Finding out: tools and techniques

Data Gathering: Finding out (approx 25 minutes)

You have a set of focus questions so it's time to explore the options available for data gathering. This is a central part of the identifying needs and establishing requirements activities of Interaction design and also of evaluation.

What techniques?:

You have seen that IDEO, a leading design company, organises techniques for finding out about people into four categories: Look; Learn, Ask &Try. Most IxD texts highlight three main processes: observation; interviews and questionnaires.

• How do IDEO's processes relate to three techniques identified?
  

  

  IDEO’s Look translates to Observation techniques
  Ask – could be either Interviews or questionnaires
  Try – is more about the designer
  Learn is about analysing data to make sense of it –representing it in ways that makes sense for others.

Observations, Interviews, Questionnaires

• Decide in your group – who is interested in what technique
• 
  Use the resources provided to understand how each technique can be used to find out more about your users.
  • As you read the technique of your choice, note how you could apply this to your ePortfolio project
  • Some case studies are provided to help you understand how the technique is used in practice
• Combining techniques: Preece, Rogers and Sharp, (2007) note that it usual to combine data gathering techniques in order to ensure your findings are reliable.   Decisions about what techniques to use should be influenced by:
  • The focus of the study: the techniques chosen need to be compatible with the goal of the study
  • The participants involved: the characteristics of the target user group for the product will affect the kind of data gathering technique used – eg children, as will their location and accessibility and motivation to participate.
  • Nature of the technique: does the technique require specials equipment or training
  • Available resources: time, money, available staff skills and expertise.
  
  • Your text (2007, p.343- 344) provides a useful table for considering techniques to use.
• Share your information on finding out about users. You will need to use at least ONE technique to find out about your ePortfolio users.

Data analysis: Sense Making (approx 40 minutes)

At the end of any research period, there will be an unstructured mass of data: in notes, in pictures, in people’s heads/.  All this data is useless (and perhaps worse than useless: overwhelming and confusing) unless it is distilled into information that the designer can use.  Shape and meaning must be given to the data( Saffer, 2006).

Data will need to be clustered  in meaningful ways to give it form, so it can be thought about, or as Moggridge (2007) notes – so we can learn from it.

Sense making activities

according to Jones and Marsden,(2006) help you filter the data you have into something more useful. They include:

• transcribing making sense of written, audio or video notes. Your text also provides some useful advice for these first steps.
• categorising and organising – technology is often helpful here but sticky notes can also be used
• reflecting and interpreting: explain what you saw/ found out in terms of the people, context and activities
• make consumable – learnings and interpretations of the data need to be communicated to a particular audience for a specific purpose. You will need to decide what works best in each situation

Quantitative or qualitative?

Data gathering using questionnaires, interviews and observations can result in data that is quantitative

( in the form of numbers or easily translated into numbers) or qualitative ( data that cannot be sensibly measured, counted or expressed in numerical form).

How do you need to organise your data?

• 

  Use your text or the PowerPoint to work out whether you need to do:
  • a simple quantitative analysis (using averages and/or percentages), or
  • a simple qualitative (using patterns & themes analysis; data categorisation and critical incident identification; or
  • both
• What approach will be relevant for organising data you collect when finding out about your users?

Analysis perspectives:

(Jones and Marsden (2006) suggest that theoretical frameworks impact on the way data your will be represented. Both cognition and sociology have provided frameworks that are successfully used in interaction design:

• Distributed cognition is often useful in making explicit the complexity of tasks that can often be assumed to be simple
• Grounded theory (from Sociology) is useful in interaction design to answer specific questions and design concerns
• Activity theory (from Sociology) is especially useful for identifying tensions in a workplace leading to specific needs for new technological tools. Requires expertise and time to use

• 

  View the PowerPoint overview to see if these frameworks will

  

  be useful to you in your user study.
  • If there are any that you think are particularly useful, follow up with the reading available in your text.

Making findings consumable (approx 40 minutes)

Your audience and purpose should be the first consideration for deciding how to present your findings.

• Your text identifies two different approaches:
  • Rigorous notation: eg Task workflows; UML;
  • Story telling eg represented in the form of personas or scenarios
• 
  Initially review the approaches using the PowerPoint provided
• Think about the information you are likely to collect about your users.
  • Which representation is likely to be more useful
  • Which will communicate with a wider proportion of your stakeholders
  • Which will be the most useful for the developers to use
  • Which is likely to fit into an agile development process
• 
  Read your text for more detail on the most likely process you will use
• Make any adjustments to your research plan needed to carry out the process.

Your ePortfolio (as long as you can afford)

Now you should be ready to conduct some design research about your users.

• You should now have a research plan consisting of:
  • your focus questions (About People/ Who are your users)
  • likely participants (About People/ Research process)
  • data collection approach and tools for collecting the data (Tools and Techniques/Data Gathering)
  • a plan for analysing your data, and
  • some idea of how to communicate the data
• If you don't have a plan yet, use this template
• Publish your plan on your website
• Find out about your users
• Communicate your findings on your website using either a story telling or rigorous notation approach