Insight & Foresight
We use observation, conversation, listening, learning, wondering and participative design to identify human points of view, stories, experiences, fears, fantasies and frustrations. The result is that we help organizations discover insights that the competition misses.
Design Research
Most research is done with validation in mind. So how do open the aperture of organizational understanding?
Design Research is an exploratory process focused on discovering new insights and reframing the problems that need to be solved.
An essential stage in the innovation process, Design Research is focused on understanding the opportunities for new products or services in the context of people’s lives.
A design-led activity, design research draws from the disciplines of human centered design to better understand how customers interact and relate to the world around them with the intention of uncovering unmet needs.
+ DISCOVERY RESEARCH
+ HUMAN FACTORS
+ TECHNOLOGY FACTORS
Ethnographic Research
Ethnography is the art and science of telling stories about people’s stories.
It’s how our anthropologists and sociologists study and tell stories about people in the spaces and places where they live, work, play, shop, eat, and imagine the world around them. Drawing on interdisciplinary research methods and social theories that frame every project, we identify insights that provide a critical lens on the beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes that drive consumers and shape their cultures and communities.
Ethnography reveals customer narratives where surveys find only data. It relates dreams, hopes, histories, memories, fantasies, experiences and performances of everyday life, while focus groups offer opinions. And where market research creates speculation, ethnography fuels innovation.
+ CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
+ IN-HOME RESEARCH
+ SHADOWING
Strategic Foresight
Forget trend analysis. Opportunity is not about predicting, it’s about preparing.
Strategic foresight is a deliberate process of establishing well-informed future oriented perspectives that help guide innovation, planning and decision-making. It helps organizations better understand, imagine, anticipate and prepare for change by equipping them with tools and resources to challenge assumptions, ask provocative questions, rethink opportunities, reset goals and explore new alternatives.
At the front end of innovation we draw on strategic foresight tools like context planning, environmental scanning and scenario development to increase our literacy of the future. For our clients, building the skills, resources and confidence to explore uncertain, ambiguous and less tangible tomorrows is a key business advantage that only Strategic Foresight can address.
+ WEAK SIGNAL SCANNING
+ FUTURE STUDIES
+ SCENARIO PLANNING
Co-creation Labs
Customer Co-creation Labs are exploratory sessions designed to identify and examine consumer behaviors, motivations, needs, opinions, attitudes and ideas.
Conducted as informal peer-group conversations, they empower customers with an active voice in designing the brands, experiences, and engagements that will best fit into the context of their lives. Through co-creation labs, we directly bring customers into the early stages of the innovation process, empowering them to help shape the final outcome and mitigate downstream risks.
To ensure that unique lenses connect the diversity of customer feedback during and after creative sessions, our Co-Creation Labs are planned, designed and run by a multidisciplinary team of anthropologists, sociologists, human factor specialists, designers and strategists.
+ EXPLORATORY SESSIONS
+ PARTICIPATORY DESIGN
+ BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS
Customer Context Labs
Customer Context Labs are an alternative and antidote to focus groups.
Drawing on ethnographic interview techniques to identify and describe consumer motivations and experiences, they yield actionable insights and prototypes through observing and decoding talk and social interaction.
Hosted in natural settings rather than behind 2-way mirrors, they are designed to facilitate group discussion where target consumers use concepts to reveal the social, cultural and personal contexts where products and services come to life.
+ UN-FOCUS GROUPS
+ CUSTOMER WORKSHOPS
Global Scanning
Global Scanning is key to understanding the potentials and possibilities that might contribute to the design, development, acceptability and adoption of new products, services and systems.
Tapping into our global innovation network in Hong Kong, New York, Taipei, Tokyo, San Francisco and Shanghai, our Strategic Foresight team researches, collects, compares and evaluates a range of signals—including new and emerging languages, cultures, customs and ideas that drive innovation—to identify a near-future business opportunities.
Global Scanning offers our clients a detailed review, analysis and synthesis of promising ideas, opportunities and raw materials to inform and drive innovation.
