Field studies and interaction design
nicolas nova | liftlab
Head, Geneva | October 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Inspiration
Expiration (creation)
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Inspiration
Investigation of existing
usages, habits, environments
or product’s potential
In-depth understanding of
people’s behavior, belief,
preferences and context
Potential issues and problems
turned into design
opportunities
Potential solutions existing in
other contexts or proposed by
specific users
(generally not “requirements”,
“needs”)
Thursday, October 15, 2009

“Needs” - The Holy Grail?
“designing to meet observed needs reinforces
structure and removes its capacity to invent
futures”
Matt Webb
“it's the old thing..you have research or consumer
insights or whatever? and the assumption should be
to find the flex points where things can sort of fit
into "consumer's" practices, but not rigidly”
Julian Bleecker
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Formative
research
Starting point or
filter for ideas
Summative
research
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Sociology Ergonomics
- human
factors
Psychology
+ marketing research...
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Design research / User research / Field research /
Ethnography / Design ethnography / Contextual
research / Usage research / User-centered design / User
safari / User modeling / ...
=
Research FOR design
Science or Facts versus informed opinions to orient
action?
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Formative Evaluative
research research
Problem Literature Field research Solution Field/lab
Issue review/desk (primary research) research
Brief research (prototyping)
(secondary
research)
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Starting points for desk research:
• Conferences: CHI( ACM Conference on Human
Factors in Computing Systems), DUX (Designing
for User eXperiences), EPIC ( Ethnographic
Praxis in Industry Conference), Interact,
Interaction, ...
• Journals: ACM interactions
• Weblogs: Putting People First (http://bit.ly/
U0Ga), Future Perfect (http://bit.ly/cyBKO),
Design investigations (http://bit.ly/55BFH), ...
Thursday, October 15, 2009

➡ Understanding people in their context: what are
they doing? how are they doing what they do? what
does it mean?
➡ Apply this knowledge to design issues (interaction
design and beyond)
➡ Interprete, synthesize, infer: not only collecting
informations but, rather analyze them to draw
implications
➡ A trained Observer/Researcher matters
Thursday, October 15, 2009

➡ Investigate an activity (find one’s way in an urban
environment) before the design of a location-based service
➡ Understand the use of a technique (2D camera such as
Eye Toy and webcams) to draw implications for the
following technique (3D camera)
➡ Explore specific behavior (cooperative play with
Nintendo DS) or motivations (collecting weird objects)
➡ Describe the appropriation or acceptation of a device (e-
books in public transports)
➡ Explore how a certain service is hybridized with existing
practices (how rendezvousing evolved with cell-phones)
Thursday, October 15, 2009

➡ Investigate an activity (find one’s way in an urban
environment) before the design of a location-based service
➡ Understand the use of a technique (2D camera such as
Eye Toy and webcams) to draw implications for the
following technique (3D camera)
Descriptions
➡ Explore specific behavior (cooperative play with
Nintendo DS) or motivations (collecting weird objects)
➡ Describe the appropriation or acceptation of a device (e-
books in public transports)
➡ Explore how a certain service is hybridized with existing
practices (how rendezvousing evolved with cell-phones)
Thursday, October 15, 2009

➡ Investigate an activity (find one’s way in an urban
environment) before the design of a location-based service
before designing (2Dsolution
➡ Understand the use of a technique
a camera such as
Eye Toy and webcams) to draw implications for the
following technique (3D camera)
➡ Explore specific behavior (cooperative play with
Nintendo DS) or motivations (collecting weird objects)
➡ Describe the appropriation or acceptation of a device (e-
after designing a solution
books in public transports)
➡ Explore how a certain service is hybridized with existing
practices (how rendezvousing evolved with cell-phones)
Thursday, October 15, 2009

methodology...(inspired by) ethnography
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Investigate people
in their context
Thursday, October 15, 2009

sampling
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Visual
Photography
Video
Artifacts
Observation
Participant observation
Quantitative Qualitative
Interviews (individual/groups)
Survey
Confrontation to material
Questionnaires (video/photo)
Verbal
Thursday, October 15, 2009

design issue
user research / data gathering
data analysis
implications for design
communication
Thursday, October 15, 2009

