Evaluations: Field Studies

This week, the focus was again on evaluations; although we went into more detail on various types of evaluations. One in particular is a field study, which is a category of research methods that studies the user in their natural environment. (“Field Studies – Everything You Need to Know”)

Reflection on the Topic

Most field studies work by letting your users have full access to your product or prototype for the duration of the test. They are generally best done early in the design process, such as before the actual design starts, as they are an excellent way of gaining understanding of how your users might interact with a product (Farrell, 2016). These tests can last for any length of time, from just a few minutes to years. A year sounds like a lot, but I’m pretty sure the first year of most OS releases by Microsoft is just a giant field study, with the service packs being their actual final product, their fast and slow early access lanes are one example of a field study, used to find problems and how well a new feature works. The Microsoft example works well to describe how a field study works. They release a new software (OS upgrade) to a group of people who have signed up (the insider’s program). these people get to use it in place of their regular software with no direct observation from Microsoft, and finally they can submit feedback and Microsoft can gather statistic data on usage of various features, and then they evaluate that data to (hopefully) improve their OS. Which is basically a full field study.

My Thought

“One thing fascinates me is something somewhat indirectly related to field studies, have you ever bought something that boasted a particular thing it can do, say, a flash drive with certain speed, but was disappointed when it could not even get close to that speed? This is a result of data that only comes from a lab, where every single variable can be controlled for theoretical maximum speed, and no measurement that takes into account the 800 other things a computer might be doing, something that a field study would quickly reveal.” (L, Spencer. 2018).

Reference List

Field Studies – Everything You Need to Know. (n.d.). Retrieved November 17, 2018, from https://www.userinterviews.com/ux-research-field-guide-chapter/field-studies

Farrell, S. (2016, October 23). Field Studies. Retrieved from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/field-studies/

Evaluations

This week, the focus was on evaluations. An evaluation, as described throughout the book, is the act of making observations, generally of the use of a product, and recording those observations as data. That data is then used to determine something such as if a feature should be kept, or if an interface needs modifying.
Reflection on the Topic

Reflection on the Topic

Generally in product design, there are multiple types of evaluations that should be done. Two of the important types are Lab studies, which keep lots of control over the users and is good for testing specific features in a controlled way; and Field studies, which releases most of the control and is good for making unexpected discoveries. (Razak, Hafit, Sedi, Zubaidi, & Haron, 2010). Oftentimes, a team would need to conduct multiple evaluations on the same piece or feature through each iterative cycle of the design process. For example: Perhaps a new widget for a website is being developed, an evaluation strategy would be to make a modification, perform an evaluation to gather data on how useful it is. Then use that data to make more changes, which are then re-evaluated for more data and feedback. This is basically how an iterative process works.

My Thought

“The evaluations is what make an iterative process such as agile UX so effective, because those evaluations provide all the data you need to quickly adjust to how your users are using your product” (L, Spencer. 2018).

Reference List

Razak, F. H., Hafit, H., Sedi, N., Zubaidi, N. A., & Haron, H. (2010, December). Usability testing with children: Laboratory vs field studies. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261085018_Usability_testing_with_children_Laboratory_vs_field_studies

The Agile Approach

This week we are focusing on the design process as a whole; defining a couple methods and techniques and how they play out in the design process. One of those being Agile design. Agile design is is explained in the book to be a process that starts by only giving the designers enough requirements to start working; as opposed to the waterfall process; which gives the requirements as fully and completely as possible.

Reflection on the Topic

the chapter here did not help me much to grasp what was really the difference between Waterfall and Agile, or what the actual Agile design process could be used for. The explanation from linchpinseo helped, it describes that is “assists teams in responding to the unpredictability of constructing software. It uses incremental, iterative work sequences that are commonly known as sprints.” (“A Beginners Guide”, 2018) , This ties in with what the books says about agile design about only giving enough requirements to start working. It makes sense to me now because with this type of workflow, a team can quickly and easily adjust to new requirements. Another thing that helped me was a picture example from designshack:

Appleyard, D, (2013) Waterfall vs Agile

It also helps explain the disadvantage of the waterfall approach, for example; if the requirements change and you are using agile approach; one can work it into the next sprint; and if you are using a waterfall approach then you would have to climb back up that waterfall to make changes.

