User Research Matters.

Although many case studies have been conducted to understand the effects that user research can have on the design process and its outcomes. One particular study was done that focused on 8 products and 104 users. The study was done in Turkey, which has been on the slower side of the industrial design industry, often following the footsteps of western design. Few Turkish companies actually utilize the collaboration of design and design research, despite the proven concept that designing based on user research has been proven to be important and effective overall. It was found that most Turkish designers believed that their own experience with a product was a stand in for user research, and they often had one model user in their heads they referred back to when designing. However this falls short as designers need to utilize many different methods when designing for users, especially those that fall out of a designers personal experience. Oftentimes when a diverse user experience is ignored, the designer user relationship becomes one of passivity, where the user is purely a receiver and any input is initially, greatly missed. Ultimately the study revealed the mindsets of designers and their lack of understanding toward a diverse user experience as well as value of user input. Mainly the study proved that products should combine the design process with user research as it greatly improved user satisfaction and experience.

Oygur, Isil, and Nancy Blossom. “Design and the User Experience: The Turkish Context.” Design Issues, vol. 26, no. 4, 2010, pp. 72–84. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40983105. Accessed 15 Sept. 2020.

John Cain, “Experience-based Design: Toward a Science of Artful Business Innovation.” Design Management Journal 9. no. 4 (1998): 10-16

Christina Wasson, “Ethnography in the Field of Design,” Human Organization 59, no. 4 (2000): 377-388

Deana McDonagh-Philip and Cherie Lebbon, “The Emotional Domain in Product Design,” The Design Journal 3, no. 1 (2000): 35.

Donald Norman. Design of Everyday Things {New York: Basic Books, 2002, c.1988), 9.

Cal Swann, “Action Research and the Practice of Design,” Design Issues 18:1 (Winter 2002): 49-61.