Before moving forward, it's a good idea to clearly define the question to be answered or the problem to be solved. This defines your scope and helps keep you track in your research.
Possible questions to consider:
- What is the problem here?
- Why is it worth investigating and learning about?
- What opportunities exist within this problem?
- Have others tried to solve this problem?
- What is the scope of the problem? Are there other issues connected to this?
- What are the limitations of the problem?
List quoted from Botti-Salitsky, R. (2017). Programming & research : Skills and techniques for interior designers (Second ed.).