Webmaker/Design Research

MoFo Design Research Lab

Summary

Design research refers to an array of methods, from user testing to codesign, which are applied to provide essential data on user experiences throughout the life of a product, prototype or community development process. Designers and developers are increasingly employing these techniques in product development to better serve user needs. At the Mozilla Foundation, many of our products have matured to the point that we can now apply core design research approaches in order to better inform each product's development process from conception to final launch.

The Mozilla Foundation staff leading the progress of this initiative are Karen Smith, Kat Braybrooke, Emily Goligoski and Chloe Varelidi, with collaboration from User Research and Insights teams at the Mozilla Corporation and various in-house designers who have kindly offered their designs, recommendations and guidance.

Our Design Methods

Here are a few diagrams which explain the traditional methods used by design researchers. Past efforts have looked a lot like the first example (ie chaos!), but we intend to culminate findings from our activities into one coherent and organized offering in 2014, and are holding weekly meetings to achieve this.

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  All Processes

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  Iterative Process

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  Cumulative Process

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  Convergent Process

Design Research Lab Method #1: User Testing

User testing is a term that typically describes a research process to understand how users interact with a design. To conduct user testing, you need to have a prototype or design to test with users.

User testing characteristics

• Places a prototype (paper or digital) or product in front of a user
• Features distinct roles for participants, researchers, and facilitators
• Assumptive: Is testing if an existing design works
• Researcher analyzes the data from the participants and generates the results
• Involves users completing tasks through the use of a prototype or product

User testing methods

• Usability tests
• Surveys

Sample user testing methods at MoFo

• Appmaker Technovation on-site testing (Emily Goglioski)
• Hive Labs platform usability survey (Kat Braybrooke)

Design Research Lab Method #2: Co/Participatory Design

Codesign is a term that describes collaborative approaches to product research where the boundaries between users, designers and researchers are intentionally blurred. The term codesign overlaps with that of participatory design, where many early projects occurred in Scandinavia in the early 1980s as new technologies were being introduced to workplaces and trade unions, workers and designers collaborated to ensure workers were not negatively impacted by the introduction of new technologies.

Codesign characteristics

• Method can be used to generate new kinds of designs, or new directions for existing designs, led by community;
• Deliberately blurs boundaries between participants, designers and researchers;
• Non-assumptive: the community participates in defining and approaching design challenges;
• Participants, designers and researchers design and build knowledge together;
• Aligns with Mozilla manifesto [1] and broader goals of empowerment and social inclusion;
• Projects may range from being more "practical" (oriented towards practicality?) with the purpose of building products or content, or "conceptual" to build our skills and knowledge about codesigning with the community.

Codesign methods

• In-depth data gathering about participant experiences at an event or during an interaction, notifying participants so they are partners in this work;
• Immersive and participatory workshops, including creative activities and making materials;
• Tools may include sticky notes for jotting down ideas, whiteboards for sketching, idea-inducing exercises like charettes. Outputs range from paper prototypes to full-scale reports;

Sample codesign projects at MoFo

• Co-Designing Open Badges for Privacy Education with Canadian Youth (upcoming 2014 - 2015, Karen Smith)
• Codesigned personae development, Open Badges (Emily Goglioski)
• Blog post: Codesign at Webmaker (Kat Braybrooke)
• Let's teach the web offline and Lo-Fi No-Fi Kit codesign (Kat Braybrooke)
• Telefonica codesign workshop (Kat Braybrooke)

Weekly Research Meetings

The Design Research Lab meets every Thursday at noon PST. All interested participants are welcome to attend and go through findings and methods with us. Meeting notes can be found on [2](the User Research Roar Etherpad).