Data gathering phase seems to be ended, now I have to analyse them and look at them from specific angle that can make a contribution to the audience of design-researchers. 65 people (thank you very much again!) participated in my online experiment, which was continued by 6 skype video and 7 face-to-face interviews. Aim of interviews was to get into more details of the stories that participants have written, and to give chance for participants to try out PictureQuest in face-to-face situation. When participants have tried PictureQuest both online and face-to-face, they were asked to compare their experience between both situations.
There are definetly differences between user responses communicated with or without computer mediation. Synchronity in user communication plays a significant role as well, for instance, people have said that when they are online, they can better reflect on the task, while being in face-to-face situations seems to be more fun.
I will continue with analysing user responses from online experiment and interviews.
This is the next step of my interaction research project. Due to practical reasons, the topic of research was changed. Now it is aimed at games as I am involved in making two games (board game, interactive&electronic game), and data from research could support them.
There is a need to look on data in more depth and from different angles, and that will be done in nearest time (we have only 20+ until deadline after which no more data allowed). Meanwhile, we were given a very important lecture by Ben on how important it is to pick and speak about concepts wisely (Blumer, H. (1954). What is wrong with social theory? American Sociological Review, 19(1), 3-10. & Wittgenstein, L. (1958). Philosophical investigations (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.).
We have set a date (November) for the workshop where we are going to generate ideas on our board game.
While today we had electronics refreshment class, where we made quick and dirty prototype for measuring on which feet you are holding weight. Or, your can as well think of this prototype as a gameof competing who’s got the strongest pressure with feet.
We have got an inspiration for extertion game with feet from our Movement workshops with Sietske Klooster.
First step of my Interaction research project is a development of online Picture Quest version which is already available at http://experiment.fifix.net, where I ask people to share stories about their experience with playing games. Their stories shall be used as inspiration for concept of the board game or electronic exertion game that we are making for User Experience Design course.
I have made a prototype of online tool, tested for bugs, design issues and meaning on people to see if it works properly, and what kind of possible answers I could get. Initial task for participants was to tell what “solar energy and smartphones” mean to them, as I was planning to design an application for smartphones in field of solar energy. I wanted to support people in telling stories by providing them with opportunity to drag pictures in a comment, that, as I beleived, would provoke thoughts.
After testing session, it appeared that people have difficulties in connecting “solar energy” and “smartphone” concepts. Besides, I was not able to work on smartphone application project any more. I had to change a task to something simpler, that everybody can understand and related to. Besides, I wanted to support existing projects where I am involved in. That’s why I decided to ask people about their experience with playing any kind of games, as it is something that many people can related to (at least in my humble opinion), and from which outcomes would be relevant for my two game projects I am involved in.
What will be results, we shall see after launching experiment in public.
This is About page of my Interaction research course. Interaction research course is a general tryout for our master thesis. We can pick up any topic that’s related to our studies and research it. As the final outcome, a paper will be written.
My topic is ‘comparisment between online and face-to-face user research tools‘. As the first step I have designed an online user research tool, that’s based on Ken Mathiasen’s thesis about Picture Quest – development of a participatory design tool that can help users to express themselves. It, as I hope, will give some valuable inspirations for game designs that I am involved in, namely, (1.) designing a prototype for electronic exertion game in User Experience Design course and (2.) designing a board game for SPIRE center in relation to PINC conference.
There is no doubt about power of face-to-face tools (interviews, workshops etc.), however, I think that online user research/participatory tools can have their share in participatory design as well. For instance in cases when participants are distributed, lack of time or, if participants don’t prefer face-to-face meetings. I aim at looking what’s different between people feelings online and in face-to-face meetings. To what extent online research tools could be used and when they are effective?
To be honest, I don’t precisely know where results from my first step will lead, and if I will be able to do any argumented claims that are directly connected to my initial topic. However, I am keeping myself open and curious If you are interested, you can follow my findings in project blog.
