This document provides an overview of qualitative research methods for user experience design. It discusses conducting stakeholder interviews, subject matter expert interviews, customer interviews, user interviews and observation studies. Ethnographic research methods like contextual inquiry and virtual ethnography are explained. The stages of ethnographic studies including preparation, field study, analysis and reporting are outlined. Various qualitative data collection techniques both paper-based and face-to-face are also summarized.
Impact the UX of Your Website with Contextual InquiryRachel Vacek
A contextual inquiry is a research study that involves in-depth interviews where users walk through common tasks in the physical environment in which they typically perform them. It can be used to better understand the intents and motivations behind user behavior. In this session, learn what’s needed to conduct a contextual inquiry and how to analyze the ethnographic data once collected. We'll cover how to synthesize and visualize your findings as sequence models and affinity diagrams that directly inform the development of personas and common task flows. Finally, learn how this process can help guide your design and content strategy efforts while constructing a rich picture of the user experience.
Impact your Library UX with Contextual InquiryRachel Vacek
A contextual inquiry is a research study that involves in-depth interviews where users walk through common tasks in the physical environment in which they typically perform them. It can be used to better understand the intents and motivations behind user behavior. In this session, learn what’s needed to conduct a contextual inquiry and how to analyze the ethnographic data once collected. I'll cover how to synthesize and visualize your findings as sequence models and affinity diagrams that directly inform the development of personas and common task flows. Finally, learn how this process can help guide your design and content strategy efforts while constructing a rich picture of the user experience.
Putting Personas to Work at IIBA ClevelandCarol Smith
Putting Personas to Work: Getting Personas Adopted Throughout Your Organization.
Presented by Carol Smith at the Cleveland IIBA Chapter meeting on March 12, 2013.
Personas need to be recognized and relied on by the entire team and creating a successful persona program can be a huge challenge. This session covers strategies for making sure that the personas you create become essential to your team.
Putting Personas to Work at UX PittsburghCarol Smith
Putting Personas to Work: Getting Personas Adopted Throughout Your Organization.
Presented by Carol Smith at the User Experience Designers Pittsburgh MeetUp on February 6, 2014.
Personas need to be recognized and relied on by the entire team and creating a successful persona program can be a huge challenge. This session covers strategies for making sure that the personas you create become essential to your team.
User Personas: Tools for UnderstandingEddie Hollon
An introduction to using personas to identify and understand your users or audience. Presented at the Korea Technical Communication Association symposium in Seoul on October 24, 2008.
Contextual Inquiry: How Ethnographic Research can Impact the UX of Your WebsiteRachel Vacek
A contextual inquiry is a research study that involves in-depth interviews where users walk through common tasks in the physical environment in which they typically perform them. It can be used to better understand the intents and motivations behind user behavior. In this session, learn what’s needed to conduct a contextual inquiry and how to analyze the ethnographic data once collected. We’ll cover how to synthesize and visualize your findings as sequence models and affinity diagrams that directly inform the development of personas and common task flows. Finally, learn how this process can help guide your design and content strategy efforts while constructing a rich picture of the user experience.
Impact the UX of Your Website with Contextual InquiryRachel Vacek
A contextual inquiry is a research study that involves in-depth interviews where users walk through common tasks in the physical environment in which they typically perform them. It can be used to better understand the intents and motivations behind user behavior. In this session, learn what’s needed to conduct a contextual inquiry and how to analyze the ethnographic data once collected. We'll cover how to synthesize and visualize your findings as sequence models and affinity diagrams that directly inform the development of personas and common task flows. Finally, learn how this process can help guide your design and content strategy efforts while constructing a rich picture of the user experience.
