OUDG401// What is Research?

When it comes to research, the process is more important than the outcome. If we allow ourselves to focus too much on the end product we won't try anything new as practitioners or challenge ourself! A thought inspired by 'An Incomplete Manifesto' by Bruce Mau Design. 

"Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what no-body else has thought" - Albert Szent-Gyorgyi. Wether this be in forms of Qualitative or Quantitive, the 'research' element is what we take from the collected data at hand. 

Naturally, success within the creative industries stems from having 'genius' ideas, frequently and close together. This increases our chance for success and to be a desirable innovative designer. But the question is, how do we generate these ideas?

• Stimulated approach // This consists of watching and reading possible texts of interest/ doing and discussing thoughts you have from this or even going and experiencing places/ events to inspire possible primary sources of research.
• Systematic approach // This is much more linear in methods and is essentially experimenting through starting points and working through possibilities to resolve a thought/ idea.
• Innovative approach // For me this is the most common but is still influenced by 1 + 2. This approach is where ideas are generated from what we've already seen and experienced, so it comes straight to mind.
•  Only by curating the stimulated and systematic approaches do our 'back-catalogue' of information become vast enough we can derive references and ideas instantly.

The main thought I had from thinking about this, is without a life- you're not a designer. Without a life you have no inter contextual references to come to mind when you're on the spot for a moment of 'genius'.

... But what is research?

Types of research include:

• Primary Research// Collected first hand and for a specific purpose
• Secondary Research// Already collected for another purpose
• Quantitate Research// Measurable data and facts. Easily analysed and objective
• Qualitative Research// Opinions or feelings, harder to measure and subjective

However, the important thing when analysing any form of research is to make it specific to you. There is no need to research something parallel to your topic if it will not lead you to a more defined idea or route to take.

Information is essentially "adding knowledge to the person receiving it" (Fred Bates), but this does not have to be in a boring 'excel' kind of way. In the creative industries especially research can be presented as anything- a map, a story, a physical task. As long as the research is competently collected it can take any form.

Basic Methodologies//

(01) Assimilation > (02) General Study > (03) Development > (04) Communication

This basically means after accumulating the specific data (01), you need to investigate a range of possible solutions (02), leading to a development of more tentative solutions (03) when you will finally be able to convey the information/ ideas in the best way (04).

You always need to remember that even though research is cyclical and always going on in one sense or another, you need to know when to stop. Over research (for me at least) is the most confusing part of the design process, as when more than one amazing idea develops and you try and find middle ground- everything becomes foggy.

// In conclusion, start everywhere. It's the questions you ask yourself that lead to success within your research, thus leading to the creation of genius ideas.