Wohoooo! First exam successfully finished, a lot of preparation, hours of user study evangelism and a lot of insights into importance of user studies into design and innovation. I understand more and more that role of designer is becoming more than just creating a beautiful wrap. It is also something about discovering a user need, smartly involving them in creation process and giving a soul to the concept that could be fulfilled.
I have used this synopsis in exam presentation, and of course – this is not a complete scientific paper, just a guide for myself. The basic idea is to make studying users as a game (3rd poster) and building knowledge about them from the methods applied that would be made in attractive form.
In quick glance – it is important to challenge teams’ assumptions about users that at least I have met quite often. In my opinion these assumptions lower the motivation of conducting user studies. Of course, there always can be good guesses, but studying users I think is actually a safer way of making innovation that would be accepted on the market.
assumption - innovation comes from a lone genius instead out of a team-work. What some people want is an approval of their own assumptions and ideas about what the user needs. And some persons whose assumptions about users are strong, could consider other conflicting ideas as a threat for them.
assumption - users know what they want, and instead of extensive user studies, it is better just to ask them – interpret material 1:1.
assumption – functionality of product is more important than user studies and users are going to adapt proposed functionality if it will be “good”.
assumption - industry standards and specifications are more important than user studies.
More about challenging these assumptions in a synopsis. That’s at least from my own experience
Our second year ITPDies are really busy making their master’s thesis. So busy, that living in studios is a used thing That reminded me that exams are coming soon. I recalled my early school days that I relate to tough pre-test days where I had to memorize things in order to pass exam and then to forget 70% after that. I know, not the best way of learning – we humans definitely have more cognitive capabilities than just a memory.
Fortunately memorization without understanding is over for me in education for a long time, but still in daily life it is often necessary to remember some things, as portable devices tend to scare me sometimes about giving them too much of my brain tasks. You lose what you don’t use, right? Luckily I have discovered that memorization can be fun and want to share with you my favorite technique. It really works!
The technique that I have read from pocket book (Latvian version) is actually quite simple and incredibly effective. First - try to remember at back of your head 10 objects below and associate them with respecting numbers. Check if you are able to recall objects in any sequence. Should be easy as appearance of these objects is similar to respective numbers.
From Roland Geisselhart and Christiane Burkart
Second, pick up-to 10 things that you have to remember (shopping list works well). Then remember these things by making absurd and fun stories that associate things with objects above like “I saw a really big candle made from a cheese.” and “A snow-white swan was bringing a beer for me on it’s back” etc.
Finally - try to remember above objects and they will remind about associated thing. I have tried – works, in any sequence!
If you need more than 10 things to remember, just memorize more objects. Works also not only for individual terms, but also sentences (you just have to pick up most important keywords).
Riga Technical University has made a new and very interesting Master’s program for students that wants to study Information Communication Technologies in a business context. Program is intended for students with diverse backgrounds and supposed to run in the atmosphere close to real business environment.
The aim of the Business Informatics study programme is to prepare professionals who master systems thinking and engineering sciences; who are able to use, choose, develop, and acquire ICT solutions that enable enterprise development; who can design intra- and inter-organizational information systems; and are capable of participating in corresponding inter-disciplinary and international projects.
This is a 2 year full-time program starting with 2010/11 study year. Studies will be in English.
It’s time to write about our last study project together with Innovation&Business students. Writing is such a good way how to save an experience for a reference with a high level of details The course we are taking now is called Participatory innovation - one of major user-driven innovation approaches. And this project was a complementary part to lectures and discussions. We had to 1) find a real company, 2) get an innovation project and 3) fulfill it with methods that we were taught of. Project was meant to be 8 weeks long.
To sum up we worked together with company Dimaps on their route planning software. We made reasonable ideas and scenarios which were based on our user studies. However, there were some problems with inner motivation, communication (different mind-sets) and in our case – presentation of results. There is one of the scenarios above that we have extracted from user studies and co-ideation events.