Impact your Library UX with Contextual InquiryRachel Vacek
A contextual inquiry is a research study that involves in-depth interviews where users walk through common tasks in the physical environment in which they typically perform them. It can be used to better understand the intents and motivations behind user behavior. In this session, learn what’s needed to conduct a contextual inquiry and how to analyze the ethnographic data once collected. I'll cover how to synthesize and visualize your findings as sequence models and affinity diagrams that directly inform the development of personas and common task flows. Finally, learn how this process can help guide your design and content strategy efforts while constructing a rich picture of the user experience.
Putting Personas to Work at IIBA ClevelandCarol Smith
Putting Personas to Work: Getting Personas Adopted Throughout Your Organization.
Presented by Carol Smith at the Cleveland IIBA Chapter meeting on March 12, 2013.
Personas need to be recognized and relied on by the entire team and creating a successful persona program can be a huge challenge. This session covers strategies for making sure that the personas you create become essential to your team.
Putting Personas to Work at UX PittsburghCarol Smith
Putting Personas to Work: Getting Personas Adopted Throughout Your Organization.
Presented by Carol Smith at the User Experience Designers Pittsburgh MeetUp on February 6, 2014.
Personas need to be recognized and relied on by the entire team and creating a successful persona program can be a huge challenge. This session covers strategies for making sure that the personas you create become essential to your team.
User Personas: Tools for UnderstandingEddie Hollon
An introduction to using personas to identify and understand your users or audience. Presented at the Korea Technical Communication Association symposium in Seoul on October 24, 2008.
Contextual Inquiry: How Ethnographic Research can Impact the UX of Your WebsiteRachel Vacek
A contextual inquiry is a research study that involves in-depth interviews where users walk through common tasks in the physical environment in which they typically perform them. It can be used to better understand the intents and motivations behind user behavior. In this session, learn what’s needed to conduct a contextual inquiry and how to analyze the ethnographic data once collected. We’ll cover how to synthesize and visualize your findings as sequence models and affinity diagrams that directly inform the development of personas and common task flows. Finally, learn how this process can help guide your design and content strategy efforts while constructing a rich picture of the user experience.
Prototyping: How Ought We To Live? Prototypes, Propositions, and Design FictionsLeticia Oxley
Prototyping has always been an ally to the designer. The purpose of prototyping is to operationalize research, suggesting a clear material process from concept to completion. The creative tension embodied by the prototype comes from its peculiar position in the design process. At the same time, it refines research problems and questions through multiple iterations, but it also translates abstract and incomplete ideas to material possibilities. Prototypes, however embryonic, draw together the inchoate as a rehearsal of what might emerge via the design process. They are evolutionary precursors to final products, and, thus occupy a double ontological status as materialized models of a potential real thing (“This!”), and as a proposition (“This?”). It is this ambiguity and what this allows, that gives prototypes their capacity for communication and their faculty for research. From anthropology to policy making, prototyping has been adopted as a methodological approach and as a way to materialize solutions. This capstone examines the operational and speculative roles of prototyping through a series of case studies. To situate prototyping historically, the inquiry looks into Charles and Ray Eames’ prototyping process when designing plywood splints for wounded soldiers in World War II. More recent cases include speculative projects such as Dunne and Raby’s United Micro Kingdoms to demonstrate the ways in which designers are taking up prototyping and modeling as a form of speculative critical practice in rehearsing and contemplating possible futures.
UX Week Presentation from Steve Portigal - Cross-Cultural ResearchSteve Portigal
Effective user research requires both observation and interviewing. When doing research we strive to get outside our own default expectations and perceptions, in order to better see the details of what we're looking at, in other words, to understand the cultural context. This third component is the most crucial to innovation. Interesting things happen when we leave our homes and our comfort zone, perhaps in another country where business, language, food, and more is beyond our own frames of reference.
Steve Portigal, founder of Portigal Consulting, offers expert tips in both observation and interviewing, and considers the challenges and opportunities in conducting research abroad. He believes that one way to better understand a different culture is to look at how things in your own culture are handled differently. He gives some examples of how some things are promoted differently in Japan than in the United States. He states that mundane observations reveal important cultural differences.
