The research and development process for the Montessori inspired furniture collection intended for schools and private users. The project was carried out at the University of Arts in Poznań and co-financed by EU funds.

Our client: established founders of several brands, e.g. therapeutic blankets and equipment for children.

Team: 4 professional designers with experience in industrial and furniture design, wood technology engineer.

My contribution: writing research scenarios, preparing research tools, researching user needs, preparing conclusions and design recommendations, presenting results to the client, concept design of a new furniture collection, prototyping, testing, product development, technical documentation.

Research process

👉🏼 We planned the research process after meeting with stakeholders**. I supported my team members with knowledge of planning tools and principles for writing research scenarios and surveys.**

👉🏼 We recruited our participants through Montessori oriented Facebook groups as our respondent group was really specified and easy to reach through social media. We also targeted our survey to our client's current clients.

👉🏼 We collected research materials. I conducted IDI with teachers several times, visited family and Montessori school for contextual ethnographic studies. I was also responsible for collecting and summarising quantitative data from an online Google Form survey.

👉🏼 We analysed the data. We used transcripts of interviews to look for key conclusions. I was working with another team member to manually tag and create clusters of common findings. Later we combined our findings with photographic material from schools and homes and confronted them with market research.

👉🏼 In a group session, we prioritised the products. At this moment of analysing our research material, we decided to involve our client in the process.

👉🏼We summarised and wrote the report. We summarised all the important findings in a short presentation and presented it to the client. My task was to present statistical data from the quantitative research and, above all, to report on our findings among schools and teachers.

research phase in the design process

Research tools and questions

👂🏼IDI

I ran 4 out of 10 online sessions with Montessori teachers (5) and school founders (5). We conducted semi-structured remote interviews to understand: :

• Priorities and rules in building a Montessori classroom
• Users' needs and pain points.
• The biggest challenges when buying equipment
• Characteristic functionalities for a Montessori furniture
• The way of working with the Montessori method
• The general idea behind the Montessori method; the principles followed by teachers

💬 Online surveys

We carried out questionnaires with parents (155). With another team member, I prepared a survey in Google Forms. We have posted our study in parent groups and sent it to current customers of our client to gain data about:

• Living conditions
• Purchasing decision path
• Functionality at home
• Priorities when shopping
• Level of interest in the Montessori method
• Level of understanding of the Montessori method
• Budget spent on the children's room