observation / participant observation
design issue (photo, video, notes)
interview (open, in-depth...), contexual
user research / data gathering interview, lead-users/expert interview
survey / census / photo survey
data analysis
diary, beeper, ...
implications for design
shadowing
communication
...
➡ combinations as well
Thursday, October 15, 2009

design issue
user research / data gathering
“Thick/rich” descriptions: context,
data analysis process/sequence of actions, ...
Problems or recurring events (to be
implications for design categorized): repetitions, cycles,
clusters, absence, growth...
Lists of ressources employed for the
activity (tools, people, ...)
...
Thursday, October 15, 2009

research FOR design
Thursday, October 15, 2009

What comes out of these research?
➡ Question designers’ opinions with field data
➡ Show people’s life, reality-check, understand the complexity/
subtelty and peculiar aspects of situations
➡ Critique of normative visions about the future (3D Web,
intelligent fridge,...)
➡ Propose products/services concepts loosely related with
motivations, needs problems or tasks
➡ Understand adoption barriers to a product, feature...
➡ Evaluate and prioritize concepts, ideas and solutions
➡ Learn from a culture, community of users (extreme, lead) or new
markets
➡ Understand people’s creativity to craft their own solutions
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Ask questions
➡ Does what you observe in ... can be applied to ...
(=urban signage? new media consumption)?
➡ Is there a digital equivalent to X or Y? Does it matter?
➡ Draw lessons about why people do X or Y? Which of
these motivations could be transferred to other
contexts?
➡ If you see people using device A or B? What sort of
services/features can you envision about A or B?
➡- ...
Thursday, October 15, 2009

design issue
user research / data gathering
data analysis
implications for design Persona/user profiles
intermediary objects Scenarios/vignette
Experiences models
Problem lists
...
Prototypes
Thursday, October 15, 2009

inform inspire
contraints, material for
sometimes design
quantitative (% of
internet access,
etc.)
Thursday, October 15, 2009

users? people? consumers?
➡ what vocabulary? what vocabulary to work
altogether? (designers, UX, engineer, marketing,
etc.)
Thursday, October 15, 2009

“we tried but it did not work”
“we ask our users... what they wanted and it did
not work”
➡ Confusion between observing behaviors
(interprete) and ask people what they want/need
(“Faster Horses” Henry Ford)
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Fit into people’s life OR change people’s life?
➡ Tension between satisfying people’s needs/
expectations (reinforcing the existing) versus
inventing new futures
Thursday, October 15, 2009

References
➡ IDEO (2009). Human-Centered Design Toolkit, http://bit.ly/
EUHLL
➡ IDII, Ivrea (2003-2004). User Research at IDII, http://bit.ly/
4e7rY6
➡ Kuniavsky, M. (2003). Observing the User Experience: A
Practitioner's Guide to User Research, Morgan-Kauffman.
➡ Saffer, D. (2007). Designing for Interaction : Creating Smart
Applications and Clever Devices, New Rider Press.
➡ Visocky O’Graddy, J+K (2006). A Designers’s Research Manual.
Design Field Guides, Rockport.
➡ Wasson, C. (2000). Ethnography in the field of design, Human
Organization 59(4): 377-388, http://bit.ly/TYfg8
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Menu for next courses
➡ Course’s blog: http://usages.wordpress.com/
➡ Each course will address a certain set of techniques
➡ Next course will be about theoretical considerations (sampling,
theoretical frameworks) and observations
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Assignement
➡ Each student will have to read a research paper and present it to
the class:
• 10 minutes, no slides
• Outline: summary + why is it relevant for design + personal opinion
• For next course: “Reading Ahead” by Portigal Consulting (Slides:
http://bit.ly/geX6l Blogposts: http://bit.ly/19jAd4 )
➡ Project:
• Choose a research question (related or not to your personal project or a studio
project)
• Go observe users/usages related to this question (passive observation and
photography)
• Prepare a 5 minutes presentations (with slides) of the main findings, we will
discuss the results in class at the next course
• For each course there will be a similar assignement with regards to the projects.
Project completition will consist in the addition of all the assignements
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Let’s discuss your question
Thursday, October 15, 2009

thanks
nicolas@liftlab.com
Thursday, October 15, 2009