase, designers can create mock-ups, prototypes, and tests to understand if their solutions are the best. They can also run experiments to understand customers’ reactions to ideas, solutions, and combinations of factors that affect their experience. The goal of creating mock-ups and prototypes is to test if an idea is the best solution to a problem or opportunity. This can be useful for testing design ideas and seeing how customers respond to different channels, communication styles, and product features.
The Reconnect Phase focuses on synthesizing all the data and insights from the other phases of the design research process. During this phase, designers can create findings and make recommendations based on the collected data. They can also create customer journey maps to understand customers’ needs and pain points in more detail and create personas to help them better understand their customers. Synthesizing data to provide a holistic view of the customers’ needs and the opportunities they present. This can be done through a design research report or a project presentation that includes the data and insights collected throughout the design research process.
Iterative Design Research in Marketing: Design research allows marketers to better understand their customers’ needs by collecting data from them and their contexts. This data can then be analyzed to understand customers’ behaviors, attitudes, motivations, and pain points. With this data, marketers can intervene and create new solutions to meet their customers’ needs better. Design research helps marketers understand the customers’ needs better so they can create personalized marketing campaigns that speak to each customer. The design research process can be applied at any point in the marketing lifecycle, from ideation to campaign execution, to help marketers better understand their customers’ needs. A marketing team running a campaign for a new product or service needs to know what the target audience’s needs are when those needs change, and how they can be best met. Design research helps marketers understand their customers better so they can provide personalized campaigns that meet their needs more effectively.
The benefits of iterative design research in marketing include better customer understanding and more laser-focused marketing activities, like personalized marketing campaigns. Design research allows marketers to understand better customers’ needs, attitudes, and behaviors beyond customer surveys. This helps marketers create campaigns that speak to each customer more individually, which leads to greater engagement, customer retention, and revenue. Design research also helps marketers build stronger relationships with customers by understanding their needs better. This can be done through one-on-one customer interviews, focus groups, and co-creation workshops. Design research also allows marketers to collect data from various customers rather than just one or two who represent an average customer.
Identify the Right Time and Place for Design Research in Your Workflow: For design research to positively impact marketing activities, marketers should find opportunities during their sales or pre-launch phase where they can get customer feedback on product ideas before spending time creating them. This helps ensure that products are built with customers’ needs in mind from the beginning rather than creating something and then trying to make changes based on customer feedback later. The goal is not just getting feedback after products are already built (i.e., post-launch) but making sure that customers’ needs are met from day one so that products are successful from day one as well. If marketers can do this consistently, they will be able to build better relationships with customers over time through more relevant messaging, which leads them down a path toward greater customer engagement, retention, and revenue over time as well (see diagram).Additionally, when it comes down to conducting the actual design research activities themselves (i.e., interviews or focus groups), there are certain times throughout the marketing lifecycle when these activities will yield more useful results than others:
Wrapping Up: Design research helps marketers understand their customers’ needs better so they can provide personalized marketing campaigns. Design research can be done throughout the marketing lifecycle, allowing marketers to go beyond customer surveys to understand their customers better. This includes better customer understanding and more laser-focused marketing activities, like personalized marketing campaigns, which lead to greater engagement, customer retention, and revenue.