Digital World Research Centre (DWRC) aims to develop and apply a process of user-centred innovation in digital technology for the consumer market, based on the interplay of user, design, business and technology research.  We also strive to apply technology for social benefit through various forms of inclusive research and design.

Background

DWRC was established in 1998 as a multi-disciplinary research centre in the School of Human Sciences at the University of Surrey. It now resides within the new Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences. Research projects are funded from research councils such as the EPSRC, ESRC and EU, and from companies such as Vodafone, Microsoft, Kodak, British Telecom, Orange and Fujitsu.  Early work concentrated on understanding the social impact of new technology, while current work is focussed on identifying and satisfying user requirements for innovation.

Approach

DWRC sees user-centred innovation as a non-linear process. We believe that successful innovation requires a four pronged approach:

• User research: what user need or desire will be met?
• Design research: is this an attractive, workable solution?
• Business research: is it economically viable?
• Technology research: how can it be achieved using existing or novel technologies?

To do this, we act as a catalyst for bringing together a range of disciplines from within the Faculty, the  University and beyond. Our particular contribution is in field-based user and design research in which we conduct ethnographic enquiries to inspire design. However, we like to work closely with product designers, business analysts and engineers to realise and test new technology prototypes in larger teams. For this reason, our staff come from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, and often combine more than one discipline in their own research practice. These include sociology, anthropology, psychology, interaction design/HCI, media design, computer science and communications.

Three Consumer Research Themes

DWRC is focussing on three overlapping areas of consumer research.

• Future photography: new ways to capture, archive and share memories in the future. This theme will be of interest to the imaging and printing industry.
• Future literacy: new ways to read and write in a variety of media, modalities and genres in the future. This theme will be of interest to the media publishing and broadcasting industries.
• Future communication: new ways for people to interact both with each other and with the designed environment in the future. This theme will be of interest to the computing and telecommunications industries.

Novel research approaches and contexts

Rather than following prescribed research methodologies, we tend to creatively combine a number of methods for the research questions at hand, interpolating between them to get the best answers. This also applies to the user groups and contexts in which we work. These are often atypical of mainstream groups and contexts for consumer products, as in our ICT for development work examining the use of mobile phones in rural India.