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The insight translation researchprocess uses discovery, analysis andsynthesis to turn data into insight. Whileuseful, this insight alone doesn’t help ussee the future. Insight translation spansthe gap between research anddesign—using creative expression todemonstrate how research findingscan impact future design efforts.

Problem Seeking and Problem SolvingWhile insight translators are designers, they do not providedesign solutions. Rather, they use creative skills and designknowledge to illustrate the problem to be solved. By align-ing on the right problem, teams can communicate moreeffectively and innovate more freely. Teams can also usethe translation framework to evaluate how well conceptsdeliver on the desired customer experience. Thisapproach improves time to market and results in better cus-tomer experiences.

Seeing the Future Through Insight Translation

TURNING DATA INTO INSIGHT

By Chris Rockwell, IDSA and Spencer Murrell, IDSAChris@lextant.com n smurrell@lextant.com

Chris Rockwell founded Lextant in 2000. He has spent his career putting user experienceat the center of innovation. n Spencer Murrell is the VP of insight translation at Lextant.

Prior to Lextant he spent three decades in product development consulting roles.

Design research has grown as a discipline over the years—integrating the fields of design, psy-

chology, anthropology, human factors, market research and consumer behavior along the way—

in order to understand human experiences and desires. The goal of design research has always

been to inform and inspire design thinking and decision making. Unfortunately, engineers, marketers and some-

times even designers can have a difficult time knowing how to act on research findings. Design research should

help us understand how desires, features and benefits can be triggered through design. It should clearly define

both the design problem or opportunity and how to focus creativity into effective design outcomes.

Left: Multisensory stimuli provide measurable data.Below: Stimuli can be translated into designattributes.

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Describing the future experience and how it can beachieved through design can take many forms. Translationcan be as simple as a well-crafted problem statement or asinvolved as an ideal product model that describes, in detail,the key attributes that deliver a desired experience. But, ineach case, it must adhere to four key principles to ensureits quality and effectiveness—insight translation must bemeaningful, aspirational, actionable and inspirational.

Meaningful. To deliver a true translation of researchinsights, there must be a clear connection to the data.Multisensory participatory techniques, because of the richstimulus set, allow a more direct translation of consumermeaning to product form. Not only do these multisensorytechniques enable consumers to express themselves effi-ciently about design issues, they also give the translationteam visual examples of design attributes. The images onpage 29 show how a multisensory stimulus set can providemeasurable data that translates directly to design attributes.

Aspirational. Each translation effort should tell a storyof the future. This is, in essence, the customers’ ideal expe-rience and the qualities of the designed systems that deliverit. These can be crafted as narratives, storyboards and illus-trations that include a future product. In each case the prod-uct, interaction or technology is expressed in terms of itsbenefits and how it enhances the future experience of theuser. The example above illustrates a future concept for acommunication tool that seamlessly integrates smart phoneand laptop functionalities into a single product. The productillustration and storyboard treat the product as generic butmanage to translate the customers’ expectations for fea-tures, benefits and design attributes.

Actionable. Insight translation should provide concretedescriptions of the sensory attributes that trigger emotionsand the desired experience. Visual descriptions can beeffective, but often tactile qualities, smell, sound andtaste are used to provide the most complete metaphors

Storyboards describe an ideal experience.

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to describe a future experience.The illustration above shows a trans-lation for a shampoo product. It illus-trates the consumers’ expectationsfor smell, texture, packaging andinteraction behaviors that deliver onthe ideal experience.

Inspirational. It is important thattranslation communicate to designteams in a way that provides creativefreedom and focuses them on theneeds and expectations of the con-sumer. Translation must be descrip-tive (describes the experience) ratherthan prescriptive (defines the design).The images on the right show trans-lations of a program to understandconsumer perceptions of cell phonecarriers. Specifically, we communi-cated the personality of the brand(top, right) and the potential designcues for the products that would meet consumer expecta-tions (bottom, right). As you can see, the translations of ourfindings, while descriptive, are still broad enough to allow awide range of design exploration.

A future story integrates emotions, benefits, features and designattributes into actionable criteria.

Metaphors used to describe brand personality.

Design attributes of cell phones that match brand personality.

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Translation Workshops Insight translation should be anexplicit step in the research anddesign process. The process worksbest when collaborating with thedesign team. It allows them to applytheir knowledge of their business andcapabilities and helps them to focusand prioritize future design efforts.Translation workshops are becomingour preferred way of ensuring that wematch our clients’ capabilities with ourknowledge of the customers’ expec-tations. These activities require a sig-nificant commitment of resources andtime but can be incredibly valuable—sometimes transforming from nextyear’s design initiative into a strategicplanning session. The three keyingredients for a translation work-shop are the right stimulus or toolset, the right mix of people and ashared passion to deliver customerstheir ideal experience.

The illustrations on this page show examples of richstimuli for a translation workshop. The top diagram repre-sents an ideal product model. It describes the key productattributes that deliver the consumers’ ideal experience. Thesegments of the model (key attributes) are described in detailat the right—that are actionable, meaningful, aspirationaland inspirational. The model can be deconstructed by seg-ment and used for breakout sessions where subteamsexplore ways to deliver different parts of the ideal.

Team formation for workshops should represent vari-ous stakeholder groups in the organization in addition tooutside partners crucial to implementation. This helps cre-

ate alignment within the team as to the problem to besolved and the criteria for success and allows each con-tributor to focus and deliver a consistent, cohesive cus-tomer experience.

Insight translation is the obvious next step in the evolu-tion of design research. It fills the gap between research anddesign by creating memorable (sticky) presentations ofresearch insights that go on to become institutional knowl-edge. Done correctly, it will provide organizational alignmentaround the correct problem to be solved and a frameworkfor focusing creative resources to determine how to deliverthe ideal experience. n

Left: An ideal product model diagrams the key benefit areas.Below: Benefit areas are built out with detailed descriptions offeatures and design attributes.