Design Research
Bring empathy and understanding to your next product, service, or customer experience design challenge.
Understanding human needs and wants with genuine empathy is Design Research’s superpower. We’re also passionate about design research because it focuses on outcomes. Knowledge isn’t the end goal; a new or improved customer experience, product, service, or brand interaction is.
Our Design Research team specializes in identifying unmet needs, revealing the contextual, subconscious motivators that influence attitudes and behavior even when consumers can’t quite express them. This highly participatory type of work can be the difference between “good enough” and “game changing.”
We specialize in:
- Brand Design
- Co-Creation Sessions
- Design Innovation Deep Dives
- Ethnographic Market Research
- Information Design
- Participant Observation
- Prototype Testing, and Concept Testing
- Workshops
Our Design Research Case Studies
Learn more about how our work has energized strategy for global brands, disruptive startups and everything in between.
Product Packaging and Design Research for Mike’s Hard Lemonade
We help Mike’s stay fresh by working with them on everything from flavor profiles, to product innovation, to packaging and advertising.
Innovation Consulting for Burger King
A whopping, rapidly evolving QSR landscape requires Burger King to continually innovate and differentiate their offering. Here's how we use innovation consulting to help them stay relevant when appetites change.
Healthcare Patient Experience and Patient Segmentation Research for Pfizer
Our ongoing insights work with Pfizer helps them understand patient attitudes and behaviors, and elevate the patient experience in healthcare.
Whitespace Identification for Taubman | Beverly Center
L.A.'s Beverly Center was going under the knife with a massive remodel. We made sure the new look was more than skin deep using whitespace identification to sharply define the new brand experience.
Design Research: Beyond Buzzwords
Your ultimate guide to Design Research: What it is, how it works, and when to use it.
3 Types of Participant Observation to Get You Out of the Backroom and Onto the Frontlines
Participant observation research reveals reliable behavioral insights for your business, shedding light on a lot of information in relatively little time. Done right, it can act as the ultimate empathy generator for the customers you serve. In this post, we'll explore three approaches to shatter the glass between you and your subjects.
Experience Design in Action: Super Bowl LII
Having worked on experience design projects across industries, we recognize the scale of effort and planning that goes into a high profile event like the Super Bowl. Here's some of the most interesting aspects of Super Bowl LII that contributed to a spectacular fan experience.
Co-Creation: Why Your Focus Groups with Collaging Don’t Count
This first installment in a three-part series from Kelton's Amy Snow explores the foundation of the co-creation technique, and how brands can use it to drive innovation.
Design Thinking in Action: Stories from the Business Community
We’ve scoured the internet and found some of the best resources to add to your design thinking toolkit - read on for ways to leverage human-forward thinking for innovation strategy.
Why is Everyone Talking about Co-Creation?
In the second installment of our three-part co-creation primer, we take a look at the most common ways that the technique can help to solve brand challenges.
Workshop Playbook: 8 Exercises to Spark Innovation
Effective workshops give you the power to strengthen and support initiatives of all kinds. Here are some of our expert facilitators' favorite exercises.
Our Approach
No two projects or needs are alike. Kelton understands this and treats every project as an objective, one-of-a-kind enterprise, choosing methodologies that best serve each client’s distinctive goals.
Design Innovation Deep Dives
Explore your customer’s world to discover new inspiration and untapped opportunity.
Ethnographic Market Research
Use ethnographic interviews to uncover insights that drive authentic consumer connections and future-focused strategy.
Information Design
Make key findings stick with the power of narrative and compelling information design that creates common understanding across teams.
Participant Observation
Don't settle for only knowing what users say, dig into what they actually do. Immerse in your customer's world to find innovative ideas with consumer immersion.
Workshops
Push thought boundaries, create broad-based buy in, and uncover opportunities for innovation with stimulus driven, creative sessions.
Co-Creation Sessions
Inspire innovative new ideas and get closer to what your customers want by letting them play a role in the creative process.
Design Innovation Deep Dives
Explore your customer’s world to discover new inspiration and untapped opportunity.
Ethnographic Market Research
Use ethnographic interviews to uncover insights that drive authentic consumer connections and future-focused strategy.
Information Design
Make key findings stick with the power of narrative and compelling information design that creates common understanding across teams.
Participant Observation
Don't settle for only knowing what users say, dig into what they actually do. Immerse in your customer's world to find innovative ideas with consumer immersion.
Prototype Testing, and Concept Testing
Experience is everything.
Workshops
Push thought boundaries, create broad-based buy in, and uncover opportunities for innovation with stimulus driven, creative sessions.
Brand Design
Your brand identity, clearly defined and expertly designed.
Co-Creation Sessions
Inspire innovative new ideas and get closer to what your customers want by letting them play a role in the creative process.
How We’re Different
The essence of the Kelton brand comes through best in the people who are on the front lines. We’re not just number crunchers; we are botanists and baseball fans, giggly animal lovers and homebrew geeks, and, yes– data heads, creatives and sociologists who choose the right tools, resources and experiences to meet each client challenge.
Empathic By Design
We listen, observe, sympathize and strategize to produce tangible outputs that inspire action – and actually meet consumer needs.
Get to the “Why Behind the Why”
Our Design Researchers don’t just look for triggers and root problems. We push beyond the “why?” to understand how experiences and environments impact consumers, both consciously and subconsciously.
Rooted in Reality
We’ll never leave you with pie-in-the-sky ideas you can’t actually act on. Our concepts are customer-driven, realistic to execute, and provide a clear path forward.
Global Perspective
Across 45 countries and 6 continents, we collect insights and ideas that inspire us and our clients—here, there and everywhere.
Empathic By Design
We listen, observe, sympathize and strategize to produce tangible outputs that inspire action – and actually meet consumer needs.
Get to the “Why Behind the Why”
Our Design Researchers don’t just look for triggers and root problems. We push beyond the “why?” to understand how experiences and environments impact consumers, both consciously and subconsciously.
Rooted in Reality
We’ll never leave you with pie-in-the-sky ideas you can’t actually act on. Our concepts are customer-driven, realistic to execute, and provide a clear path forward.
Global Perspective
Across 45 countries and 6 continents, we collect insights and ideas that inspire us and our clients—here, there and everywhere.