UXPA 2023: UX Fracking: Using Mixed Methods to Extract Hidden InsightsUXPA International
Users do not always accurately describe what they mean or feel. There are many reasons for this, ranging from politeness to poor introspection, to lack of sufficient technical vocabulary. Fortunately, UX researchers have tools in their trade to deduce what was really meant. We call this UX Fracking, a mixed methods approach that is optimized for extracting hidden user insights. We will illustrate the dangers of inadequate, superficial research, and how this may lead to outcomes incapable of addressing the users’ core issues. We will explore ways to avoid these pitfalls by leveraging mixed research methods to test hypotheses about the users’ intent and needs. This starts with a thorough understanding of who the user is, their goals, and how they work today, to an approach that combines surveys, interviews, and comment analysis with behavioral observation, and finally, validating the newly discovered user insights with the users themselves.
Prowess-ing the Past: Considering the AudienceRuth Tringham
The aim of this presentation was to shift the focus of 3D modeling in archaeology and cultural heritage to consider the ways in which a more active motivation and engagement of their users (whether professionals or general public) might lead to the long-term sustainability of the models and visualizations. Currently the life expectancy of 3D models in installations or on-line is generally quite short. My argument is that engagement with the models should be measured not so much how many users/visitors a model receives, but in how long and through how many re-visits the users wish to visit the same model. I am guessing that for most users, the visit is a one-time short event. I identify five major strategy foci that might lead to longer and more specific usage of the models and thus to their longer-term sustainability; these are: 1) active user participation, 2) meaningful exploration, 3) cultural presence, 4) multi sensorial experience, and 5) the education of attention, with greatest emphasis given to the latter. I end with idea that these five foci in fact could all be embraced within the gamification of the models, not necessarily as video games, but as media-rich non-linear narratives that go by various terms, such as Walking Simulator, Interactive Digital Stories, and Alternative Reality Games that take advantage of a mixed environment of Augmented and Mixed Reality as well as the more “traditional” Virtual Reality modeling. I finally point out that such gamification could potentially make powerful contributions to draw attention to socio-political and ethical issues of cultural heritage and archaeology.
Did a crash course in User Experience for participants at the iCube Innovation startup bootcamp. Credit to Mark Billinghurst and Aga Szostek for their knowledge (and slides).
Journey Maps with Legs! Best practices & hot tips for research, design and di...UXPA International
Based on interviews with leading client-side and independent researchers, Jeanne Turner & Julie Francis will share best practices for journey mapping. Their suggestions & stories will cover many facets, including
Kick-off and Discovery: How to structure a productive journey map kickoff
Research: Which research methodologies, questions, & activities reveal the most useful insights
The deliverable: What features make a great journey map?
Dissemination: How to maximize the impact of your journey map
These tips, stories, best practices and case studies will be drawn from expert interviews with researchers, stakeholders & designers with a focus on service design and multi-channel retail. You’ll walk away with practical things you can do to deliver great journey maps that have staying power.
Phoenix Design Week: User Journeys for Damn Good Digital DesignRebekah Baggs
Designing holistic digital experiences that delight our users and meet our organizational objectives isn't easy, but it's not impossible. User journeys can help.
Generating a custom Ruby SDK for your web service or Rails API using Smithyg2nightmarescribd
Have you ever wanted a Ruby client API to communicate with your web service? Smithy is a protocol-agnostic language for defining services and SDKs. Smithy Ruby is an implementation of Smithy that generates a Ruby SDK using a Smithy model. In this talk, we will explore Smithy and Smithy Ruby to learn how to generate custom feature-rich SDKs that can communicate with any web service, such as a Rails JSON API.
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
Neuro-symbolic is not enough, we need neuro-*semantic*Frank van Harmelen
Neuro-symbolic (NeSy) AI is on the rise. However, simply machine learning on just any symbolic structure is not sufficient to really harvest the gains of NeSy. These will only be gained when the symbolic structures have an actual semantics. I give an operational definition of semantics as “predictable inference”.
