ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the design research methods pursued in order to frame the design problem and/or identify design opportunities. The limitations of human factors and traditional marketing research led the design profession towards ethnographic methods which can reveal a new dimension of the user. Throughout the 1980s, the employment of social scientists including psychologists, anthropologists, and behavioural scientists in design firms increased, embracing ethnography as a dominant design research methodology. The trajectory of the design research project starts with an emphasis on marketing in the first phase, moves to an emphasis on research in the second phase, and then finishes with an emphasis on design in the third phase. Using statistics in design research sounds quite paradoxical because, from the outset, statistics seem to contradict design's inherent freedom and creativity. Ethnographic methods are a cluster of such methods that elevate design research to a higher place.
