Who Is A Design Researcher: How Do They Work And What Is It For?

Design research is a broad concept in user interface design that describes the processes required to thoroughly understand the wishes, needs, and concerns of end users, which are sometimes hidden from themselves and are not obvious. Below we will talk about how digital product designer works in the context of design research.

What Is The Difference Between Market Research And Design Research?

Unlike standard market research approaches, a research product design service focuses not on confirming or refuting any hypotheses, but on an open dialogue with the target audience. The purpose of this dialogue is to better understand the end user and to study their needs and pain points without using any established patterns of consumer behavior. In fact, the design researcher acts as a newborn who is just beginning to learn how the world works and looks and is ready to perceive any information coming from outside.

Thus, design research is the observation of what people feel, want, say, and do to further use the information received for the benefit of the created solution.

How Design Research Can Affect The Project?

Since design researchers, unlike other team members in a product design agency, do not take part in the implementation of the early stages of the project, which involve testing assumptions or hypotheses, they have the opportunity to work with the finished material.

As for the research process itself, its goal is not to get data that proves that something is true with your website product design and something is not, but to get a clear idea for the rest of the team about who the target is. the audience of the product they work on.

At the same time, the main thing in product designing is not to follow any preconceived patterns, but on the contrary, to be open to the most non-standard thoughts that can be described by representatives of the target audience.

Thus, product and services design researchers analyze consumer behavior and form data-driven insights that take into account the needs of the audience. Then, together with other members of the project team, they turn these insights into conclusions that can be used to the benefit of consumers.

The result of this approach to the process of working on a project is a user-centric solution that fully takes into account both the direct and hidden desires and preferences of the target audience.

What Are The Responsibilities Of A Design Researcher?

The main responsibilities of a service and product design researcher are as follows:

• managing the research process;
• defining user personas and identifying the type of their behavior;
• leading the user through the process of defining, designing, and implementing UX improvements;
• interacting with the marketing department and the development team, which is necessary to clarify the main directions of the research;
• determining how the results of the research can influence design, product concept, content strategy, engineering, and marketing;
• participation in the selection of respondents for the study;
• planning and implementation of the overall strategy and methods of user research.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, a design researcher is an indispensable member of teams working on startups and other innovative products. If you are looking for specialists who are well-versed in product design, please, contact us.

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