Design Thinking and Qualitative Market Research: The Power of Collaboration for Innovative Solutions

Design Thinking, supported by Qualitative Market Research, can produce innovative solutions to complex problems. To successfully create an innovation, three areas need to overlap: feasibility, desirability, and business viability. While feasibility is determined by designers and engineers and viability is a management criterion, desirability needs to be checked with future users.

Qualitative Research seeks to understand consumer behavior and attitudes through methods such as observation, diaries, ethnographic interviews, interviews with relatives or care takers, brainstorming, and testing. Qual research is so much more than focus groups or interviews. Qualitative Researchers ask questions such as "what," "why," "who," "how," and "tell me more" to gain insights into consumer needs and preferences, identify trends, and inform product development.

Design Thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation and problem-solving that focuses on empathy, creativity, and experimentation. Based on the model of the IDEO Stanford Design School, there are five stages of Design Thinking: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. Often, the input from consumers/patients/users is used in the first stage (empathize) and then again in the last phase of testing products and messages. However, Qualitative Research can provide much more.

Design Thinking and Qualitative Market Research can complement each other throughout all phases of the creative process. Designers can gain a better understanding of their target audience, build empathy, think about specific users' needs and insights, and define the problem to be solved.

Brainstorming with fresh eyes can produce many creative solutions without even considering feasibility. Research participants can create prototypes to show what they mean and what the important features are. Qualitative Researchers can provide in-depth insights into the user's needs and preferences, focusing on the user's perspective and identifying unmet needs. Observation and depth interviewing support the development of personas that help better understand customer segments and have designers walk in their shoes. Immersion of the team with moderators and consumers/users supports better empathy and provides valuable information to understand the steps of the journey, emotions, pain points, and needs. This information can improve and detail journey mapping and support further brainstorming to refine design concepts based on user feedback. Later in the process, Qualitative Market Research provides valuable information via testing prototypes with very specific targets based on personas.

A team of collaborating Design Thinkers and Qualitative Researchers can achieve more in a workshop where research findings will be synthesized into actionable insights and recommendations. Prototypes from users/consumers will be refined by the design team. Personas and unmet needs, as well as stories from users/consumers, will support the communication for the new product. This collaboration can result in increased innovation, higher user/consumer satisfaction, a more holistic understanding of the user, and, ultimately, cost savings.

In conclusion, Design Thinking and Qualitative Market Research can produce innovative solutions to complex problems with the support of Qualitative Market Research.

About the Author

Ilka Kuhagen is CEO of IKM GmbH based in Munich, Germany and co-founder of Think Global Qualitative.  Ilka Kuhagen is a qualitative research consultant for 25+ years, focusing on innovation research and global multilingual research.

Ilka Kuhagen | LinkedIn
Ilka.kuhagen@ikmarketing.de