Love your RESEARCH

Rome wasn't built in a day and the same applies to your final concept. There are building blocks to the idea or ideas, RESEARCH is the first building block to this.

Week 5 we joined our allocated groups: Our members include Kira, Jordan, George, Alex, Jessica, Mark, James and myself. We started with a roll of the dice to determine what our 3 variables will be (I liked this way in fact I'd use a dice the next time I come across a broad selection of choices).

Then we started out with the 'Six Thinking Men' approach to begin and break down the beginning stages of the research process: What - Where - When - How - Why - Who

"I Keep six honest serving-men:

(They taught me all I knew)

Their names are What and Where and When

and How and Why and Who."


Client: SMALL COMPANY
Message: EDUCATE YOURSELF
Target Audience: STYLE CONSCIOUS 20-30 YEAR OLDS

The purpose is to ask as many questions under each Man's name and to ask the same question from each of the words in their own way without attempting to answer any of them at this stage - block that curiosity out and leave the question mark where it is for now. 

After fish and chips on Fridays we worked in two's on one of the variables selected per couple, myself and Kira worked on 'Educate Yourself' categorising the research into PRIMARY, SECONDARY, QUALITATIVE and QUANTITIVE. Now this was difficult differentiating into which heading our research would lie... This is very important to understand.

So I'm going to break this down: 

PRIMARY Research - Research which involves the collection of data that does not already exist, as a result of specially planned research (e.g own photography, interviews, notes, earliest and personal observation, ect)

SECONDARY Research - This is research which involves the summary, collation and /or synthesis of existing research. Alternatively known as 'second hand' research (e.g library, published articles, developed from something else,) - this one is probably not so important but good to be used. 

QUALITATIVE Research - A research approach that measures subjective data such as words, images and opinions. Exploring issues, understanding anything observed and answering questions. Qualitative research is used to gain insight into peoples attitudes, behaviours, value systems, concerns, motivations, culture or lifestyles.

QUANTITIVE Research - A research approach that measures objective data such as variable, quantities,  and measurements, and analyses the relationships between information sets. These are often casually referred to as 'hard facts and figures'. ''Quantitative research is about asking people for their opinions in a structured way so that you can produce hard facts and statistics to guide you''.


Thurs 4th Nov 2010
My tutorial on Tuesday was like a little white cloud of peace and harmony :) 
I asked David how to get started on my research and he suggested I start with using Survey Monkey and create my own survey. 
So I've done just this: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6QSRFG2 - please feel free to take part in my survey, I'm only interested in personal answers - no need for clever responses because in the end it's all the same:) and feel free to suggest on my blog anything about the way I have questioned my questions... Thank you.


Fri 5th Nov 2010

...from dusk till dawn I sat in my p.j's reading and writing down the best bits of 'A Designer's Research Manual' by Jenn & Ken Visocky O'Grady - what an extremely interesting book, I'm considering buy myself a copy because it's super easy to follow and this Book has given me a greater insight into what we learnt above. I've taken alot of notes, what I've read so far and how I use it... well you will see!