Ideas + Criteria Matrix Iterations and Research Audit

To help us evaluate our ideas, we were tasked with making a list of user needs (what we as designers think the user needs), and our personal needs (our interests and ambitions as a designer and thesis student). This list was created a few weeks ago (January 28), but I’m posting it now for comparison with Ideas + Criteria Matrix iterations to follow, which asked us to apply these criteria to our most promising thesis ideas.

Here’s my Decision Making Criteria list:

The goal of the next assignment, the Idea + Criteria Matrix, was to help evaluate our ideas, make decisions and commit to one direction. We used the criteria we developed in the decision making exercise to assess our most recent prototype iterations and ideas.

Here’s the first iteration of my Ideas + Criteria Matrix:

As I was doing this, I struggled to articulate my user’s needs. I think the needs I do articulate above, while important, are too high-level. I also found this challenging because at the time of this assignment, I was really having a hard time nailing down what exactly my product was going to be, i.e. is it an app? Is it a website? What shape will it take? So that meant I was trying to evaluate ideas against my criteria that were more experiments than concrete product concepts.

In addition to this matrix, we were tasked with writing verst drafts of value propositions for our product. I struggled again given that I didn’t know what my thing was going to be. In retrospect, I see that forcing us to make a choice, to go in one direction, was probably the point of the assignment, and Graham said as much in class when I presented my work.

So this week I took a few steps back. I was feeling a little bit unsure about whether or not I’d done enough research, and whether it was showing me that I was on to something with my concepts or completely off base. I did a research audit of my work so far. I revisited Just Enough Research by Erika Hall, and used the research phases she describes (Generative or Exploratory, Descriptive or Explanatory, Evaluative, and Causal) to list and organize all of the activities and artifacts I had completed to date. This exercise also helped me determine what I needed to next.

Here’s what my research audit looks like:

I also revisited my user research findings from the fall and collected them all in a spreadsheet (good idea, Andy!). It was helpful to look again at my findings with fresh eyes.

Here’s what my Master Research Insights sheet looks like:

I discovered some insights that I hadn’t before, especially regarding user needs, which helped me iterate on the Ideas + Criteria Matrix.

Here’s the second iteration of my Ideas + Criteria Matrix: