Portigal Consulting has been researching how we read and the materials we use to do so in their project Reading Ahead.
I was so excited to see that I could follow their process with them online, but was quickly sobered when I realized that their process was more about taking stock of the present than about dreaming up the future... asking questions like "which of the following do you do more than 3 times a week?" and not "Tell me about the last time you read something. (What was it? Where was it? When.... ) Chances are, it was not a book, and maybe wasn't even a computer, but something out in the world......
The program seems mostly focused on books and people who identify themselves as book readers.... I'm just not sure where these guys are taking this, but maybe I'll learn something on the way.
Keep up with them on their blog Reading Ahead.
Leah,
ReplyDeleteGreat questions! Steve and Dan don't have a particular client for this project, but they are looking at books as they exist now. Design Research works best if we first examine things as they exist today and then, after gathering all of that data, extrapolate to how things might work in the future. What's missing? What do people seem to need that they don't have? You can ask some of these things in interviews but sometimes people go back and review their findings to find the holes in the existing process on their own. Hope that helps! You can email Steve, too and ask him questions if you are really curious!