This post was triggered whilst reading ‘Designing for interaction‘ by Dan Saffer (of Adaptive Path). I’ll admit I haven’t quite got to the last page yet but I’m happy to recommend it already. Unlike some of the other more amorphous or academic texts on the subject this book is a useful, intelligent and digestible description of what we do all day. Saffer includes a section on Design Research (a topic along with ‘design thinking’ that is fast gaining attention in and out of the design world and something we specialise in at Digital Eskimo). Saffer outlines three design research methods: Observation, Interviews and Design Activities. What got me interested in particular was the use of the term Design Activities…

We have recently been engaged in an internal debate about the use of this term to describe some of our design services. What does it mean and more importantly will it mean anything to clients? When we use the term Design Activities we mean: engaging stakeholders in creative activities that generate and make available valuable design information to inform the design of the future products and services. Which, I think, is pretty much the context in which Saffer uses the term, but sometimes (more and more) we also mean also something different.

We also do Design Activities, or perhaps Design Interventions with our stakeholders as a value activity in themselves. They can inform the design of a product, but do not necessarily need to result in such to be of value. The Design Activity is a way of intervening, an act of provocation. We engage with stakeholders in a collaborative exercise making available new information, ideas and experiences. They might take the form of remote self-reporting projects using mobile diaries, or day long innovation workshops. Mobile diaries enable participants to record, share and reflect on their every day lives via moblogs. Innovation workshops are where we work collaboratively with clients and/or their stakeholders to expose their world view, to generate new possibilities, creative ideas and extra-ordinary connections.

In these examples we don’t necessarily go on to design a product, but we do design and facilitate the activity or intervention. Possibilities for change emerge from the experience, regardless of whether there is a tangible output. Through participating in a Design Intervention seeds are planted, even though they may be left to grow organically. With so many tools already in existence that can be combined and re-used this makes some sense. We don’t always need to build another, only to make visible new uses for existing systems or ways of leveraging existing touch points.

(with thanks to Emma Magenta for the image)