What I now understand about effective research and how am I adopting this?
- Be selective - The mistake of research is just to stick in every single thing which i have come across when research. I feel now i am much more selective with what I am viewing and not just bunging in everything to make it look like ive done a lot of work. Any idiot can copy and paste. The point of research is to be useful not padding for your portfolio.
Internet sources- I felt at the beginning that using the net for research was bad and too easy, shouldn't I be suffering a little bit for information? I now think it is fine to use the internet a lot of research as you have millions of sources at the touch of a button BUT!!! it more about ensuring I am looking a reliable sources as there is a lot of rubbish and inaccuracy on the internet. To conduct effective research via the internet you need to consider the source you are looking at and not look exclusively at just one site. I feel in order to conduct effective internet research i have to be more digitally literate! - Effective (Primary) research - I have also realised that there is not point doing primary research if you are not actually going to use it correctly. Results need to be analysed or in some cases further research to make it worth doing. I have also extended my own research beyond the usual Questionnaire and conducted material testing, product testing and interviews and this has really helped with projects as i could not find the answers to my a lot of questions from secondary sources.
- Reflection - I am now being much more reflective about the research material I accumulate In the past I have just accumulated vast amounts of information and not really picked it apart, questioned it or really thought about how the research can shaped my work to make it better .
- Researching something REAL - As my product had specific needs it required a lot of good and accurate research to ensure I made good choices for materials, sizes, aesthetics etc. I couldn't just make it up or the product wouldn't work! I needed to conduct effective research in the sense of acquiring accurate information from reliable sources which met my products specification. It was after doing this product that I realised just how badly my research was lacking in past products and just how much better/different they would have been had I conducted better research!