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Product Design: Plan Your Search

A guide for Product Design students on finding & referencing high-quality academic books, articles, standards & images, as well as resource suggestions for improving design skills (e.g. CAD, UX, Adobe CS) and sources of design inspiration.

Why plan your search? 

 

At university you are expected to find and use scholarly information:

  • in your assignments
  • to prepare for class
  • to explore new theories and ideas

However, to find scholarly information you need to search in a particular way to get good results.

Use this page to learn how to plan your search and find the best scholarly information sources to use. 

Step 1: Identify your key concepts

 

Before you find any information, identify the main ideas (or key concepts) in your assignment question or research topic

Example:

How have everyday products evolved since the internet was invented?

The key concepts are: 

Everyday products Evolved Internet

Step 2: Brainstorm keywords & synonyms

 

Different words can be used to describe the same concept.

Think of other words that could be used to describe your key concepts. Synonyms and related terms should also be included. 

Example:

Everyday products Evolved Internet

Daily tools

Products

Mobile phone

Changed

Developed

Improved

World Wide Web

Web

 

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Tips: 

Some resources to help with brainstorming: 

  • Google & Wikipedia
  • Dictionaries & Thesauri
  • Reference books & Encyclopedias

Step 3: Build your search

 

Boolean Operators are a way of telling a database or search engine how to do your search. Watch the video to learn how.


Use Boolean Operators to combine your keywords & synonyms into a search. You can build multiple searches using different synonyms & keywords.

Example: 

Use OR to combine synonyms & similar words:

Key Concept Keywords & Synonyms Search
Internet

World Wide Web

Web

(Internet OR World Wide Web OR Web)

Use AND to combine your key concepts together: 

(Internet OR World Wide Web OR Web) AND Evolved AND Products

Step 4: Start searching

 

You will need to find different types of information during your studies. These may include: 

  • Books & book chapters
  • Journal articles
  • Newspaper articles
  • Standards & statistics
  • Reports

The type of information you are looking for will determine where you search, and how you search. 

Using the steps above will help you find most of these information types, but there are also other places to look.

Explore this study guide or ask a librarian to discover more. 

Step 5: Review your results

 

Not all the information you get from a search will be useful. A successful search will show results relevant to your topic. If your results are not relevant go back and try different keywords in your search.

Find relevant results by checking the: 


Even if your information is relevant, it might not be good quality. Check if it passes the C.R.A.P. Test before you use it.