I created designdex.org after noticing a recurring problem in design education and practice: students are constantly told that strong design must be grounded in research, but the research itself is difficult to find, fragmented and often inaccessible. A single design project can involve psychology, ergonomics, engineering, healthcare, sustainability, materials science and many other fields. The relevant evidence exists, but it is scattered across journals, databases and websites that were not designed for young designers.
This creates a second problem. Students increasingly turn to AI for answers before they have developed the ability to find, evaluate and interpret evidence themselves. AI can summarise research, but it can also remove the process of discovery and sometimes produce unreliable or fabricated citations.
I wanted to build something that supports research rather than replaces it. designdex.org creates a controlled discovery environment where credible studies from many disciplines can be explored in one place. The aim is to help students develop research literacy, encounter ideas they would not have known to search for, and make stronger evidence-based design decisions.
designdex.org functions as a research discovery platform designed around the way designers actually work. Instead of starting with a conventional academic database and expecting users to know the exact terminology or paper they need, users can explore research through a visual feed, search by topic, open individual studies and move between related ideas.
The platform brings together credible research from different disciplines and presents it in a format that is easier to navigate. A student researching an assistive product, for example, might begin by searching ergonomics and then discover relevant work in biomechanics, psychology, materials, accessibility or healthcare that they would not otherwise have encountered.
Users can save useful studies to a personal library and use AI-assisted features to understand complex research more efficiently. However, the original research remains central. The goal is not to generate an answer for the user, but to help them discover and understand the evidence behind their decisions.
In practice, designdex.org turns research from a linear search task into an exploratory process that is much closer to how design itself develops.
designdex.org has primarily been spreading organically rather than through paid advertising. I have focused on putting the platform directly in front of the communities most likely to benefit from it: students, designers, educators, researchers and early-stage product builders.
Growth has come through direct sharing, social media, design and startup communities, educational networks, online directories and word of mouth. I have also been building individual study pages and improving the site's search visibility so that someone researching a specific topic can discover designdex.org through the research itself rather than needing to already know the platform exists.
This is important to the growth model. The aim is for every useful piece of research indexed on designdex.org to become a potential entry point into the wider platform. A user may arrive looking for one study, then discover related research, save material and continue exploring.
I am also actively introducing the platform to educators and student communities because I believe adoption within classrooms and project-based learning environments could be one of its strongest long-term paths to growth.
designdex.org has changed substantially through iteration. The initial idea was primarily to create a searchable collection of useful design research. As I used the platform and gathered feedback, it became clear that search alone did not solve the deeper problem. Students often do not know what they should be searching for in the first place.
This led to a stronger focus on discovery. I added a research feed so users can encounter relevant studies organically, improved the way individual studies are presented, introduced saving and library functionality, and developed connections between topics so users can move through research rather than treating every search as an isolated task.
I have also increasingly focused the platform on research literacy. AI features are designed to make difficult research easier to understand without hiding the underlying source, and the interface encourages users to engage with credible evidence rather than simply accepting generated answers.
More recently, I have been improving mobile usability, search-engine discovery and the research ingestion system so the platform can continue expanding while remaining efficient, relevant and scalable.
The simplest way is to visit designdex.org and start exploring.
You do not need to know exactly what paper or academic terminology you are looking for. You can begin with a broad topic connected to a project, such as ergonomics, accessibility, sustainable materials, behaviour, healthcare, user experience or another area of design. Search for the topic or browse the research feed and open anything that looks relevant.
From there, follow the research. Explore related studies, move between disciplines and save useful sources to your library. The platform is particularly useful at the beginning of a project, when you are still defining the problem and may not yet know which areas of research will become important.
I would encourage students to use designdex.org before asking AI to generate research for them. Use it to discover credible evidence first, understand where ideas come from, and then use AI as a tool for interpretation rather than as a substitute for research.
The platform can be accessed directly at designdex.org and is designed so that someone can begin researching immediately.