My Thought

“At first the waterfall approach sounded ideal, because why would you not want as much information as possible before you started a project? The picture I used helped me because with too much information you build a whole base upon that, but should that change, then the only choice would be to swim up a waterfall to implement new changes.” (L. Spencer, 2018).

Reference List

1. A Beginners Guide To Understanding The Agile Method. (2018, October 15). Retrieved from https://linchpinseo.com/the-agile-method/
2. Appleyard, D. (2013, June 19). [Agile versus Waterfall]. Retrieved November 3, 2018, from https://designshack.net/articles/business-articles/understanding-agile-design-and-why-its-important/

Prototypes

This week, the class focus was on prototypes. The book describes prototypes as something you construct to show and explore a particular function of whatever you are creating. The whole purpose of these prototypes is to test things about your product without spending a lot of time or money.

Reflection on the Topic

Prototype is defined simply as “the original or model on which something is based or formed.” (Definition of Prototype, n.d.) Which is true, but I feel is incomplete to use in HCI; because we could very well build something that has no resemblance to the final product and ultimately be scrapped, and still call that one of our prototypes. You can have a prototype for anything, and how you create a prototype will vary greatly depending on what you are trying to find. For example, a few possible prototypes for a tablet might include a wooden carving that is as close to the final shape and weight of your product, like this picture:

Haston, S. (2014, September 9). Prototype Example for tablet

Or it could be a paper prototype to test a particular software function, such as in this picture:

Brako, A. (n.d.). Paper Prototype Example

As stated before, the whole idea of this is to simulate a specific function as completely as possible, yet without spending a lot of time or money to explore how it might work

My Thought

“Prototypes, especially the early ones, have an excellent second part to them that people don’t mention, once you get one built and start having your users evaluate it, you start getting an influx of other great ideas that are worth prototyping themselves; it was my favorite part about doing it myself” (L. Spencer, 2018).

Reference List

Definition of Prototype. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/prototype

Haston, S. (2014, September 9). Prototype Example [Digital image]. Retrieved from http://www.mobilegeeks.com/alpentab-wienerwald-hands-wooden-windows-8-1-tablet/

Brako, A. (n.d.). Prototype Example [Digital image]. Retrieved from http://aaronbrako.com/prototyping

Requirements Activity

This week was actually quite interesting because it built off of one of the subjects from last week and went in depth with it. That subject was requirements. Which is basically the final capabilities of the thing you are building. The requirements activity is the process of finding out what best the final capabilities should be.

Reflection on the Topic

The interesting thing about requirements is that it’s generally not something one sits down on day one and says “Okay, this needs to be able to do this”, though it may start as that, many more requirements will be found throughout the iterative process of Interaction Design. It’s almost as if the original requirements lay down a simple foundation that many other, better, requirements can be built from. I like the definition from interaction design foundation, Where they say that “requirements involves finding out what people want from a computer system, and understanding what their needs mean in terms of design.” (Sutcliffe N.D.) because it helps explain that we find a solution based on the users wants and not just including a users wants. They also named the process “Requirements Engineering” Which I like a lot because it invokes a better picture that it’s not as much of an art, but an actual process and a problem-solving technique that leverages the iterative nature of interaction design.

My Thought

“One funny thing about finding what someone wants is that unless they’ve actually put thought into what they are saying (I find that most times this is not the case) chances are it’s a bad solution. the art of interaction design is taking what people want, and turning into something else that they actually need.” (L. Spencer, 2018).

Reference List

Sutcliffe, A, G. (N.D.). Requirements Engineering. Retrieved from https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/requirements-engineering

User-Centered Approach

A user-Centered approach means to approach a design project from a mindset of “Users first” starting from very early in the design project. It also means that the target audience are the test subjects, and their reactions to early builds of the project should be analyzed and used to improve the design.

 

Reflection on the Topic

The user centered approach, defined as the “iterative design process in which designers focus on the users and their needs in each phase of the design process.“ (User Centered Design. (N.D.)) is a process used for designing something. It works so well because the people are are using to create your standard is your target audience. They are going to be the people who know the target work flow best, and they would be the best ones to offer improvement suggestions and possible new features to a program, as most of their suggestions would likely be something that the users know they need and the developers had know idea even existed.

