Skills

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  Empathy
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  Creativity
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  Problem Solving
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  Active Listening
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  Storytelling
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  Analytical
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  Research
• 
  Presentation

What should I know?

Design researchers have many different backgrounds (sociology, psychology, industrial design, etc.). What they all have in common are soft skills such as observation, listening, empathy, synthesis and analysis. But to do research for design they also need to develop their creativity and storytelling capabilities.

Is this career suitable for me?

If you are ready to learn about various topics almost every day you can choose this career. It is a very demanding job as the projects you are handling may not be from your expertise.

Additional Notes

Within the design process, researchers initially gather insights from the context of the project (e.g. clients or users of online banking services and their needs). When these insights are analysed and prioritised, researchers can facilitate the ideation phase, in which initial solutions are proposed. With these ideas researchers conduct testing sessions to validate once again with users. Finally, researchers test final solutions and they can also help improve further iterations of the design (even when the product or service is already in the market).

In general, what a design researcher does is guarantee that the users voice is heard throughout the process of delivering or improving a product or a service.