A Design Thinking Framework for Market Researchers

Our last four Monthly Dose of Design articles have discussed every phase of the Design Thinking (DT) process and how it can be applied to market research. DT is an iterative four-step process that designers use to solve problems. Starting at the Discover phase where you unearth valuable insights, moving to the Deliver phase where you prototype and test solutions to your design brief.

The Design Council developed the DT process over 15 years ago. Its aim was to explain a designer’s process from start to finish. It’s now applied to many areas, from business design to product design. Clearly DT is good! But for market research it can be better. And central to this is having specific market research DT processes.

Market research’s own adapted DT framework should cover two main objectives:

1. Create a more detailed structure around the DT process, which is more understandable for market researchers and their clients
2. Highlight market research’s strengths and weaknesses to see how market researchers can use the DT process

We’ve been developing an adapted DT framework specifically designed for market research which modifies the typical DT Framework to achieve these objectives.

For a smoother application of the DT framework, we’ve split the process into three areas:

• Core market research strengths
• Secondary market research strengths
• Developing market research strengths

This framework maps out the strengths and weaknesses specifically for market researchers. This means you can anticipate which phases will require external help to complete. The Discover and Define phases – from which you emerge with a design challenge/problem to solve – are the same as the traditional DT process. However, the remaining phases are different:

Phase 3: Ideate

What is this?

This phase explores and creates as many possible ideas/solutions to the design challenge/problem as possible. These ideas should be proposed in quantity and can be built on to expand their depth.

Why do market researchers need this phase?

To increase insight’s potential to be used in innovation, the extra granularity in this phase shows that market researchers can be involved in the ideation process and think of big ideas, beyond the obvious solutions.

Phase 4: Selection

What is this?

At the “Selection” phase, ideas are prioritized and the ideas with the most potential to solve the design challenge/problem are selected. The aim is to spot potential winners, which can then be developed into a prototype.

Why do market researchers need this phase?

The original DT process doesn’t discuss “Selection” in great detail. However, given that this phase relies on being able to prioritize and make decisions based on (often) how to solve a business problem, it’d be pertinent to maximize market researchers’ skills in this area to get better design outcomes.

Phase 5: Prototype

What is this?

Having selected the best ideas, you enter the prototyping stage. Here, the best ideas are turned into prototypes – an initial outline of your solution to the problem. Prototypes can be anything from rough sketches and paper interfaces to 3D models and videos.

Why do market researchers need this phase?

This phase helps market researchers because after selecting an idea to prototype, it can be expanded again to include new variations and possibly be built out in different ways. This means market researchers can present multiple variants of prototypes to clients.

Phase 6: Test and validate

What is this?

Learnings from testing are used to further refine prototypes. Testing can be repeated until you’re satisfied that your prototype solves your design challenge/problem. The goal here is to test and validate your prototype, to ensure it can solve your design challenge/problem.

Why do market researchers need this phrase?

It’s this final phase where market researcher’s core strengths lie. This means market researchers can be confident they’re testing a prototype in a familiar way. Furthermore, DT’s speed will mean researchers will need to become more agile in how they approach testing and validation.

Header Image: Dayne Topkin, Unsplash