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= **Introduction** = = = Welcome, this Wiki has been designed to help Chinese students to understand the language of design methods and thinking. The site contains a text that places words that are not used in everyday language in a context that is relevant to the study of of the subject. These words are hyper linked to an English definition, hanzi and pinyin to aid understanding. We hope that students, language interpreters, and staff will contribute words, images and video to the site to build up an extensive collection of understanding of design language for Chinese students. Please feel fee to mail comments and suggestions to the site.

Thank you
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Audio introduction (English)

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Audio introduction (Chinese)

Topic 1 - Research
Designers engage in **research** in order to discover and meet the needs of the consumer. When we are looking to create design **innovation** in either existing or new **consumer** product areas we can use **ethnography** as a **research** method to study how people **interact** with their **environment** and other people. Our observations are recorded, **collated**, **interpreted** and **disseminated** later. The results of our study (we hope) will allow us to fulfill people’s needs. In social science these studies can take many months or years, in design the time scale is usually far less giving rise to the term **rapid ethnography.**