In close collaboration with Radarstation, STBY conducted a qualitative consumer research for Sony, exploring opportunities for new service concepts beyond their traditional market. The client team from the Sony Design Center in Tokyo was keen to ascertain how external user research in the early stages of a service design process can guide the identification of user needs and idea generation for new service concepts.

Throughout the process of preparing the research methodology, recruiting the research participants, running the User Lab, clustering the documentation, generating the insights, identifying the opportunities and exploring the concept ideas, we were in close contact with the client team. Every step in the process has been documented and discussed, often through multi-point skype meetings and with excellent mediation by Akemi Tazaki.

For the data collection we used both video (to auto-document personal reflections) and visual probes (to guide conversations in pairs and facilitate ad hoc note taking). We gathered a very rich collection of research materials. These have been shared with the client from an early stage in the project through a bespoke project blog.

Our long history of collaborating with Radarstation enabled us to fully integrate the research and design strands in the project. Using bespoke research materials enabled effective elicitation of consumer insights, and consultation of the consolidated research data catered for the grouding of ideas for new services.

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