Making
design research documentaries

Design documentaries are a tool to create insights in people’s everyday lives and provide knowledge and inspiration to design and innovation teams. Here you can learn how to make and use them.

This is a great example of what a Design Documentary may look like: A short film of 2-3 minutes that tells one story of one person, showing what they do and hearing why in their own words.

Reality

Design Documentaries are like reality: not the same but similar. It is a great way to capture the everyday practices and people's motives we want to understand in design research.

Language

Design Documentaries are like a language: we shape image and sound to tell stories through film. It is not very different from design, which also uses visual languages to convey meaning.

Conversation

Design Documentaries are like conversations: between us design researchers, research participants and design and innovation teams. Making and seeing a film is a dialogue.

Checkout the menu to find out how to make and use Design Documentaries yourself, and see some examples. Enjoy!