The process works like this, you start with an idea or a need, create a solution, and evaluate that solution with an intended user. You take that feedback and do it again and again until you have gotten the project to fulfill its intended purpose for a variety of users. It works somewhat like this flowchart:

User Centered Design. (N.D.). User-Centered Approach Flowchart

 

 

My Thought

“My favorite part from the book was when the three principles of a user centered approached were proposed to be used as a standard, many people rejected it because they felt it was too obvious. I’ve seen this happen a million times in the IT world, never underestimate the value of a standard, and for that matter, documentation. Because you WILL forget something” (L. Spencer, 2018).

 

Reference List

User Centered Design. (N.D.). Retrieved from https://www.interaction-

design.org/literature/topics/user-centered-design

User Centered Design (N.D.). User-Centered Approach Flowchart. Retrieved from

https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/user-centered-design

 

Qualitative and Quantitative data

Qualitative vs Quantitative, They are two of the types of data one can collect in an analysis. Quantitative data comes mainly from close-ended questions and tends to be useful in a statistic study where the number of a specific answer is more important. Qualitative data comes more from open questions and answers that must have an additional study/interpretation to become useful.

Reflection on the Topic

I found these two interesting because of how I’ve encountered them in the past. For the most part, I see Quantitative, because I’ll take a survey or evaluation that asks me to rate something in a number. But last year I was involved in a small coding project at work and helped a co-worker go through and get open responses to a new program he was building, that was more of a Qualitative study. To actually define them, I found that shmoop.com had a simple definitions for them that reads “Quantitative data is information about quantities; that is, information that can be measured and written down with numbers.“ and “Qualitative data is information about qualities; information that can’t actually be measured. ”.(Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008) It’s a good definition, but lets make a little more sense out of it by looking at a survey, in fact, lets look at the MGA student evaluation. It’s perfect because it has both types of data. They first part of the survey is a quantitative survey; it consists of a list that asks the same rather generic questions about subjects like teacher response times and class pacing, and gives you options to select from very good to very bad. This is a quantitative study, and might be analyzed by looking for the ratio of how many students thought the teacher had excellent response time to their emails. Then below that, the evaluation has an open comments section where a student can write what they please. This written data could be analyzed to perhaps find a common theme. This written bit is quantitative data.

My Thought

“Another interesting thing about these two data types is that one’s much easier to deal with than the other. It’s why so many surveys are quantitative. But as with pretty much everything, the easy way has it’s limits, and the harder qualitative data might give a new, better perspective that would have gone unnoticed and un-gatherable in the quantitative data.” (L. Spencer, 2018).

Reference List

Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008, November 11). Probability and Statistics Qualitative v. Quantitative Data. Retrieved October 6, 2018, from https://www.shmoop.com/probability-statistics/qualitative-quantitative-data.html#

 

 

Data Gathering: Triangulation

This week was based around data gathering, which “is the process of gathering and measuring information on variables of interest, in an established systematic fashion” (Data Collection, n.d.)the important part of this definition in the “Established systematic fashion” bit. Individuals are wildly different, it’s what’s so great about being human. It’s also what can make good data gathering difficult to do. A system of type allows us to gather more data with less user bias.

Reflection on the Topic

The most interesting part of the week for me was triangulation, which is defined as something that “facilitates validation of data through cross verification from more than two sources. It tests the consistency of findings obtained through different instruments” (Triangulation, 2015) So it’s basically a way to verify your findings by using a different method to gather the same data, or to gather different data that means the same thing.

It works sort of like this diagram:

Atif, A. (2013). Triangulation Diagram.

 

Which is using the method Triangulation of Data. In which data is gathered from different sources, or using different methods (In the pictures case, quantitative and qualitative), which is then used to help find and answer whatever issue the researcher was searching for.

My Thought

“Triangulation is important because it follows a very simple rule that was set in biblical times. Which is that something cannot be proven by just one, but must have to or more witnesses before it’s considered proof. Any method of triangulation is used to do just that, be another witness for proof.” (L.E. Spencer, 2018).

