Before being engaged on innovation in 3-ring binders, qualitative surveys had found that the snap of the three rings was not a problem for users and we were directed to look for innovation elsewhere.

But pursuing contextual observation as our design research method we spent time in libraries, copier stores and around universities / colleges. Such natural observations of binders in use quickly led us to challenge the qualitative finding – much of what we observed showed that people readily avoided opening and closing binders, even when it made manipulation of the papers harder.