What is generative design research?
Generative design research starts at the early front end of the design and development process before we know what it is that will be designed. It is conducted in order to determine what to design as well as what not to design. It is an exploratory and participatory approach that brings the people we serve through design directly into the design process so that we can meet their needs and dreams for the future.

How do you start when you are engaged in applying generative design research in practice? The fundamental problem of exploratory research is always the chicken-and-egg problem: before you set out to explore, you must know something about what you will find in order to make a plan that your client can approve. A good place to begin is by discussing and visualizing the focus and scope of the project. Visualization is important because it helps to ensure that all members of your design research team are in agreement.

Figure 1: Exploring focus and scope.

This diagram was originally published in Convivial Toolbox: Generative Research for the Front End of Design, Sanders and Stappers, 2012.

What is the focus and what is the scope?
The focus is the area of experience that you want to fully understand and invite your participants to explore. The scope refers to larger fields of experience around the focus that provide important links and perspectives. Figure 1 illustrates the focus and scope. The large oval denotes the chosen scope, the smaller circle the focus. The arrows show the directions of exploration.

For example, if the focus of the generative design research project is healthy eating then some of the topics in the scope could include other components of wellness such as social, emotional, physical and environmental factors. You will certainly learn a lot more about healthy eating if you explore how it is affected by the other components of wellness.

How do you expand the focus into the scope?
In conducting generative research in the front end of design, it is advisable to keep the focus in the center of consideration, but broaden the investigation out to the scope. It is only by going 'out of bounds' that you can be sure that you are focused in the right place.

To expand the focus into the scope you can invite the project team members to join you in brainstorming and mindmapping topics that connect directly or indirectly to the focus. The mindmap that results can serve as the landscape for initial exploration. Conduct secondary research on the topics in the landscape, being sure to investigate historical, current as well as future trends. A preliminary round of observations and informal interviews is also a good way to explore this landscape.

How do you know when to stop exploring? In a holistic worldview, everything can be interesting and relevant, but when you're on a budget, you need to set the limits somewhere. A rule of thumb is to set up a portion of the overall budget for the initial exploration but then move ahead with the generative design research once the budget is gone. The landscape generated in this initial burst of exploration can then be used to capture additional ideas and insights that emerge spontaneously throughout the ongoing process.

How do you manage focus and scope in a project?
In generative design research, we are interested in finding out what people's values and needs are in the future, and how these values and needs can be served by design through the development of new concepts for experiences, products or services. The design research plan starts by having the participants explore topics in the larger scope so that you can better understand their values and future needs. In the healthy eating project, this could involve giving your participants assignments that help them explore the surroundings of different starting points in the scope (e.g., memories of eating experiences when growing up, keeping track of daily exercise, noting relationships between food and mood, etc.). Because the assignments are open-ended, participants can take them into a direction of their choosing. As part of this, they may choose to 'wander into' the focus area out of their own choosing. The participant journey narrows down throughout the research plan, reaching the focus only at the end.

How do you handle insight which is beyond what you expected?
Generative design research returns results at two levels: near-term and far-term. Insights that are connected to the focus usually describe ideas and concepts that can be acted upon in the not-so-distant future. Insights that are connected to the scope are more likely to be actionable in the distant future. It is important to keep track of both levels of insight. The near-term insights are most useful today, but the far-term insights can be used to inform and inspire future projects. The far-term insights might also be useful for project teams who are working in other parts of the organization.