METHODOLOGY
To conduct this research, a range of methods were used from ethnographic research to action research. More specifically, during the industry intervention portion of the process, the aim was to use design as a research tool to create value for a company. Justification for using design as a form of research can found in the paper Exploring Design as a Research Activity where the authors say, “Design is a knowledge generating activity and design activities as part of a research process yield a potentially valuable resource for science (Peters et al., 2007).” A conceptual framework was also designed for the research. This framework guided the structure throughout the process in pursuit of an answer to the question:
How might experience designers help existing businesses react to emerging technologies?
Overall Structure
To illustrate the overall structure of this Industry Research Project process 2 diagrams were created. The first shows how the 3 spheres of research present in the research question relate to each other and also how the research moved through the gathering of knowledge in those areas. The second diagram maps this to the double-diamond model of design process. These diagrams were intended to provide a loose framework that still allowed for the flexibility to move back and forth between various phases. Overall however, as the diagrams show, the research methods that were employed in the Discovery and Definition phases are largely secondary and ethnographic in nature, whereas the Development and Delivery portions of this double-diamond model house an industry intervention which utilized an Action Research methodology that included a number of human-centered design research activities as well another instance of the double-diamond model.
Literature Review
An extensive literature review was used to support the the Action Research carried out during the industry intervention. The specific subjects of the literature review cover the concepts of emerging technology, disruptive innovation, intrapreneurship, research and development models, human-centered design, experience design, design thinking, and business-to-business user experience among others.
Double-Diamond
A common human-centered design framework is the double diamond. It is a framework that was employed in various capacities throughout this research including on a macro-level and on a more granular level. The double diamond alternates between stages of openness and closure with the stages being discovery, definition, development, and delivery (Steen, 2012).
Ethnographic Research
Interviews
A range of semi-structured interviews were conducted with not only company employees and leadership, but also with a number of industry experts. Semi-structured interviews provide a happy medium between focus and flexibility and interviews in general are used widely in the field of design as they allow researchers to draw out deeply contextual and valuable information (Doody and Noonan, 2013). Most of the interviews were conducted via Skype with the audio recorded for transcription purposes.
The learning derived from the interviews will be intersperesed throughout the research as they informed my thinking at different points of the process. This is counter to more traditional methods of discussing all industry interviews in a single section, however, because of the range of viewpoints, the different contexts, and nature of this project, I believe the contributions of the interviewees will be better served by bringing them in where and when they are relevant.
Interview Participants:
Justin Hanneman - Developer at Factom, Inc. (Austin, TX)
Eva Schon - User Experience Designer at Consensys (Brooklyn, NY)
John Crain - User Experience Designer at BlockApps (Brooklyn, NY)
Joe Lubin - Founder of Consensys (Brooklyn, NY)
Carolyn Reckhow - Communications Director (Brooklyn, NY)
Michell Zappa - Founder of envsioning.io (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
Scott Akers - Founder or Makers Consulting (Houston, Tx)
Michael Sonnenshein - Genesis Trading (New York City, NY)
Krzysztof Kwiecinski - Visa Europe (London, UK)
Harjot Saluja - CEO of Datami (Boston, MA)
Jagan Shantigram - CTO of Datami (Bangalore, India)
Minyan Shi - Developer at Datami (Boston, MA)
Robin Balyan - Developer at Datami (Boston, MA)
Mahender Korandla - Developer at Datami (Boston, MA)
Immersion Experience
Given that the aims of the research were to create something of value and to explore how experience designers could be effective in helping companies respond to emerging technology, a research method referred to as “immersion experience” was used. This method involves imbedding oneself in the context for which the researcher is designing. In the case of this research, I embedded myself in Datami, the advertising technology startup who was both the subject of the industry intervention and also comprised the users for whom value was being created. Therefore, in addition to carrying out Action Research with the company, I worked as a UX/UI/Communications Designer full-time which allowed for the absorption of an immense amount of knowledge about the way the company, and the advertising technology industry as whole worked. A designer need look no further than IDEO for validation on the efficacy of immersion experiences as a design research tool. IDEO praises the technique by saying, “There’s no better way to understand the people you’re designing for than by immersing yourself in their lives and communities (DesignKit.org, 2015).” Additionally, another immersion experience was carried out by participating in a month-long rapid prototyping course for Blockchain ideas that was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Action Research
The industry intervention was conducted as a form of Action Research. Action Research is particularly well suited to studying the effects of technologies and this methodology also has the benefit of not only improving the subject (the research “client”) but also creating knowledge for the field of study (Kock, 2015). In a later section of this project, a more detailed description of the structure of the industry intervention and subsequent action research will be presented.
Audience
Existing Business Leadership: The hope is to make a case to the decision makers of existing business that 1. They have more of reason now, than any other time in history to remain vigilant about the emergence of new technologies and 2. They should employ experience designers or at the very least, a design thinking mindset in their efforts to stay abreast of emerging technologies.
Design Professionals working with emerging technologies: For these designers, both those working with emerging technologies or ones that would like to, the goal is to provide learnings, findings, tools, and best practices for helping a company approach a new technology.