Research Methods

There are several research methods that I’ve gone through last 8 weeks. Each of the methods has their own pros and cons.  Base on the theme my own opinion, I decided to use the four methods: formative research, target audience profile, iterative and interview. I feel that those are most useful and suitable for my final year project.

For the formative research, from the beginning of the project, I had to do a lot of research for my theme: reference, case study, formation, opinion form other, etc. I used to determine and refine the project planning process, update information to develop my project through out the entire process. The knowledge and information that I collect from formative research are very useful. From there I can have a strong base to build up my project and improve it during the developing process.

The second method is target audience profile. The reason why I chose this is because it’s important to define your target audience for your profile. Different ages they have difference thinking and feeling about the same problem. For example my theme for my graduation project is “Sex education for children”. My target audiences are kids from 4-10 years old and parents who have children in this group age. For “sex education”, kinder garden kids seem to be interested in what is pregnancy, how to protect yourself more than what is puberty and safe sex.

Next is iterative method. Through out the project I’ve consult with several lecturers about the project. From the beginning idea, way to develop the theme to illustration style, final outcomes. Listen to suggest and idea from different people help me to improve my project a lot. During the entire process I keep changing and developing my design after consulting with lectures.

Last but not least is interview. To understand more about how people think about my graduation project product, I’m planning to do some interview with my target audience. The interview is around the topic “Sex education for children”. What they think we should teach for children about how to protect themselves, whether the parents willing to teach their kids about that, what information I should put inside, ect.