About

We do Desk Research to learn about a design topic. Desk research is study that you can do from your desk. Say you decide to study primates. It would be easiest to begin to learn about primates from encyclopedias, textbooks, and even wildlife documentaries. There is an enormous amount of information on primates to be found to satisfy your interest in the subject. The point is that you will learn a lot more and a lot faster from your desk or a library, than you could if you travelled to a forest in Africa in the hopes of learning about primates. Still, you can’t learn everything from your desk, and scientists do venture out into nature to discover things that nobody ever knew. Primatologists will trek into forests to learn more about primates. That is called field research. Researching is the primary task during the EMPATHISE stage, but it continues throughout the design process. You will have new questions needing answers throughout a design project, and you will learn and discover new things right until the very end.
 

What you need

• A good library with helpful librarians.
• A4 notepad and pen.
• Or, you can do desk research from a computer that is connected to the internet.
• A notes app on your PC or tablet computer to keep information that you found on the internet.
• One or two days to complete desk research on a design topic.

Method

You should have begun the EMPATHISE stage by drawing a Mind Map (IV) to plan your desk research, and noting down your Research Questions (IV). You may have also drawn a Stakeholder Map (IV) and noted down questions from that exercise. Collect all the questions that you have about your design topic before beginning your search. The library and the internet are two excellent places to do desk research.
 

What to research
​​​​​​​Here are some things that you can research from your desk:

• What do news articles say about the topic?
• What industry news and information can you find about the topic? For example, manufacturer’s information and catalogues, or business news information in business magazines, websites, or TV business programmes, and so forth.
• You may find an article that summarises an industry or market that has to do with your design topic.
• There may be specialised publications on business and industry research to do with your design topic. These types of publications will be found in a large central library. Contact the library first to check whether they have a business or industry research publication on your topic.
• What do regular people say about the topic? For example, reviews on shopping websites, blog posts by enthusiasts, discussions on internet forums, and so forth.
• What information can I find about the topic on web video channels like YouTube? For example, people giving their opinions and doing reviews related to the design topic, and so forth.​​​​​​​

Use your library

• Ask your librarian for help with your questions about the design topic.
• Search a library computer catalogue or card catalogue for your design topic. Library books are classified into their subjects, using classification systems such as ‘The Dewey Classification System,’ which sorts all books into ten groups with numbers. For example, general-knowledge books like dictionaries and encyclopaedias are numbers 000–099, science and mathematics books are numbers 500–599, and technology books are numbers 600–699, and so on.
• Search a dictionary for words about the design topic, and a thesaurus for synonyms for those words.
• Search an encyclopaedia for more information about the design topic.
• A telephone directory or yellow pages will list local companies that have something to do with the design topic, if you plan to contact them. Discuss it with your teacher before calling a company.

Internet search

• Search using Internet search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Yandex, Baidu, DuckDuckGo, and Ask.com or a search engine that is popular in your country.
  • Google and other search engines have advanced search options for precise searching.
• Image search engines can find pictures or photographs about the design topic.
  • Image search engines have advanced search options for precise searching.
• Wikipedia is the best internet encyclopaedia in English, and it is free. It is an excellent place to learn about most design topics.

Search operators
Here are a few useful search operators for precise internet searching, there are more. These operators work on Google.com.

• " " — Search for a phrase: "smart kitchen"
• OR — Search for either word: car OR automobile
• AND — Search for two or more terms: edison AND tesla
• - (dash) — Exclude a word from the results: mars -bar
• ( ) — Group your search.  (ipad OR iphone) apple
• * — Placeholder symbol allows for any word: personal * app
• .. — Search for a range of numbers: camera $50..$100
• site: — Search within a website: site:www.wikipedia.org
• define: — Search for definition: define:design
• filetype: — Search for a file type: apple sec filetype:pdf
• intitle: — Search for a word in page title: intitle:mars
• allintitle: — Search for two or more words in title: allintitle:mars rover
• intext: — Search for a word in the content: intext:mars
• allintext: — Search for two or more words in the content: allintext:mars rover
• related: — Find related webpages: related:www.wikipedia.org
• @ — Search for a term on social media: @twitter

​​​​​​​Tips

Here are some tips for searching on the internet:

• Using the right words (or terminology) when you are searching for your design topic can make a big difference.
  • As you are searching, so the good webpages will use the correct terminology, note the terms down.
• Try using synonyms for the search terms, to get useful search results.
  • Ask your teacher or librarian to suggest synonyms for your design topic.
• Learn how to use your internet search engine.
  • Search engines will have topics and filters that appear at the top of the search results to narrow the results down.