The things we acquire and consume express how we feel. The things we create reveal how we think. These two truths are central to the most significant challenges facing today’s designer. It is not enough to create better, more sustainable products – we need to change attitudes and behaviors. By understanding how people value the things they acquire or consume, designers can create informed innovations that change the underlying patterns of consumption and the ways that people frame needs and desires.

This design challenge is explored in the Graduate Program in Design in our Design Research practicum. In this first-semester introduction to design research and design thinking, we are examining how and why people simplify their material possessions, how people define “enough”, and how non-material exchange gains value in a material world. We are using human-centered research methods to uncover patterns in behavior that can inform design. Our qualitative ethnographic research takes us to garage sales and flea markets, into the homes of friends and family, and into the homes of people we’ve recruited to understand more diverse behaviors and lifestyles. We conduct observations, interviews and photo audits. We design and deploy cultural probes that evoke emotions and complex thought processes, then analyze how people respond. We develop insights through data representation, analysis, reflection and synthesis. From our insights, we form questions and brainstorm potential solution spaces to develop that meet the original design aspiration.

Helping the world simplify by realizing “enough-ness”, and understanding why buying things brings us pleasure is possibly the most enormous and ill-defined design brief given to any designer. Fortunately, the welfare of our planet is a collective design challenge. The collaborative, cross-disciplinary strategy of the Graduate Program in Design is the perfect model of the kind of thinking that will make this massive change attainable.

Written for the California College of the Arts Grad{e} zine, vol. 1, issue 1.

It occurred to her that artists and scientists analyze the world in surprisingly similar ways…they are both collectors. Her advice is strikingly rudimentary, which she mimics in her handwritten style. But the imperfect sentences are packed with a punch. The messages are powerful reminders of how to approach observations in the design research process.

This week in class we discussed what it means to “have a beginners mind” and the difference between observing and interpreting. The important distinction is in situating yourself as a learner and not an educator.

My top take away from this new obsession of mine is the appreciation that everything is interesting, you just have to look closer. And that’s exactly what I plan to do, with a Moleskine tucked under my arm, a pen in pocket, and camera in hand.

These are the questions that we will be digging into for the remainder of the course. The following excerpt from the syllabus is the innovation aspiration for the outcome of the design process in the following twelve weeks.

“Our goal is to observe people and investigate what they want to do with what might now be less. What are people’s priorities and goals? How do people make tradeoffs? How do they know they need to? We are going to collect stories to share and we will develop opportunities for design services, products, tools that might help people develop, reset or meet their goals, perhaps discover their own sense of enough and “rightsize” their lives.”

Well, I thought I knew fast. Then came my first real design blitz. A blitz is about doing the whole design process in one week. Interviews and in context observations were to be completed and synthesized over the weekend. Once back in the classroom, we would have three hours to capture our insights, identify needs, develop “how might we” questions, brainstorm solution spaces around those and finally prototype and role play a final concept. To save you the trouble of re-reading all of that, yes, we were given [less than] three hours to create a solution from our collected insights.

Relevant to the topic of the course, Possession/s, the theme for the blitz was peer-to-peer commerce and community. We hit the streets interviewing shoppers and sellers at garage sales, flea markets, and thrift stores. We collected a range of information from these participants and discovered many interesting behaviors that we wouldn’t have if we hadn’t have been there first hand, in the action.

So what did I learn? Everyone is a little crazy. This is a reoccurring observation that I learned while at IDEO. It’s not meant to be a bad thing, but it is certainly true. Quirky behaviors are packed with insights waiting to be discovered. They become the best stories to share in the downloading process and often lead to the most successful innovations. Perhaps the more accurate, IDEO way to describe this is trait is the “extreme user” in all of us. In design research, these are the people of the highest interest.

Our Findings
We observed a general lack of organization and ambiguous interactions between buyers and sellers. Prices were often unclear, and the presentation seemed haphazard. We saw an opportunity to improve organization and presentation of goods, in order to increase credibility of the seller and appeal of the goods.

Our Solution
A product that combines an instant cash register/bar code system with a professional-looking price gun, the Sale-O-Max 3000®, if you will.

The uniformity and clarity of the price tags make the sale seem more credible and professional. The portability of the device lets the seller monitor and participate in the sale without interruption. The gun also keeps a tally of sales, providing convenient accounting and organization. And of course, the Sale-O-Max 3000® accepts all major credit cards.

If you can’t tell, we had a lot of fun with this process. Abnormal time constraints aside, the blitz process is a valuable exercise for understanding the design research process. After this crash-course of the IDEO process, I have an even better understanding of how to effectively probe information in observations as we begin to dig deeper into the course.

We will use the analysis and synthesis of the findings from our secondary and human-centered research to stimulate design ideas, mock-ups, and prototypes that will address needs and opportunities in the domain of material possessions, with which we will return to the field for feedback. Our work is informed by concerns of sustainability while honoring the values, connections and economic realities of our diverse subject populations and their communities.

No chairs was the first clue that this was going to be an uncomfortable process.

Design Research, “an introduction to the theory and practice of various types of design research including human-centered qualitative and ethnographic methods as well as formal and analytical techniques.” In short, this course covers IDEO’s process in the 15 weeks it takes to complete a semester. The goal, “to provide the research-based skills and resources to strengthen strategic design practice.”

So I’ll just take what I learned from my internship at IDEO this summer and apply it to my coursework. Simple, right? My uncertainties after day one lead me to think that I may have a more difficult time than I would expect.

I miss IDEO.