Knowledge vlog: design research (user analyses)
Why should I analyse users?
You need to understand what services or experiences the users of a place need to be able to
create, develop, or generate a solution
Designers: they analyse users (to understand what users feel, need, and value) while
already exploring the design opportunities
How do I analyse users?
Main approach: appreciative Inquiry (waarderend onderzoek)
• Strengths (what do people appreciate about a product,
service, or experience)
• Positive intervention process
Which methods will help me to analyse users (analytical)?
• Contextual observation (observing how people act in the wild)
• Card sitting (seeing information from user’s perspective)
• Think-aloud protocol (learning from listening to your user’s thoughts)
• Laddering (finding out what really matters)
Attributes Effects Values
Transcript ‘Why did you love ‘Why did you love ‘Why did you like to
this hotel?’ the high-end be served rather
service?’ quickly?’
I loved the high-end Because I was This allows me to do
service served rather whatever I want for
quickly the rest of the day
Code Service Efficiency Freedom
Personas (modelling users through storytelling)
Knowledge vlog: research approaches (research questions)
What is doing research (applied)?
Research is a systematic, rigorous and organized effort to investigate a specific problem
that needs a solution
Applied research (organizations) Basic research (academic universities)
• Applied • Conceptual
• Solutions to problem • General knowledge
• Organizational value • Societal value
Research question (concise, unambiguous, researchable, clear)
= the issue or problem that you want to explore, describe, explain, or evaluate
• Descriptive = to describe what
What type of restaurants can people find at Schiphol Airport?
• Exploratory = to explore what
What do Dutch people define as hospitality?
, • Explanatory = the explain why or to research the relation between one variable and
the other
Why does it take so long to go through customs at Schiphol Airport? What is the
relation between income and hotel preference?
• Evaluative = to evaluate the effect of a program or intervention
What is the effect of Covid-19 on Dutch hotels and the amount of travellers?
How will we answer our research question?
Quantitative (large amount of answers, Qualitative (opinions and values)
data, and numbers)
• Questionnaires and experiments • Interviews and observations
• Structured data • Unstructured data
• Statistical analyses • Summary
• Objective • Subjective
• Generalizable (patterns) • In depth
What is the effect of the renovation of BUAS What do students think of the new BUAS
on the satisfaction of guests? building?
The most important attribute of a research: reflectivity/reflexivity
= the process of observing your own research practice, thinking about and interpreting your
role in the research, and acknowledging the way you affect the process of the research
• To avoid bias (steering questions, only asking people you know to participate in your
research, social desirable answers)
Knowledge vlog: research approaches (research philosophy)
= a system of beliefs and assumptions about how we develop knowledge
Five major philosophies:
• Positivism
o People that believe that there is one true observable reality
o Observable and measurable facts
o Researchers are neutral and maintain objective distance
Example: medical research
• Critical realism
• Interpretivism
o Reality is complex and there are multiple interpretations of it
o Focus on personal perspectives, perceptions, and interpretations
o Researchers are part of the research and therefore research is subjective
• Postmodernism
• Pragmatism
o Reality in the practical consequence of ideas
o Concepts are only relevant when they support action and there are practical
outcomes instead of abstract distinctions
o Research is initiated and sustained by researcher’s beliefs
Example: within organisations
Which philosophy is generally associated with quantitative research (positivism) and which
one with qualitative research (interpretivism)?
