Synthesis is the most important and crucial step in the research process as it allows us to distill and extract valuable insights from vast amounts of raw data and findings. The process of data synthesizing can often become overwhelming and time consuming, especially when we have large amounts of research data being collected via various touchpoints and interactions with the users across the research sessions. Being able to effectively manage and synthesize the content is crucial to extracting meaningful, deeper and relevant insights that can inform design decisions as well as business strategy.
Human Centered Design gives us cues into making the design process more efficient, effective and engaging. If the HCD principles are applied contextually, they really can support us in articulating deeper insights based on systematic management of research and synthesis. Let us explore some actionable ways to ensure that our teams can manage and plan for research in a way that streamlines and makes the synthesis process more efficient -
1. Curating engaging artifacts
In addition to recording interview sessions and noting observations, it is helpful to try and collect as many audio-visual, engaging artifacts as possible during the research sessions. These artifacts become tangible elements that provide rich contextual information that can trigger vivid memories during synthesis, helping researchers connect the dots and uncover deeper insights. Additionally, this also helps in capturing a lot of details and nuances which cannot be captured in just textual notes.
For example, taking pictures of the user’s home and the surrounding locality, live sketching a scenario narrated by the user, capturing video snippets of the user immersed in their everyday tasks, etc. These additional artifacts go a long way when synthesizing the data as it helps us weave together the broader context and form narratives that are useful when sharing insights with larger teams, clients or stakeholders. These artifacts can also help in enhancing your end deliverables by making them more engaging, interesting and immersive.
At Xeno, during fieldwork we always try to define dedicated time slots for team debriefs. But sometimes, fieldwork can become extremely exhaustive and intense leaving no time for formal debriefs. In situations like such, we have made use of low-barrier, easy to use formats like creating video summaries in-between research sessions to record short video snippets to capture the key takeaways and highlights of the sessions. This proves to be highly effective as we are able to record fresh thoughts that are top of mind and becomes a very efficient way to capture data especially during exhaustive field schedules.
2. Reflect — Adapt — Iterate
Typically in research projects the sense making and synthesis is done towards the end of the process after the data gathering is complete. Although this is the standard approach, waiting for synthesizing the large amounts of data at the end becomes a daunting and overwhelming task. There is also the added drawback of not being able to incorporate early learnings. Hence, for the projects we run at Xeno, we encourage and try to incorporate dedicated time for interim synthesis in between research sessions or other research activities.
Planning and conducting interim debriefs with your team while the fieldwork is ongoing provides a valuable opportunity to enhance the overall efficiency of data synthesis. These touchpoints and download sessions act as moments of reflection, allowing team members to share preliminary observations, insights, and emerging patterns while the research is still ongoing. By engaging in timely discussions, the team members can collectively make sense of the data, validate initial interpretations, and identify gaps or areas that might require further exploration. We also encourage and ensure client and stakeholder involvement in these debriefs as it helps to build on their early inputs and hypotheses which can be built upon over the course of the research.
Overall, interim debriefs and early synthesis helps to enhance collaboration, align perspectives, and ensure that the overall research efforts remain focused, enabling a more streamlined and efficient sense-making process once the fieldwork concludes.
3. Pre-plan to streamline efforts
Another aspect that proves to be highly beneficial to ensure a smooth and effective synthesis process is pre-deciding formats and frameworks for data gathering and management. Even though this may seem like a small aspect, the benefits of standardizing and pre-defining formats, templates, frameworks and strategies for efficient synthesis early on in your research process are significant. It helps reduce ambiguity and provides a clear roadmap for organizing, processing and analyzing research data. This standardized approach promotes consistency, enables smooth collaboration and allows seamless project handoffs among team members.
Simple interventions like defining note taking formats during research sessions also ensures that the content is captured consistently by all the team members to ensure an ease in retrieving data and extracting key points later during synthesis since the content is already categorized with a coherent structure. Lastly, defining the overall approach to data synthesis by outlining the methodologies or frameworks, content buckets, grouping themes or identifying pain points can allow teams to structure their debrief discussions and align the analysis efforts with the intended synthesis goals.
These simple and effective ways to plan the research process help lay a solid foundation for efficient synthesis that align with the project goals. By pushing for visual and enhanced insights gathering methods, incorporating interim debrief sessions and pre-planning synthesis frameworks, methodologies, and tools beforehand; the synthesis sessions will feel less cumbersome, tedious and the heavy lifting needed to wade through large amounts of data will feel manageable. With the help of these proactive steps you can ensure that your overall research experience feels purposeful, focused, and directly contributes to the larger project goals helping you streamline the overall synthesis process and maximize the team’s efficiency in distilling meaningful outcomes from the collected data.
— Avani Tavargeri (Research Consultant, Xeno Co-lab)