All of this illustrated with link prediction over knowledge graphs, but the argument is general.
DevOps and Testing slides at DASA ConnectKari Kakkonen
My and Rik Marselis slides at 30.5.2024 DASA Connect conference. We discuss about what is testing, then what is agile testing and finally what is Testing in DevOps. Finally we had lovely workshop with the participants trying to find out different ways to think about quality and testing in different parts of the DevOps infinity loop.
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 4DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 4. In this session, we will cover Test Manager overview along with SAP heatmap.
The UiPath Test Manager overview with SAP heatmap webinar offers a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the role of a Test Manager within SAP environments, coupled with the utilization of heatmaps for effective testing strategies.
Participants will gain insights into the responsibilities, challenges, and best practices associated with test management in SAP projects. Additionally, the webinar delves into the significance of heatmaps as a visual aid for identifying testing priorities, areas of risk, and resource allocation within SAP landscapes. Through this session, attendees can expect to enhance their understanding of test management principles while learning practical approaches to optimize testing processes in SAP environments using heatmap visualization techniques
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into SAP testing best practices
2. Heatmap utilization for testing
3. Optimization of testing processes
4. Demo
Topics covered:
Execution from the test manager
Orchestrator execution result
Defect reporting
SAP heatmap example with demo
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
2. today’s schedule
➝ review of expectations questionnaire
➝ recap of class goals and 1st review
➝ review of read literature
➝ lecture about qualitative research
➝ lecture interviewing studio
➝ review of last weeks presentations
➝ produce interview script
➝ hands on practicing
➝ configuring transcription software
3. overview
➝ qualitativeresearch
➝ introduction of range of data collection strategies
➝ user report vs. observation based
➝ ethnography
✱ attribution: parts of this presentation are based on Angela
Sasse and Sven Laqua’s UCL lecture on interaction desgin
4. why qualitative research?
it helps us understand
➝ behaviours, attitudes and aptitudes of potential users
➝ the domain: technical, business and environmental
context
➝ vocabulary and social aspects of domain
➝ how existing products are used
5. How to find people to study?
➝ selecting people off the street
➝ advertising
➝ existing customers
➝ employees of own organization (
➝ referral
6. types of qualitative research
➝ stakeholder interviews
➝ subject matter experts
➝ user and customer interviews
➝ user observation/ethnographic field studies
➝ literature review
➝ product/prototype and competitive audits
7. stakeholder interviews
import information to obtain
➝ preliminary product vision – might be different in
different departments (blind men and the elephant)
➝ budget and schedule - reality check of scope of design
effort
➝ technical constraints and opportunities – given budget,
time and technology constraints
➝ business drivers
➝ perceptions of the users
8. subject matter experts are
➝ often expert users
➝ knowledgeable but not designers
➝ important in complex or specialized domains
➝ good to have throughout design process: secure
continued access
9. customers
from them you want to understand
➝ goals in purchasing product
➝ frustration with current solution
➝ decision process for purchasing a product of the type
being designed
➝ their role in installation, maintenance and management
➝ domain-related issues and vocabulary
10. users
should be the main focus of design effort
➝ fora re-design - talk to both current and potential
future users – good understand experience
➝ context of product use (where, when, why, how)
➝ goals and motivations for using the product
➝ domain knowledge – what do they need to know to get
things done
➝ current tasks and activities – what
➝ mental model: how users think about activities/tasks
and expectations about future products
➝ problems and frustrations with current products
11. literature review
➝ product marketing plans
➝ brand strategy
➝ market research
➝ user surveys
➝ technology specifications
➝ white papers
➝ business & technical journals / conference
➝ competitive studies
12. product and competitive audits
➝ existing versions or prototypes of product
➝ competing products
➝ heuristic reviews
➝ expert reviews
13. user-report based methods
paper-based
face-to-face
➝ survey
➝ interview
➝ questionnaire
➝ focus group
➝ user diaries
➝ how can users know
➝ can be disruptive for about possibilities of
new tech?
users
➝ scenarios
➝ audio recorder
➝ video diary
of course – both surveys and interviews/focus groups can be done on-line!
