An analysis on big data, the core of the hyper-connected society, is designed considering its purpose so it may be possible to shed light on correlations. Therefore, using big data analysis can provide insights across various fields and be conducive t...
An analysis on big data, the core of the hyper-connected society, is designed considering its purpose so it may be possible to shed light on correlations. Therefore, using big data analysis can provide insights across various fields and be conducive to reducing the ambiguity and uncertainty of contemporary social issues. In a design thinking process to solve undefined problems, big data analysis can happen to cultivate insights. However, despite the enlarged scale and form of data and advanced technology in modern society, designers have relative difficulties in using it in the problem finding process of design thinking. Design thinking is characterized by intuition based on ethnographic investigations but there are concerns regarding its suitability and reliability in contemporary society. Accordingly, to implement specialized problem finding of design thinking, it is time to pay attention to intuitive insights based on big data. It aims to derive user-centered insights and there is a need to ponder upon the utilization of big data analysis, which pursues establishing the structure of user knowledge in the desk research step. In other words, in the problem finding of design thinking, it is needed to consider and apply big data analysis for understanding users.
This study intends to discover the way for user-centered problem finding in the design thinking process and suggest its effects using extensive larger-scaled unstructured data than data used in the existing desk research of design thinking. To this end, it derives findings using big data analysis in the problem finding process of design thinking and examines how to understand users using big data analysis. These findings have the potential to be linked to insights in the problem defining process of design thinking and they are intermediate interpretations on users and topics in the problem finding process. This research focuses on online text data among unstructured data.
This study proposes BDDT-PF: Big Data-driven Design Thinking - Problem Finding, which can be implemented in the desk research step. Hence, three research topics were suggested as follows.
First, what algorithm-based big data analysis methods can be used for deriving findings in the BDDT-PF process?
Second, what design thinking-focused analysis methods can be used for deriving insights in the BDDT-PF process?
Third, what are the effects of executing the BDDT-PF?
The research conducted a test using big data analysis in the problem finding of design thinking based on design and derived the answers to the research questions. The research comprises the following stages.
In the first step, it pursued the understanding of design thinking, problem finding processes, desk research, big data, and text mining through literature review.
In the second step, the study identified the necessity and direction of using big data analysis in the problem finding of design thinking through the case study of big data application and the theoretical review of data in design thinking.
In the third step it captured an actual desk research done from a design thinking project via expert interviews and topic-based analyses, designing characteristics, processes, research questions and tests for BDDT-PF.
In the fourth step it executed the BDDT-PF process using titles of online news articles, which are Editorial content, in text data and obtained the results from the trend analysis.
In the fifth step it also implemented the BDDT-PF process using the Korean User-generated content in text data and derived the meaning of climate change to Korean people.
The findings from BDDT-PF in the fourth and the fifth steps led to the understanding that BDDT-PF can supplement the inadequacies of traditional desk research and assist in user research. Hence, in the next step it extended and deepened the execution from the previous steps, specifying and carrying out how to understand users with a view to identifying their emotion.
In the sixth step it executed the BDDT-PF process using the English User-generated content in text data and found out the meaning of climate change to the global people.
In the seventh step it examined the way to understand users in BDDT-PF and the effects of BDDT-PF implementation from the fourth to the fifth steps. The BDDT-PF process was synthesized and summarized, and design thinking-driven analyses were represented in a diagram with the elements of data, thinking systematization methods and interpretive perspectives. In addition, possibilities for generalization were presented considering culture, topic and problem identified. The effects of BDDT-PF included increased reliability in design thinking, frame generation in the initial phase, enhanced efficiency compared to traditional desk research, and a more specified synthesis process in design thinking.
Finally, in the conclusion, the study presented the summary of findings according to research topics along with its implications.
Rather than reflecting numbers or keywords resulted from big data analysis in design the way they are, designers can pay attention to significant data and understand users while pondering upon human emotions and feelings. In other words, this study has significance in that it experimented with the way to intensify designers' data literacy in design thinking and examined its meanings, considering the expanded roles of designers.