## What: 3 knowledge domains

In IT projects, you will usually have to develop new solutions, such as processes, architectures, applications or back-end systems. Research methods will help you in your search for innovation and quality. During a design project you can ask questions to obtain information about three different areas or domains:

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1. Available work: You may want to know what has already been done by others. This does not only concern existing products or articles about these products, but also experts and authors. You could look at the competition, make use of existing theories or models, or you could look for best practices and design guidelines, to make sure your design is indeed new and in some aspects even better than already existing solutions. Activities include reading, trying out existing solutions yourself, consulting with experts. In this domain, you can find general information that might help you with your project.

2. Application domain: You might want to know more about the people who will be using your solution and the situation in which it will be used. You could investigate the work processes you will need to support, or the people who will be your customer. Activities might include: observing, mapping out the context of use, and consulting your target group. Within this domain, you find information which is specific to the context in which your solution will be used.

3. Innovation space: You may want to investigate the possibilities within the solution itself. You may want to explore and compare several ways of solving the problem with ideation or prototyping techniques. During these activities, you can include your target group as well as experts. This is the domain where the innovation happens.

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