Lessons learned about design research from three weeks of design research

During May 2013 the Meld Studios team conducted a three-week long observational and contextual research project for a cafe chain in Western Australia. After 110 hours of observation in 18 locations, nearly 200 interviews, and thousands of photographs we had collected a lot of data, and learned a lot more about the conduct of field research. This presentation will look at the research objectives, research plan, our experiences in the field, and reflect on the extent to which we successfully captured – and were able to communicate – what we saw, heard, smelled, touched and felt.