User Research 2

1. User Research 2 HCDE 518 Winter 2010 With credit to Jake Wobbrock, Dave Hendry, Andy Ko, Jennifer Turns, & Mark Zachry

2. Agenda • Announcements, Hand in assignments • Sketching Critiques • Lecture – Interviews • Design Activity • Break – 10 mins • Lecture – Questionnaires • Design Activity • Lecture – Observation (direct & indirect) • Design Activity • Break – 10 mins • Readings Discussion – Two Case Studies • Next Class • Group Project Work Time

3. Announcements • R2 returned today • A1 returned today • Reminder to talk to me about team project if needed

4. Reflection 2 • Nice work! • Similarities • Focus on users • Focus on context of use • Differences • Level of specificity • Differing relationship and degree of influence • Appropriateness • All can be appropriate depending on the design problem • Likely inappropriate to do just one technique alone • Look for techniques that complement each other

5. Assignment 1 • Very interesting descriptions of what you love and hate • Many insightful design principles • Avg. score: 18.8 • Common problems: • Not explaining why an interaction was successful or not • Not defining your design principles • Not applying design principles to your loved/hated things

6. A1 – Some of Your Design Principles • Improve situation • Accessible • Aesthetic • Sustainable • Useful • Intelligent defaults • Safe • Efficient • Consistency • Error mitigation • Expectation fulfillment • Avoid errors • Comfortable • Feedback • Understandable • Learnable • Flexible/Customizable • Simple

7. A1 – Things you love and hate

8. Sketching Critiques – Sports & Recreation • Break into groups of about 4 people • Take turns showing off and explaining your 3 sketches with each other • Each critic should offer advice and feedback about the idea • Strengths, Weaknesses, Originality, Feasibility • Sketcher: take notes about what feedback was offered • Critic: be critical, but constructive and courteous! • Each critic should sign the page after the sketches and date it with today’s date

9. lecture – User Research 2

10. User Research – Data Gathering • Recording techniques • Triangulation • Interviews • Questionnaires • Observations • Direct vs. Indirect

11. Triangulation • All user research techniques havetheir own limitations • Use multiple techniques to fully understand a design process • Choose techniques that accountfor the weaknesses of each other • Choose techniques to cover both a breadth and depth of the user experience Key Concept

12. Triangulation • What are some complementary techniques you might use to account for the weaknesses of each other? • What are some techniques that cover both breadth and depth when combined?

13. Data Recording Approaches • Notes • Notes + still camera • Notes + Audio • Notes + Audio + still camera • Video What are the advantages and disadvantages to each of these?

14. Interviews Purpose: Collect detailed information about tasks, activities, technologies Suitable for relatively small number of people (5 – 30) - Shoot for ~12 to reach data saturation

15. Interviews • UnstructuredBroad questions concerning some general area • StructuredNarrow questions concerning specific area • Semi-structuredBalance between broad/narrow questions • Focus groupsGroup discussion around a topic

16. Creating an Interview Guide • Who do you need to interview and why? • Demographic questions • Open questions • Closed questions • Activities • Sketching • Demonstrations • Reliability and validity • Be careful about leading questions

17. Running an Interview 0. Recruitment • Introduction • Warm up session • Main session • Cool-off period • Closing session

18. Design Activity: Devising an Interview Plan – 10 minutes Scenario: You’ve been asked to gather information on the design of a patient education system for hospital/doctor's office waiting rooms You’ve decided to conduct some interviews and to collect data with questionnaires. Propose a plan answering these questions: • What is the goal of the interview? • Who do you need to interview? How many? • What kinds of questions/activities? • List a few specific questions

19. Break – 10 minutes

20. Questionnaires • Purpose: Deepen understanding by collecting information from a broad range of people • Suitable for large number of people • 20 – 1,000

21. Questionnaires • Be clear on the goal • Open and closed questions • Rating scales (e.g. Likert) • Be sure to pilot your questionnaire and expect to iterate 3-4 times • Online or on paper?

