Research as a mindset

Research is not only a methodology or project phase, but an actual mindset. If integrated into our role as designers and applied to the whole project development, it can enable us to answer the challenges of our time. The research mindset amplifies our impact: from being problem solvers we become problem finders.

Traditional user research - the one type of research commonly mastered by designers - happens within the perimeter of the experience/product/service/business. The person is already seen as a user or a client. The experience is assessed in order to be optimised. The investigation is meant to solve product issues. In one word our sight might be affected by a sort of myopia: we do not look at the broader context in which that experience takes place, hence systemic areas of improvement can easily be missed and out of the box opportunities might not be seized.

From problem solving to problem finding.

Adopting a research mindset doesn't mean mastering all methodologies and tools of the research field. It simply invites us to change the way we spot and look at the areas of intervention. We can amplify our impact by intervening not only at the symptoms level, but deep down into the roots of the problems. Broadening the horizons and deepening the enquiry we can become active future shapers and curious problem finders.

When an intervention happens on the surface level it pauses the symptoms. This is a tactic approach. It doesn't systemically change the way we do things. It doesn't mean that this level of intervention is intrinsically wrong: if it's winter, I feel cold in a room and a window is open, the solution can be easily found in closing the open window. But it is not always that simple. If a village struggles to get water and I provide it for them, I do not solve their problem, I temporarily fix it. Helping them getting water by themselves (e.g. build a water well and install a water bump) goes to the deeper roots of the problem and provides a more farsighted solution. "Problem fixing" is the typical level of the [whatever colour] washing.

While we dive deeper into the core of the problem, we start to change the way we do things. As this is a more strategic approach, it might not address the causes of the dysfunction but it detects and addresses the dysfunction itself. In medical terms this approach moves the focus from the symptoms to the disease from which they originate. If I am stressed out, my body produces cortisol which can cause many physical dysfunctions, such as heart attacks. An heart attack can be addressed with surgery to open a blocked artery (fixing) and then prevented through more healthy lifestyles such as eating well, stop smoking, avoid alcohol and so on (solving). But if I do not address the causes of the cortisol production (why this event stresses me out?) I do not get to the roots of the problem (finding).

The deepest level of intervention challenges why we designed the solution in the first place. The approach is no more about doing things differently, but asking ourselves if what we do makes sense. If that experience/service/product/business that we have been asked to create or to optimise has a reason to exist. A solution might have been designed to solve a specific problem, but then the world has changed and together with it has the problem. We found ourselves perpetuating a certain way of doing things, keeping alive a solution which might not solve the problem anymore. Plastic has enabled almost every innovations of the last decades. It is in everything we consume. Everything. As it turned out in our blood too.

Design myopia

We can shape a better future if we look differently at the symptoms we are ask to solve. By adopting a research mindset we challenge the broader context in which the symptom occurs. A broader, farsighted look is required not only to solve problems but also to find them. As Daniel Christian Wahl pointed out during his inspiring talk at the Design for Planet festival "we as designers are object focused". This leads us to abstract the problem we are asked to solve, forcing abstract solutions to fit into real-life scenarios. That is how today's solutions easily become tomorrows problems. Only by seeing design as a learning engine and embracing a research mindset we can keep on challenging the very so called "solutions".

Solutions won't be the end of the design process, but means by which design can re-design itself.