This week I put down some concrete ideas around my research questions.
That involved coming up with:
- a Rationale – Why would it be useful to know the answer to these questions? What’s the point?
- Outcomes – What concrete deliverable would result from researching this question?
- Links to the Design in Action agenda
- Research methods
I found this process really useful in solidifying the research questions, and turning them from fluffy theoretical ideas into something I can really see as a robust research project. I know that I struggle to put work into anything for which I can’t see a concrete benefit, so I found it really worthwhile working out what the Outcomes would be, and how they would benefit customers, designers, small business owners, entrepreneurs and myself.
Designing an Example Research Case Study
A further useful exercise, for me, was to come up with an example research case study. My project will probably revolve primarily around case studies, following companies as they go through the Chiasma experience, and then tracking the results of that process, with a particular focus on product and service marketing. Writing out a theoretical company’s path through this process and my interventions along the way was a great method for further exploring the research question, and it’s validity.
This mainly resulted from a tip from my supervisor around sketching out how a research question could be solved. His thoughts were that it was easy to discover how valid or how plausible a research question was by running a small thought experiment around how it would be carried out. I added to it by creating a theoretical company which I was following along the Chiasma path, and that felt like it added a further layer of authenticity to the process.
Exploring Research Methods
I have to admit, the whole process above proved really useful, and it took me down a number of paths which helped to expand my research knowledge, particularly on research methods. I actually discovered some entirely new methodologies, techniques that I’d never come across before, and I discovered that the lines between Qualitative and Quantitative seems to be becoming increasingly blurred. But, that’s a topic for a post all of it’s own.
Links to the Design in Action Agenda
The last task was to link everything to the Design in Action agenda. This is obviously an important step, but since the research questions have been inspired by the Chiasma process, and design in general, it wasn’t too difficult. I found two really concrete links with items on the DiA agenda, as follows:
- DiA aims to Develop hard and soft metrics for the creative economy.
In the context of this question, that means producing research based guidelines on designing creative marketing campaigns, and developing metrics for evaluating such campaigns. - DiA aims to Engage with design to mobilise entrepreneurial capacity.
Marketing is a key factor in engaging entrepreneurial capacity and the design process can be used to inform the creation of such campaigns, and enable the evaluation of campaign results.
Let me know what you think of this process. Do you have other ways of validating and expanding research questions?
Drop a comment below!
colinmcgray
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