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The most neglected part of the design process
Why synthesis is essential to creating great products
Designers love to talk about their process. From brainstorming wacky ideas to prototyping potential solutions, there is a lot to love.
But one of the most critical parts of the design process that is seldom talked about at conferences and meetups is synthesizing user research. That is why I jumped at the opportunity to give a talk about conducting proper synthesis at the Service Design Jam conference in San Francisco.
In this post I’ll be dropping some knowledge I have acquired from my past instructors at California College of the Arts and my professional career working as a Product Designer at companies large and small.
What is synthesis?
For those who are new to the design industry, synthesis takes place right after you have a clear problem you have been tasked with solving and you have conducted interviews with key stakeholders and customers.
It is important to note that the problem you are solving for might change as a result of synthesis and that’s ok! Another thing to keep in mind is that synthesis and brainstorming solutions should always be separate parts of your process.
There are four steps I take to synthesize my research:
- Document interviews
- Affinity cluster
- Generate insight statements
- Form how might we questions
Why synthesis matters
Unfortunately research and synthesis are undervalued in organizations. Often times, there is a tight timeline or small budget for a project, and this puts pressure on designers to rush through this part of their process in order to “deliver” something.
It doesn’t matter how much research you do if the people who have acquired the most knowledge write a report and move on. — Erika Hall
We must be constantly asserting the value of research and synthesis for one key reason: if we make something no one will use, then the entire project’s budget will have…
