I pulled this brief overview together for a client unfamiliar with design research and user-centered design principles.

1. A Brief Overview of
Design Research

2. What is Design Research?
• Design research is the
set of practices that are
used to find out a
user’s needs and
preferences for a
product

3. Why Conduct It?
• Keeps the consumer at
the forefront
• Catches errors early
• Saves money over time

4. Competitive Analysis
• Who else is out there?
• What are our
competitors doing?
• What works? What
doesn’t?
• What can we do to
improve on their
designs?

5. Personas
• Who are our users?
• How do they interact
with technology?
• What need do our
users have that we can
fill?

6. Card Sort
• How would our users
organize our content?
• What are their
perceptions about its
usefulness?