When presented with a design challenge or a trivia question, if plain old thinking doesn’t get me the answer my first reference is often Google. Type in the search query in a certain way, with or without quotation marks, and often I find the answer or inspiration that I am looking for. Image searches are used to research overused icons, Wikipedia to find facts. It’s become second nature to use the internet as a tool to find everything from recipes to maps and beyond, with the expected mental filter in place to sift through the junk, all without ever picking up a book or a library card.
Does this make the research less reliable? Does it cause an overall cheapening of the general intellect? Is it cheating if I look to Google for a little help on my crossword puzzle (even if I make a rule that I must find the answer in the preview blurb)?
It’s all about asking the right question at the right source. If the answer can be found quickly and correctly, why not do it the easy way? The days of buying an expensive set of encyclopedias to grace your bookshelf are over – in fact, they were over more than 10 years ago when encyclopedias started appearing in the form of CD-ROMs.
If something can be done correctly and quickly, why is quickly often seen as a negative? Practice makes perfect, and the more something is practiced the more quickly it can be performed. Humanity has been practicing information distribution since the invention of the written word. Research no longer has to be synonymous with time-consuming in order to be effective.
Comments in response to Cheryl Beckett’s article Research Lite: Design Research Made Easy (If Not Accurate) on aiga.org
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