Exercise: Experiment with a research method

Exercise: Experiment with a research method

Materials:
Copies of the research method protocol template. Use the template to structure your experiment with one or more of the research protocols based on the cards from IDEO.

Choose at least one protocol, but even better if you try more than one, if you have the interest or time available.
Context:
Identify an object or context for field work. Possible examples include:

• Stairs
• Doorways
• Queuing in a café
• Anywhere with a queue
• Parcel drop services
• Anything with a touchscreen
• UCD directional maps online and on-campus
• Dublin Bus website 
• ATM machine 
• Train/LUAs ticketing 
• Supermarket Self-service checkout machines 
• Copier machines at the Copi-Print system 
• UCard Top-up 
• Printer
• Kindle or other E-reader 
• Brightspace (from student’s perspective) 
• Alarm System 
• Airport Self-service Checkin 
• Tesco’s Online Shopping website 
• UCD Library catalogue 

Time:
Schedule field study observations over several days.

Instructions:

1. Write your name and the research context on the form
2. Investigate and propose your own version of the procedure for the research method assigned to you. Base this procedure on readings or your own creative extrapolation of the description on the IDEO methods card.
3. Conduct a trial run of the procedure on yourself first, then involve another willing participant, and another...
4. Make hand-written notes, photos and recordings for later analysis.
5. Keep a record of evidence gathered.
6. Make an archive of data/records (paper sketches and notes, digital folder, website).
7. Present your findings and analysis at the next class.

Evaluation:

In class discussion of findings. 

Questions to ask:

1. Did you write the method protocol (recipe/steps)?

2. Did you identify a method reference (source literature/inspiration)?

3. Have provided a sample/example of data you gathered?

4. Did you try to analyse or interpret the data? (may need to apply some tool or technique)

5. What was learnt from it all? Did I learn anything? Can you decide if the method is feasible, practical, suitable for your project?

Research Protocols

Names and descriptions for the IDEO Method Cards (IDEO, 2003)
Ideo (2003) IDEO Method Cards: 51 Ways to Inspire Design. William Stout.

LEARN

Research Method	Description
Activity Analysis	A description of project relevant dynamics: actions, interactions, tasks, and objects of achieving goals.
Affinity Diagrams	Represent or diagram clustering of design elements with activities, goals, obstacles. Proximity, dependence and relationships
Anthropometric Analysis	Human factors or ergonomics to assess project relevant use factors.
Character Profiles	Personas. Archetypes of real people with real goals, lifestyle, behaviour, identities.
Cognitive Task Analysis	List, summary of all available sensory inputs decision points and actions.
Competitive Product Survey	Collect, compare, and conduct evaluations of extant and competitive products.
Cross-Cultural Comparisons	Personal accounts of differences in situations, behaviour and artefacts in different national or cultural settings.
Error Analysis	Capturing the things that actually go wrong in the project relevant setting.
Flow Analysis	The flow of information in existing and/or new system.
Historical Analysis	Identify trends and cycles of product use, customer behaviour, market, and practice. Relate to timeless goals
Long-Range Forecasts	Narratives of future scenarios complete with social and technological trends to predict behaviours.
Secondary Research	Summary analysis of existing sources and 3rd party data on project relevant areas.

LOOK

Research Method	Description
A Day in the Life	Catalogue a person’s whole day without necessarily focusing on project relevant aspects.
Behavioural Archaeology	Look at use, wear, the detailed arrangement or organisation of use objects in their use setting.
Behavioural Mapping	Map position, movement, and use of space over time.
Fly on the Wall	Observe in context without interfering.
Guided Tours	Ask the user to guide you through project relevant spaces and activities.
Personal Inventory	Ask the user to reflect on and describe the things they view as important or significant
Rapid Ethnography	Participate and experience it first-hand with the user for as long as possible.
Shadowing	Tag-along with people through the day.
Social Network Mapping	Notice the relationships between people, groups. Look for identity, profession, culture, and connections.
Still Photo Survey	Build up a visual record of key use and interaction moments over time.
Time-Lapse Video	A way of summarising activity over time, use of time, space, and location.

ASK

Research Method	Description
Camera Journal	A written and visual diary of project relevant circumstances and activities.
Card Sort	Organise cards spatially in ways that make sense. To expose mental models of device or system.
Cognitive Maps	Create a map of an existing or virtual space. The pathways they know and navigate, mental models.
Collage	Self created collage of arranged images. Used to help verbalise complex or unvocalised themes.
Conceptual Landscape	Sketch and juxtapose social and behavioural constructs from participants. People’s mental model.
Cultural Probes	A visual journal for participants to build up themselves. A self generated reflection. Gathered and compared across many participants.
Draw the Experience	Ask participants to visualise and draw the experience in their own way, with their own associations, order, relationships, theories.
Extreme User Interviews	Evaluate (ask) users at extreme ends of market (early adopters, power users, beginners) to highlight their issues.
Five Whys?	Ask “why?” in response to five consecutive answers. Expose/uncover deeper attitudes perceptions.
Foreign Correspondents	Elicit inputs from others (snowball sample) to build up varied cultural and environmental contexts.
Narration	Users perform tasks and achieve goals while describing aloud. Talk aloud protocol. Stream of consciousness.
Surveys & Questionnaires	Targeted questions to assess design, usage, interaction characterises and perceptions of users.
Unfocus Group	Gather a range of tools or materials and get diverse user group to create things relevant to the design or project.
Word-Concept Association	Users associate words with design. Cluster user perceptions to evaluate design features & concepts. Value and priority.

TRY

Research Method	Description
Behaviour Sampling	Snapshot people’s activities at different times. How do pervasive products intrude in your lives?
Be Your Customer	What is it like to purchase your product? Actual experience of searching, buying, consuming, disposing.
Bodystorming	Act out scenarios with many people, using space, place, sequence, queues, etc. Test performance in context.
Empathy Tools	Experience the range of users capability for involvement under real conditions.
Experience Prototype	Mock up a rough but workable prototype to simulate the experience of using the new product.
Informance	Act out scenarios observed in the field to interpret and analyse in the lab. Builds shared understanding and good for solution formation.
Paper Prototyping	Rapid paper based mock-ups that are manipulated to demonstrate functionality. To articulate design concepts with users.
Predict Next Year’s Headlines	Involve users in future design possibilities. Futuristic, wishing, unmet needs. Help separate what is needed now from what can wait.
Quick-and-Dirty Prototyping	Assemble a very rough mock-up of a new feature or product to help start and refine a design.
Role-Playing	Identify actors/stakeholders involved in design use, enact real activities in real or imagined context.
Scale Modelling	Simulation technique to test arrangements of space, place, context.
Scenarios	A character-rich story, to communicate (simulate) and test a plausible story in probable context.
Scenario Testing	Show depictions of possible future scenarios. Share reactions, refine concepts.
Try it Yourself	Like Microsoft’s famous ‘eating our own dog food’ being the first user.