- The object of human-centered design is to learn
from the people who will use your product or service,
and that research generates lots of data,
but data is worthless unless you get it to a point
that something can be done with it.
Synthesis is the act of making sense
of all the data you've gathered
then translating those insights into a framework
that will guide concept generation and design.
It's a process that enables us to maximize
the value of research and generate
meaningful human-centered solutions.
However, it is one of the hardest things to do well,
and it's an area that can feel like black magic
until you've done it a few times.
Synthesis begins with raw data:
lots of observations in the form of notes and quotes,
photos, field observations,
and even statistics and other types of data.
During the synthesis process,
that content is filtered into themes and insights
and finally distilled down to a few key opportunities
that will inform the design moving forward.
There are many ways of getting to insights
and opportunities, but let me share with you
how frog often approaches the process.
The team works together in the team room to organize
and analyze the data over several days or weeks.
We start by analyzing our notes
and creating key observations.
So it might be somebody with a medical condition who says,
"If I lose my kit, I have to get a new one right away."
It really speaks to the urgency that they feel.
So, as we go, as we're looking at our notes,
we might find other observations
that are similar to that one, and we group it as we go.
"I went from feeling like an 80 year old
"to feeling like an 18 year old."
Each of these Post-its is a single observation,
and we've coded each of the Post-it notes
with the user that made the observation
so that we can go back in our notes if we need to.
And as I look at these Post-its,
I'll go through, and I'll identify one or two
that might be really important.
Here, they're talking about the sense that
this medication feels like magic.
Once you've got a bunch of groups,
the next step is to label those groups,
so you might call this one Miracle Drug.
At this stage, I'm usually using yellow Post-it notes,
and it's because they're the most common out there,
and they're really high contrast, so they're easy to see.
So now at this point,
imagine you've got boards and boards of these groups.
You want to stand back from those boards
and start to compare the groups.
You might end up regrouping some of your Post-it notes,
and at this point you want to start labeling themes.
For themes, I will usually use a blue Post-it note.
Doesn't matter what color you use.
It really just needs to be consistent.
So let's imagine that I've got a nice theme here
around this idea of a miracle drug,
so I might label this as the theme miracle drug.
The next step is to get to insights.
So for insights, what you want to do is start
looking at those themes,
and you begin to group your themes.
For this project, we noted a theme around miracle drug,
but we also noted that this drug really was perceived
as creating a drastic change for people
and that they perceived it as critical to feeling well.
So we group these themes,
and now we're ready to start moving to an insight.
An insight is a summary of similar data points
in a concise statement which is based on both
the data but also your understanding of human behavior.
You are part of the synthesis.
All the previous work that you've done
is about setting you up to make clear connections
between the data and particularly making those
unexpected and unusual associations
which might be the spark for a radically new idea.
So getting to insights.
If we look at these themes,
we might be able to draw an insight here
that the drug is seen as a miracle drug
and people treat each does as special.
So, at this point, we have lots of these insights,
and the last and most important step
is getting to opportunities.
So these themes led us to this insight that users,
while they do have this anxiety
around taking the medication,
they feel this powerful positive association with each dose.
That insight lets us craft an opportunity area
around the packaging.
So our opportunity could be
that we want to design the packaging as a celebration.
As a celebration
of the drug and the process of taking it.
This is a good opportunity area
because it can be addressed in many concepts.
This idea of celebration could be applied to the packaging
and to the overall user experience in a wide range of ways.
So there are many approaches to research synthesis.
The best all help you avoid
what I think is the biggest research pitfall,
a big report that provides lots of data
but no clear direction on how to move forward.
I would much rather have one clear, compelling story
come from research that ties to a few rich opportunity areas
than a big research summary report that condenses
all the richness to lists of quotes
and weighted responses to specific questions
but leave us nothing to really work from.
In the course files, I've shared some articles
about common frameworks for communicating
your findings and insights,
which are commonly used to great effect
by organizations like frog.
These will help you get the story across
and continue to use the insights as a team
long after you're back from research
or the white board is taken down.