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Erik: What do you find the most intellectually stimulating in the work that you do as a design
researcher?
Lauren: I think that there are three things, and they come at various points in the process,
in the design research process as I practice it. The first is figuring out how I’m going
to answer the questions that I have or that my client has, that we’re – the reason
that we’re doing a design research, how we’re gonna get those answers, what methods
we’re gonna use, what questions we’re gonna ask, who we’re gonna talk to, that
in itself is a design process. It’s very iterative, and it’s really tricky, and you
have to organize things and word things, so I find that really challenging, and then actually
facilitating those things. You know, everybody’s different. Some people take a long time to
open up. Some people, if we do exercises, have a harder time. You know, you have to
explain things differently. It’s very similar to teaching, but it’s, you’re trying to
get out instead of give, so that’s really challenging, just day-to-day doing fielding,
doing interviews, and trying to get the responses, not that I want but trying to get the responses,
to get the people to feel comfortable giving me the responses they need to give me. And
then finally, it’s always challenging to figure out the most appropriate way to translate
that into a design solution, considering, you know, all of the things that I’ve learned
from the people about how this thing should, or ought to act, or behave, and then business
considerations, political considerations with the design team, so mixing all of these different
things into a solution and not trying to muddy any of the waters is always a challenge.