 

References

Data Collection(n.d.). Retrieved from

https://ori.hhs.gov/education/products/n_illinois_u/datamanagement/dctopic.html

Triangulation(2015, January 15). Retrieved from

https://www.betterevaluation.org/en/evaluation-options/triangulation

Atif, A. (2013, December). Triangulation Diagram. Retrieved from

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-Visual-Diagram-of-the-Mixed-Methods-

Concurrent-Triangulation-Strategy-The-researchers_fig1_280860447

Interfaces

Interfaces. I would define them using it’s keywords. So inter-, being normally a prefix used to indicate a communication or co-operation between two things, and face, thought of here as the frontal, first seen thing. That’s pretty close to what an interface is when it comes to computers. Whatis.com defines it as a “means to communicate with another person or object” (Rouse, 2006) with the user being the person and the object being the computer.

Reflection on the Topic

By it’s description and definition, an interface is the way we interact with a computer. What I found interesting, mostly because of never thinking about it, was the fact that the book defined many types of interfaces. So what I would have called just “Interface”, or perhaps formally “The User Interface”, the book split it up much further into voice, graphical, brain, command and many others. I guess I just fell into the habit of calling them a single interface because I only ever frequently worked with two (GUI and command-line interface) and context was always enough to communicate which one I used, should that ever have needed to be communicated that is. Another interesting thing that was touched on in class was that unlike most things in HCI, the interface type is a little more dependent on the type of user, a linkedIn article discusses this a little, about how a menu or gui is easier to use because there are visual elements that can be seen and are self-explanatory (that is, if it is a good interface), but with cons like development price and slower overall performance. Or how a command-line interface is faster and far more powerful because you can make a single command to tell the computer exactly what you want without ever having to go search, go through and toggle a list of options, but it’s much harder to learn because it relies on recall and not recognition. (Gali, 2017)

My Thought

“Something that was not said in class discussion that should have been said is that, though there may an interface that someone naturally uses better than another, it does not mean that you can just pick the interface type for your target audience. Careful thought in the design of your interface is still a must. A user who might perform best with a voice interface will probably switch to another type of interface if every time they ask to search for an apple cider recipe they got a guide for building a tree house” (L.Spencer, 2018).

Reference List

⦁ Rouse, M. (2006, April). interface. Retrieved from https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/interface
⦁ Gali, K. (2017, May 29). What are the different types of user interfaces?. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-different-types-user-interfaces-kalyan-gali

Social Interaction

Social Interaction

What the term means: What I found to be the most interesting thing this week was a section in the book regarding habits in conversation; basically an extension of Social Interaction. It’s defined at LumenLearning’s website to be “a dynamic, changing sequence of social actions between individuals or groups.” (Understanding Social Interaction); It applies to HCI when we study various automatic behaviors caused certain types of interaction (face to face or a video call, for example), and then leverage those behaviors by using the design of a program.

Reflection on the Topic

The topic was especially interesting to me when it talked about the test of the difference of how we interact with one another between face-to-face and a video conference, mostly because it’s something that I think a lot of people may know, but not really consciously realize.
It made sense to me that so many different forms of communication could cause different types of interactions. Take a conversation on a phone for example. It might seem like one could have the same conversation over the phone or face to face on the surface. but many of us also know that very little of communication is actually verbal, far more is tones and how one says things, facial expressions, body language and many others. While there is argument on the exact numbers, no one denies that the words alone carry even half the meaning. (Gleisner) So in the phone call example, you lose several of those higher-weight communication tools and it will force the conversation dynamic to change. It’s this change that is a tool in of itself that can be leveraged with interactive Design.

My Thought

“Social design, like I’ve already said, is Interactive Design that uses social behaviors in various situations basically as a tool of a design. Taking what the book said about a video conference causing the conversation turn-taking to be longer turns, one could design something for a target audience that would need that particular setting for whatever reason.” ( L. Spencer, 2018).

Reference List

“Understanding Social Interaction” LumenLearning, Boundless Sociology, courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-sociology/chapter/understanding-social-interaction/. Accessed 9 Sep 2018.
Gleisner, Jan “Non verbal communication percentage” silentcommunication, Silent Communication, 20 Mar 2016, http://www.silentcommunication.org/single-post/2016/03/20/17-Non-verbal-communication-percentage.