Literature Review

Guidance on how to write a literature review that introduces critical components of a design research topic.

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A literature review explains concepts that relate to your research project. As a design researcher, your job is to select sources (news stories, books, journal articles, movies, etc.) that help you build a relevant research project. These sources help you determine what methods you should implement to get the data you need to answer your research question. The content in your literature review is a foundation for the rest of your project. It demonstrates that you have searched the universe to learn as much as possible about your topic and that you have built your project on evidence.

Literature reviews don’t just report facts—they make a case for why the content you selected is essential for the research. Perhaps you feel that scenes from classic movies like Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon, and Holiday Inn reveal insights that inform your project. That’s great! Use the literature review to explain why they belong and what they reveal. You select the sources for the literature review, which means the content you feature is a stance that these concepts matter. Use the literature to justify your project.

In this piece, highlight conclusions that have been established and areas that have not been addressed. If contradictory content is found, address it in the literature review. Review the theoretical framework for your project in the literature review and discuss how it connects to the research project. The literature review should contextualize why the research question(s) is/are being asked in the first place.

Often, a literature review follows this format:

Introduction
Conceptual or Theoretical Framework
Review of Research (organized by themes)
Conclusion

What do you put in a Literature Review?

In their book A student’s guide to methodology: justifying enquiry, Clough and Nutbrown (2002) present the idea that the research question is the place to start when writing a literature review. They claim that the research question contains many of the parts of a literature review. Let’s see that in action.

Here’s a question developed in 2019 by xdMFA students Ashley Lippard and Vanessa Cannon.

What values motivate a female millennial when choosing between a disposable or reusable coffee cup while inside a coffee shop?

When we take this question apart, concepts for the literature review emerge—concepts we would need to research and write about. Let’s take a look at that breakdown:

Values: What are they? Where do they come from? How do they affect behavior?
Motivation: What is it? What are the different ways people are motivated? What prevents or encourages motivation? Historically, what has motivated this age group?
Female Millennials: Who are they and what defines this culture? How do they behave? What decisions do they typically make? What are their values?
Choice: What does choosing something over another thing entail? What affects choices in this scenario? What choices are available to these people? How empowered do they feel to choose for themselves?
Disposable and reusable coffee cups: What are they and how did they come into being? What prompted businesses to offer these options? What are the physical features of these products? How and where are they made? How are they branded? What are the perceptions of these products?
Coffee Shop: What are the different types of coffee shops? What do they mean to different people? What is acceptable behavior inside one? How do they function?

In just one research question, we isolated six different significant concepts. If you wanted to, you could write at least five or six pages about each of these concepts. The literature review would be 30-40 pages long! More importantly, your literature review would be a thorough overview of critical concepts for those unfamiliar with your topic.

Insights for Writing A Design Research Literature Review

Design and design research always involves three components: context, people, and design. I discuss these in the Experience Design Framework I’ve developed. Any scene involving design happens in a context (a place and time); it involves people (users/communities who use design to complete activities), and these people use or are impacted by human-made products, services, and systems. If you’re writing a design research literature review, some prompts may help you structure your writing.

Context: Where Does Your Topic Take Place?

What are the places, environments, and organizations surrounding the topic? Are factors like social norms, weather, or local laws essential to discuss? What unchangeable matters are part of these contexts? Are there multiple contexts where this topic takes place? How are these locations related to one another, and how do they support people and maybe cause problems for them in relation to this topic?

People: What Is Their Makeup and What Are Their Concerns?

Who does this topic impact? What obstacles do they face? What do the people experience when “growing up” (their development)? What mindsets do they hold? What are their goals, and what influences them? Their physical makeup may be helpful in describing if physical makeup (eyesight, age, sex, race) is a factor in their experience with this topic. Share about their relationships, including work relationships. Address the people’s “self” (physical, mental, cultural) and “social” (connections with others, social class, and other factors about connections with others).

Design: What products, services, and systems are involved in this topic?

A literature review often needs to address systems—these can impact people’s choices, how designed services operate, and attitudes. Systems frequently reveal barriers and pathways within which people must operate. As design research, this literature review should explore existing design and how it impacts the topic. Explain the history of a product and how its development contributed to your topic. Describe a service’s makeup, including its operation and relevant parties that decide how it works.

Using the above components as a starting point, you’ll cover significant topics about usage, design impact, and communities they impact.

Step-by-Step: an Applied Example

Many early-career students fall into the trap of writing an annotated bibliography or a book report, thinking it’s a literature review. It’s not. Please don’t do that.

The literature review does not summarize your sources—it tells your story in your own words. You write about concepts relevant to the research and the sources you found to support your statements. Yes, sometimes you may call out a specific source, quoting it directly, but almost all of your literature review should be in your own words. When you write a sentence from another’s work, cite it.

The lit review should look like an Easter egg hunt: a field of grass, trees, and shrubs you planted and arranged, with a sprinkling of colorful citations within reach, ready to open.

Let’s use the example above to plan out a complete literature review. The language I use below is very conversational, just to point you in the right direction. It is not comprehensive or complete, but it should give you an idea of what you should write in the literature review. Please do not submit a lit review that reads exactly like what I have written below.

Now that’s out of the way, here’s the research question again.

What values motivate a female millennial when choosing between a disposable or reusable coffee cup while inside a coffee shop?

Lit Review Section 1: Introduction

Coffee shops are really popular in the United States and have seen a surge between 1990 and 2020 (citation). A lot of people go there. Popular shows, movies, show people hanging out in coffee shops a lot as if they are a cool place to be. Local and international-chain coffee shops permeate western culture and millennials go there a ton. It’s a place they hang out—not just for coffee, but as a Thirdspace (citation). Coffee shops are prevalent and are used daily by millions, which can lead to a great deal of paper and plastic waste in the form of disposable cups. When people buy coffee at a coffee shop, they have a choice to use a disposable cup provided by the store or to bring their own reusable cup. Both options have their own upsides and downsides—often driven by customers’ personal preferences and values but sometimes affected by how cool they want to look.