22. Design Activity: Devising Questions for Questionnaires – 10 minutes Scenario: You are designing a new video sharing system and would like to determine how people share videos online and what features they find useful and not useful • Propose three questions (at least 1 open and 1 closed) • Discuss ideas for distribution & recruitment techniques, paper vs. online, etc.

23. Observations in the Field • Helps you understand people’s context, task, activities, goals • What people do is different than what people say they do • People are notoriously poor and describing their work

24. What to Pay Attention To Key features Questions How is the physical space adapted to the job? What are the key constraints on the job? Where are strategic decisions made? Where are tactical decisions made? • Space • Actors • Activities • Objects / workarounds • Acts • Events / triggers • Time • Goals • Feelings

25. Examples • What might you observe about each case? • Is observation appropriate? • A nurse as she treats patients in a hospital • A teacher while he is teaching a classroom full of kindergartners • A team of emergency medical technicians working on a case • A writer working on a book

26. Laboratory Studies • Useful for studying and recording the details of how people perform: • Goals • Tasks • Action sequences • Disadvantages: Not the user’s natural environment, missing context • Better for doing tests of prototypes

27. Example

28. Indirect Observations • Diary studies • Beeper/Pager studies • Interaction logs

29. Diary Studies • Have users carry a diary with them to answer specific questions about activities throughout the day

30. Example • PAL diary study • Fits in one’s pocket • Record when PAL is desirable

31. Beeper/Pager Studies • Have users carry around a device that has them answer questions at given intervals • Cell phone, PDA, Pager • Example: page user once every 3 hours and ask them to fill out a short survey on their current activity and rate sleepiness level on a scale from 1 to 7

32. Diary vs. Beeper Studies • Both can collect similar types of information • Diary is less intrusive • Beeper can be more reliable at getting regular data • User is less likely to forget

33. Interaction Logs / Usage Logs • Use software to automatically log interactions with a system • e.g., number of clicks, time spent on task, etc. • e.g., pages visited within a site: Google Analytics • Can also be used on other platforms using interesting sensors to sense context of use • Example: Logging steps with a pedometer

34. Example • Using Bluetooth tags to track people’s distance from their cell phones • Intent: Inform design of “always on” ubiquitous computing applications

35. Design Exercise: Improving Picture Messaging – 5 minutes Suppose you wanted to improve the picture messaging feature on a mobile phone. Describe TWO different kinds of indirect observational approaches that might be useful.

36. Summary: Consider study needs and purposes, pros/cons of methods Interviews Focus groups Questionnaires Direct observation in the field Direct observation in the lab Indirect observation What types of recording techniques?

37. Discussion: Your projects • What methods are you considering for your project? • How do they cover both breadth and depth? • How do they complement one another?

38. Break – 10 minutes

39. Readings Discussion • Preece, J., Rogers, Y., Sharp, H. (2002) Data Gathering. In Ch. 7 of Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. Wiley. 2nd Edition. pp. 290-352. • Huang, E.M. and Truong, K.N. (2008). Breaking the disposable technology paradigm: opportunities for sustainable interaction design for mobile phones. CHI '08. pp. 323-332. • Tee, K., Brush, A.J.B., and Inkpen, K.M. (2009) Exploring communication and sharing between extended families. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 67,2, pp. 128-138.

40. Case Studies • Huang & Truong • Questionnaire and Interviews • Focus on understanding how and why people dispose of their old mobile phones • Identify design opportunities • Tee, Brush, & Inkpen • Interviews, family trees • Understand ways that families currently communicate • Identify design opportunities

41. Questions • What were your overall thoughts? • What did you like about the approach? • What would you have changed about the approach? • Why do you think they chose the approach they did?

42. Next Class • Tuesday, February 1st • Personas, Scenarios, & Storyboarding • Due Next Week • Reflection 4 • Sketching, Week 4 • Sketch 3 sketches relating to “Entertainment” • movies, music, video games, television, reading, museums, etc.

43. Group Project Meet Time