Conducting design research at the start of a project is critical to discovering users’ needs, especially those that are unmet or unarticulated. While market research takes a macro view (understanding what features a product should have), design research takes an in-depth view to uncover how those features should be implemented and their priority levels. For medical devices, design research is required to document user profiles, use environments, and critical tasks.
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Our team is well versed in asking the 5 Why's to discover what users actually need, which does not always line up with what they think they want. LHF helped many clients develop a comprehensive set of user requirements that drive their design and reduce time to market, resulting in a return on investment upwards of a hundredfold!