## How: 5 research strategies

During a project, you try to learn as much as you can about the domains of available work, application, and the innovation space. How do you learn about these domains? The DOT framework arranges the methods to do this in 5 research strategies.

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Library - Stand on the shoulders of giants
The purpose of research in the library strategy is to discover what has already been done and what guidelines and theories exist that could help you further your design. This could be literature research into best practices, a competitor analysis, but also an expert interview.

Field - Understand your users
You apply a field strategy to get to know your end users, their needs, desires, and limitations as organizational and physical contexts in which they will use your product. Common methods are stakeholder interviews and user observations.

Workshop - Seek variation and improvement
Workshop research coincides with the innovation space and is done to explore possibilities. Prototyping, sketching, and co-creation activities are all ways to gain insights into what is possible and how things could work (better).

Lab - Measuring is knowing
With lab research, you con test parts of your solution, concepts or the final product. You want to find out if things indeed work as intended, or test different scenario's. Examples of methods are system tests, usability tests, and security tests.

Showroom - Know & show your contribution
Research within the showroom strategy is conducted to compare your ideas with available work. How is your solution different from that of the competition? You could have experts evaluate your prototype, create a benchmark comparison, or formulate a pitch with the unique selling points of your product.