How we work

We employ ethnography and participatory design techniques to collaborate with users in the design process.

Selected methods

Ethnography and Participant Observation

Ethnographic user studies are central to our work. We study the aspirations, needs and problems emerging in the interaction with products and services. We also use design-research techniques to determine potentials for product innovation. During our ethnographic studies we change perspective and learn to share the view on products and services people take during their daily lifes.

Video for Design Research

Video is an excellent tool for design research because it creates and represents a social constellation. Video is made for story telling: It encourages people to show interactions rather then just talking about it. Viewing video clips allows stakeholders to build empathy with remote users and to co-create meaning on ambiguous pictures.

Ideation in Context

During our field research we use low-fi experience prototypes in order to test ideas on how to improve people’s interaction with products.

Material prototypes and staging scenarios help to trigger those ideas which are difficult to articulate.

Co-Creation Workshops

We facilitate co-creation workshops in order to guide design stakeholders to collectively generate ideas for the improvement of products and services. Insights from our user studies will be transformed into tangible workshop materials to allow workshop participants to learn about the users’ needs, wants and desires. We use props and low-fi prototypes in combination with storytelling in order to express resulting ideas on improved use scenarios.

Scenario‐Acting

Professional actors help us to recreate dilemmas which users experience when interacting with products and services. Users and design stakeholders guide the actors to act out everyday use situations as realistically as possible. In an open forum the participants negotiate with each other and try to give solutions to the problems on stage. They are asked to reframe the social relations and create props and actions accordingly.

Interested in working with us?

Let us discuss in what ways we can counsel you. We work out project proposals according to your company needs.