This is a human centered design agency. We go out into the field to find the answers to your complex questions. We conduct rigorous analysis of qualitative and quantitative data and present results in a way you can use.
The YZDW approach
The typical approach
We go out into the field and collect data on spaces, things, systems, and relationships to contextualize interview and survey data. We develop field sites over time and across projects, cultivating genuine connections with those who live there.
Our informants and participants are not simply stand-ins for some larger theoretical demographic. They are members of communities with families, friends, and social circles. Their lived experience is tied to the spaces they inhabit and the networks they participate in.
Our data and insights come from working with interconnected individuals, communities, institutions, and objects to answer complex design questions. This depth does not limit breadth, but scaffolds it; it gives us the context we need to analyze larger data sets and create models to relate local experiences to more global trends.
Then the designing begins.
Step 1 - Use a big data program to segment users into categories.
Step 2 - Hire a recruiter to find users who check off all of the correct boxes on the screener document.
Step 3 - Assemble a set of users who cover a range of demographics and are generalizable to a broader population (hopefully?)
Step 4 - Collect responses through a combination of questionnaires and 60-90 minute remote interviews.
Step 5 - Collate the data and extract insights.
If you want to get technical, our ethnographic methods include:
Applied Anthropology
Qual - Quant Mixed Methods
Historical Backcasting
Participatory Research
Our design methods are based on the theories that have a proven track record of positive change:
Human Centered Design
Serious Game Design
Strategic Forecasting
In addition to practicing our craft, we also teach. We teach core product design courses at Stanford d.School, coach in executive education programs at Harvard Business School, and have delivered numerous talks and workshops at conferences and organizations around the world.
We've worked with some great organizations like:
After three days of sitting and observing in the print shop on the corner of Shri Krishna Temple Road in Bangalore, our researcher, Madhav, had befriended the shopkeep. When the two struck up a conversation, the customers who were working there at the time became interested and joined in...
The older students noticed our little booth outside of the community college library as they left their class. One was a 60 year old photography student. His wife was taking history classes. Another was a 36 year old nursing student who had dropped out and restarted college three times. The fourth was a single mom who decided to return to school. She told us that she was inspired by her daughter who had just started the second grade...
It's not normal for a researcher to be assisting a surgeon performing a mock knee surgery on a cadaver limb with other European surgeons crowding around and offering advice in a basement in Madrid. But we needed data to design the next generation implant and it seemed like a good starting point...