A Designer's Research Manual: Succeed in Design by Knowing Your Clients and What They Really Need (Design Field Guide)

Especially with the qualitative learning, some of our research is generative, which is understanding the problems we need to solve; and some of our research is evaluative, which is assessing how well our solutions solve the problem.

Having collected ethnographic field notes or observations, you are beginning to recognize how people relate to, use, and assign meaning to products in their everyday lives. Innovation within a culture requires a deep understanding of cultural customs and the evolving symbolic value of products and services in a society.

Using ethnographic research in which researchers move in with consumers to observe their habits firsthand, they uncover need states