What are the most effective ways to identify research gaps in design research?

1 What are research gaps?

Research gaps can limit the scope, quality, or applicability of your design research and can occur at any stage of the research process. For example, you may not have a clear or specific research question to guide your inquiry; you may not have reviewed or synthesized existing knowledge on your topic; you may not have used the appropriate methods or sources to gather data; you may not have applied suitable techniques or frameworks to analyze your data; you may not have integrated or interpreted your data in a meaningful way; and you may not have communicated or visualized your data in a persuasive way. Identifying and addressing these research gaps is essential for successful design research.

2 Why do research gaps matter?

Research gaps can significantly affect the validity, reliability, and usefulness of your design research, and can lead to missed opportunities, wasted resources, or poor decisions. For instance, a lack of understanding concerning user needs, preferences, and behaviors can impede insight into your design solution. Additionally, a lack of innovation regarding the problem or opportunity can limit creativity in your design solution. Furthermore, a lack of current or contextualized understanding of the market, industry, or environment can reduce relevance to your design solution. Finally, a lack of measurable or meaningful outcome or value can reduce the impact of your design solution.

3 How to find research gaps?

Finding research gaps requires a critical and systematic approach to reviewing and evaluating your design research. You should ask yourself questions that challenge your assumptions, methods, and findings. These questions should focus on the problem definition, literature review, data collection, data analysis, data synthesis, and data presentation. For example, for problem definition you can ask if your research question or objective is clear, specific and relevant. For literature review you should search for relevant and reliable sources on your topic or domain, summarize and synthesize the key findings and implications, and identify the strengths and weaknesses of the existing knowledge or evidence. When it comes to data collection you should choose appropriate and sufficient methods, tools, and sources to collect your data while ensuring its quality and diversity. Data analysis should apply suitable and rigorous techniques, frameworks, and models to analyze your data while checking for any biases or errors. Data synthesis should integrate and interpret your data in a meaningful way while generating and validating the key insights and recommendations. Lastly, data presentation should communicate and visualize your data in a clear way while tailoring it to your audience and purpose.

4 How to fill research gaps?

Filling research gaps requires a creative and iterative approach to improving and expanding your design research. You need to take actions that address the limitations, challenges, or opportunities of your research gaps. To do this, you should refine or revise your research question or objective to make it more clear, specific, and relevant. Additionally, you should search and select more relevant and reliable sources on your topic or domain. When collecting data, choose and use more appropriate and sufficient methods, tools, and sources. Then apply more suitable and rigorous techniques, frameworks, and models to analyze the data. After that, integrate and interpret the data in a meaningful way before communicating and visualizing it in a clear and persuasive way. Ultimately, you should be able to answer the research question or objective more fully and convincingly.