Designing in the Wild: The Industrial Design Podcast
Sep 30, 2026 · 59 min · 12 segments
What separates useful design research from simply asking people what they want? In this episode of **Designing in the Wild**, Rob sits down with longtime friend and colleague **Jill Bohaboy, owner of…
Jill BohaboyGuestRobHost
I would say that most of the objectives when it comes to research, especially qualitative research, starts with words like understand, explore, evaluate.
But ultimately what they're looking for, it can happen a couple of different ways, right? We've worked on projects where we would call them innovation projects, where maybe you're working to develop things in a white space.
Companies often do mapping and tracking, as you know, that identify areas of opportunity or innovation.
exploratory, kind of divergent thinking.
Where could we go?
And those are the sessions and the times when you start off with any idea is a good idea.
A lot of those innovation or white space opportunities are where we want to go.
start watching people, observing people in their natural habitat, as we like to say, or maybe where they're shopping, whatever it is, so we can start to identify what might be missing.
Because consumers can tell us so very much, but sometimes they cannot articulate.
They may tell us through their emotions and their actions, but they can't necessarily say, hey, I'm really missing out on a vacuum cleaner that has a detachable whatever.
You know, They can't tell you that until you watch them struggle, identify that compensating behavior, and then help them solve for it.
Another way we do it is really by putting ourselves in a situation that may parallel the category but isn't the category.
Okay.
So I'm curious what, like, maybe an example that you might be able to give that could help illustrate that a little bit.
That's all right.
Well, yes.
Okay.
I would say that most of the objectives when it comes to research, especially qualitative research, starts with words like understand, explore, evaluate.
But ultimately what they're looking for, it can happen a couple of different ways, right? We've worked on projects where we would call them innovation projects, where maybe you're working to develop things in a white space.
Companies often do mapping and tracking, as you know, that identify areas of opportunity or innovation.
exploratory, kind of divergent thinking.
Where could we go?
And those are the sessions and the times when you start off with any idea is a good idea.
A lot of those innovation or white space opportunities are where we want to go.
start watching people, observing people in their natural habitat, as we like to say, or maybe where they're shopping, whatever it is, so we can start to identify what might be missing.
Because consumers can tell us so very much, but sometimes they cannot articulate.
They may tell us through their emotions and their actions, but they can't necessarily say, hey, I'm really missing out on a vacuum cleaner that has a detachable whatever.
You know, They can't tell you that until you watch them struggle, identify that compensating behavior, and then help them solve for it.
Another way we do it is really by putting ourselves in a situation that may parallel the category but isn't the category.
Okay.
So I'm curious what, like, maybe an example that you might be able to give that could help illustrate that a little bit.
That's all right.
Well, yes.
Okay.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