In this project I have learned:
There is need for one leader in a team, who helps to make teams’ decisions in a way that everyone is satisfied. That person needs to be charismatic, knowledgeable, a fast-thinker (to evaluate everyones’ ideas) and has to have a big picture in a head. Such person must not lose composure. By having many people who are willing to be only the one leader, makes decision making hard. Having bad or no leader in team, results in low motivation and incoherent group-work,
Team of 7 was too big in our case, just 4 people were working,
Presentation is how others perceive your work, good presentation means for most that group had a good work together (and it is mostly true),
It is important to be quick in capturing and interpretating data. Aim could be having 1-2 user-study videos per day, that would help to better and faster co-ideate in a group leading to richer ideas,
There is little value in having a shallow look at user-study materials (videos) and interpreting them 1:1. Question why they are doing that is important in order to create good user-centered products and services.
I have got a good insight in participatory innovation,
Consensus based group-work is slower, especially if members have different mind-sets, that requires to discuss each decision.
Hope you had great Easter holidays! I afforded to be lazy at last (hell – it is so difficult). And the best thing that happened to me – a long visit by my girlfriend. We have chosen a hard but rewarding way of having relationships from afar (she in Latvia, me in Denmark) because of my studies. Actually helps to break out of the boring comfort zone and understand what is really meaningful in life. What does it mean to love, to trust, to care, to dare and to live consciously. Time passes very fast, soon the first year of the Masters’ will be ended and then it will be only the last one.
Some longer time ago I have discovered an incredible source of amazing sounds that helps to contemplate the meaning of my life, heh For me it is a non-banal interaction device. Look at the facts, dude! – 132 different notes that makes a very large opportunities in playing intervals. If we look a the chords (consists of 3 or more notes) then 374660 options of triads and 12082785 combinations of 4-note chords are available there. Hope my math is not failing me and that I used the right formula: 132C3 and 132C4
Anyway, for everyone who has tried a guitar it is obvious that there a lot of options. And if we look at the math, it communicates that this beautiful piece of instrument can’t be learned fully in ones’ lifetime. But it is sure that guitar is sufficient for all tastes of music – let it be rock, jazz, bosa nova … And all tastes of playing – strumming, fingering and flatpicking. We are different, we can’t learn everything (oh no, does it mean that I will never read all books I have on my list???), but we can pick what suits us best and do it as good as we can. Once we know what we want, we can throw out without regrets everything that doesn’t fit in our life and future goals.
So this incredible instrument promises us a potential reward for interaction with it. Just imagine your favorite melody and double the feeling of it when you make it by yourself. Unlimited possibilities, a skill level to be mastered whole lifetime makes this instrument appealing for centuries. Even in our fast-paced age there are things that doesn’t change. I am glad for that.
Here is my first attempt to show people what I am actually doing with a guitar. Well, I still consider myself as a beginner with a lot of things to be learned, but I think that I should end up with my conservative nature by not hiding the things I like anymore
Fridge full of post-it notes (what a variety there!) and a shopping list represents something about our mind. In this case we reduce a workload from a memory by externalizing our memory to the outside environment. With these artifacts humans represent information taken from their mind trying to improve their cognitive abilities. External cognition topic is important topic in Human Computer Interaction field as a complement to mental model theory in order to explain human cognition.
As it is suggested in Interaction design book, we use such external representations in order to:
reduce memory load
do a computational offloading
annotate and trace cognition
Cognitive artifacts are different from cognitive tools in a way that artifacts are in static representational form while tools require more interaction, just like a modelling software which outputs different results relating to the input data.
Examples
I am amazed how different these artifacts are in various cultures. For instance the quipu recording devices used by Inca civilization – strings containing knots helping to remember something.
As another example a solar clock (sundial) could be mentioned where time is being measured by the position of the sun. First used probably by Egyptians on about 1500 B.C.
Future
As our manufacturing tools improve, cognition representing is becoming more complex. Take visualization of complex networks library or another data-driven vizualization library as an inspiration. What a variety of information design! As the amount of (recognized and processed) data is increasing there is a demand of relevant ways how to visualize them.
If you are interested, you can follow my findings in 
For me it is a non-banal interaction device. Look at the facts, dude! – 132 different notes that makes a very large opportunities in playing intervals. If we look a the 
