Co-author Paula Thornton posted this insightful comment to her Experience Design newsgroup on June 7, responding to an article in Business Week, June 3, 2006, “The Science of Desire”:

One quote from the article: “Ethnographers' findings often don't lead to a
product or service, only a generalized sense of what people want. Their
research can also take a long time to bear fruit.”

This is absolutely a “'symptom'”of something that is clearly not specifically
called out in our disciplines. We always like to think that we need to be
the ones doing the research (and/or be involved in it). Clearly, that's a
symptom of our experiences -- where in most cases there is little or no
background information.

But imagine a future where there is a specific role dedicated to Design
Research. A "team support" role that is akin to a Findability specialist and
a Content Management strategist. While individual projects would engage
"deeper" research, the work starts by tapping into a base of continuous
research. Such research informs what additional research would be most
effective -- it determines which questions haven't been probed deeply enough
and/or warrant more investigation.

There are four distinct areas of focus for experience design research:

. Discovery
. Continuous Listening
. Metrics
. Synthesis and Sharing

Of course, there are the Centre for Design Research at Northumbria University, in the UK, and its new counterpart at Stanford University, the Center for Design Research.. But these centers' foci are universal, about design, less project-specific. So, Paula -- want to finish your thought? I'd love to see where you go with this.