torsdag 10 september 2015

Notes for seminar 1, Vincent Wong

In interaction design there are three main methods of data gathering: interviews, questionnaires and observation.

1. Interviews: As the name suggest, an interview where the purpose is to ask a series of question to collect data. There are mainly four types of interviews: open-ended or unstructered, structured, semi-structured and group interviews, but we are not going in depth of these four methods now.

2. Questionnaires: Just like interviews a questionnaires purpose is to ask a series of question to colllect data for improvment of for example a problem. However unlike interviews, questionnaires is usually distributed to a larger number of participants since it does not requiere the participant to be at a specific location and time.This is due to the fact that questionnaires are mainly in a digital form, where the participants answers through computer/tablet or cellphone.

3. Observations: A very efficient method of collecting data, since the designers observes the users interacting with what should be improved.

Apart from these three methods of gathering data there is also five key issuses(We will go through them briefly below) to be considered: Goal setting, identifying participants, relationship with participant, triangulation and pilot studies.
1. Setting goals: what is the goal of this research?
2. Identifying participants: Once a clear goal is set, the indentifying of participants should fall through.
3.relationship with participants: Make sure the relationship between the participants is professional, one way of doing this could be to ask the participant to sign some sort of paper.
4.Triangulation: To put it simple, triangulation is basically a method where the data is drawn from different sources at different times, places or from different people.
5. Pilot studies: Pilot study is a small trial run of the main study, to ensure the viability of the method before the real study.

And of course these methods are all useless without the proper way of recording data: video, sound, notes and pictures. These four methods could also be combined and form another type of dimension.

So there is really no wrong or right way of carrying out data gathering, the method used should always be considered and appropriate depending on the situation and environment for example. Some information may not be of use in the same extent as other informations, which brings us to chapter eight were the processing of data gathered matters. This chapter describes different ways of analyzing data gathered, the result is either qualitative or quantitative. Qualitative data analysis is data that is not expressed in numbers, but more in a formal way, such as quotes and pictures. Whereas quantitative data is information converted into digits and presented as graphs. Much like data gathering both method of data analysis has their pros and cons.

 As for chapter ten, the chapter talks about the reason behind the studies. Why are we doing it? What is the motive/reasons behind it? What is the context of use? Well, obviously the main reason why we as people always does studies is mainly to improve or create.

Question
How and when do you know that a studies of human computer interaction is needed if the product/service is already good and easy to understand?


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