Preparation for the field study

Location: Tekniska museet.
Schedule

1. Meet up at T-Centralen 9:20
2. Get to Tekniska museet using buss 69, mot Blockhusudden.

During the interview

1. Present who you are and why you are doing this.Eg. KTH Students doing important research for the benefit of the society. Task: Future Museum. Don't mention that we are first year students unless they ask.
2. This is entirely anonymous.
3. Possible subgroup: retirees, school children and minority groups.
4. This won't take that long. Your contrition is important.

Tasks

1. Take pictures during the visit. How effective is it? Can it be improved?

Questions

• Is this your first time? If not, how many times have you visited the museum.
• What is your impression of the museum:
• did you need to ask staff for help? What kind of help?
• navigation
• info about exhibition
• Why are you here?
• Is there something special you want to see?

Notes on the field study tomorrow (4/2)

First of all, I would like to tell everyone that all of you should have access to the blog but one person (working on it.).

Secondly, considering the fact that we have not chosen a museum up to this point, or even if we've done that, I strongly suggest that we use the time tomorrow to go through important points, i.e.

• A clear set of questions (from Interaction Design) and whether we should have an open interview, a closed, or semi-open. Arsalan has a good post about it here.
• How we should split up the interviews (remember, all of us should interview at least once).
• Contact the museum staff to see if we can find a good time to interview them.
• Focus on a semi-structured interview (from Interaction Design): We could go there and ask open questions, but it would be to our advantage if we could brain storm on possible issues they might have. Once again, please see Arsalan's post about it.

Although we might already have everything we need to conduct a field study, another planning session would not hurt. Maybe, by visiting the seminar in two days, we will (hopefully) have read the required literature and thus have a framework to use.

I have already booked a room in the library, 10:00 to 12:00 in Teleskopet.

Seminar 1 - Arsalan's Notes

Chapter 2 points out that one should start the design process by focusing on the user's needs. One should check if a problem currently exists and if an improvement is necessary (improvement of the system may negatively affect the user experience). I agree with this as this saves a lot of work and time in the long run (avoid having to code a product nobody will use). For a designer, it's smart to state all assumptions about the user experience and verify if they're true (false assumptions can lead to problems later). A designer should be able to justify why their idea is useful and how it will support people in their activities. Text also discusses conceptual models for activities (instructing, conversing, manipulating + navigating, exploring and browsing). These summarize what a user is doing with some certain software. Finally, it goes over the usage of interface metaphors, their benefits and how to implement them in product. I agree that interface metaphors are useful for people unfamiliar with technology but cannot be applied unless it's to a new technology.

Chapter 7 goes over the methods of obtaining data (questionnaires, interviews, workshops, natural observation and studying documentation). Using the acquired data, we can describe how a user  interacts with a product by creating scenarios.

Question to discuss: Which form of data gathering is most applicable to our project?

My thoughts on this: Interviews are good to get in-depth analysis but finding willing participants may be difficult. We should still aim to get five of them done. Within our targeted subgroup, it would be interesting to see if their is a lot of variation in the data or if there is a strict common opinion shared. We could also do a questionnaire for short yes/no questions. A workshop might not be feasible with people we don't know. Natural observation may work, we can observe physical interaction within the museum (person interacting with a model/device). However the user's thought processes are harder to pinpoint with this technique.

Generally how the theory relates to our project:

The course literature is useful so far because the theory has provided guideline on how to undertake the project. It shows where to start and what methods to use. One method we could consider would be using hierarchical task analysis - a method to analyse all different tasks a user could do, it can show how complex certain interaction may be. 

Seminar 1 - MDI

In part 2.2 of the book the authors try to come up with a framework to aid the design process, in which the first step is to ask yourself what problems there are with already existing solutions. I guess that is a good starting point, but it assumes that the technology already exists. We cannot exclude the possibility that someone has to design an interface for a new technology. If we take for example the creation of mobile phones, it is true that telephones existed a long before that, but i claim that mobiles are so different that we could not draw conclusions as to how to design the interface of a mobile based on experience from the designs of telephones.

Question: In chapter 7 the authors mention informed consent forms, are these obligatory for interviews? If yes, how should they look like?

In part 8.6 of the book the authors describe three different theoretical frameworks for qualitative data analysis, grounded theory, distributed cognition and activity theory. I wonder if one of them is preferred for a certain kind of research, or if choosing a framework is a matter of personal taste.

In part 10.3 of the book the authors claim that there is a difference between objective measures of usability and user’s perception of the interaction. I wonder what that difference is. It seems to me that it is possible to measure the user’s perceptions objectively.

Possible Interview Questions

Here are some questions I came up with that we can use for the interview:

A possible subgroup of visitors we could target could be gymnasium/university students. We can relate to them, could make it easier for us to communicate with them.

Themes for interview: Navigation around museum, Methods of displaying information

//All questions should avoid yes/no answers

Navigation within the museum:

• How difficult do you find it to navigate through the museum? 
• Do you use an app or website to improve your experience at this museum?
• How well do the staff help out with helping you find your way?

Methods of displaying information:

Do you find the information displayed at exhibits:

• Easy to read (in terms of size, font used, spacing) ?
• Informative while being easy to comprehend? 

Did you spend any time on the museum's website before visiting to find out more about it?

(If museum uses interactive displays): What do you think about the usage of interactive displays in this museum ? Do you find them to be a useful tool for taking in information or comprehension

Other Questions:

What do you enjoy most about the museum?

Are you here for research or leisure?

Have you visited this museum before? 

Do you have a favourite exhibit?

Please leave any suggestions !

The mindmap of possible target audience