14. observation-based methods
detached observer
involved observer
➝ time-and-motion ➝ contextual design
studies
(researcher
➝ shadowing
apprenticed to user)
➝ ethnography
➝ action research
pure observation with no involvement is rare – we usually need some
degree of explanation
15. what is ethnography?
➝ from the Greek: Ethnos “foreigner”
graphos “writing” ethnography,
“writing about others”
➝ refers to the qualitative description of
human social phenomena, based on
observation in the field
➝ holistic research method founded in
the idea that a system's properties
cannot necessarily be accurately
understood independently of each
other
➝ regarded as a valid research method
in many social science disciplines (e.g.
anthropology, social psychology)
➝ output is usually a report/book
17. ✱ http://ww.iwschool.utexas.edu/~jpwms/pd/
designers’
users directly participate in design activities
world
Who participates with whom in what
designers participate in users’ world(s)
users’ world
early late
Position of activity in the development cycle or iteration
18. ethnography in practice
➝ retail anthropology
➝ maps “arcane patterns of consumer behaviour”
➝ which aisle number in a store seems the most alluring?
➝ what kind of overhead lighting and piped-in music is conducive to
purchasing?
➝ what lures shoppers into the most lucrative parts of the store?
➝ examples discoveries
➝ “transitionzones” to slow shoppers down
➝ 9/10 people tend to turn right when entering a store
➝ women will never buy if their bum is “bumped” (touched
by furniture or other shoppers)
➝ smell is an important attractor/mood enhancer
19. ethnography in usability
➝ Suchman (1987): Study of office work and how
technology fits in (or, more often, not)
➝ importance of interaction between people when using
technology
➝ “distributed cognition”
➝ impact on how people interact with each other
➝ Taylor
& Harper (2002): Study of SMS use by
teenagers
➝ SMS as “gifts” in relationships and keepsakes
20. stages of ethnographic study!
➝ preparation
➝ field study
➝ can be carried out in organisations "
( contextual enquiry), homes, or public spaces
➝ researchers observing or participating? "
( action research)
➝ analysis
➝ reporting "
21. preparation
➝ understand organization policies and work culture
➝ familiarize yourself with the system and its history
➝ set initial goals and prepare questions
➝ gain access and permission to observe/interview
22. field study
➝ establish rapport with managers and users
➝ observe/interview users in their workplace and
collect subjective/objective quantitative/qualitative
data
➝ follow any leads that emerge from the visits
23. analysis
➝ compile the collected data in numerical, textual,
and multimedia databases
➝ quantify data and compile statistics
➝ reduce and interpret the data
➝ refine the goals and the process used
24. reporting
➝ consider multiple audiences and goals
➝ prepare a report and present the findings
➝ in interaction design:
➝ personas
➝ usage scenarios iterative evaluation
➝ recommendations for interaction
➝ further investigations needed
25. a variation: coolhunting
who decides what's cool? Certain kids in certain places — and
only the coolhunters know who they are.
by Malcom Gladwell (appeared in the New Yorker, 1997)
Baysie Wightman met DeeDee Gordon, appropriately enough, on a coolhunt. It was
1992. Baysie was a big shot for Converse, and DeeDee, who was barely twenty-
one, was running a very cool boutique called Placid Planet, on Newbury Street in
Boston. Baysie came in with a camera crew - one she often used when she was
coolhunting - and said, "I've been watching your store, I've seen you, I've heard you
know what's up," because it was Baysie's job at Converse to find people who knew
what was up and she thought DeeDee was one of those people. This was about the
time the cool kids had decided they didn't want the hundred-and-twenty-five-dollar
basketball sneaker with seventeen different kinds of high-technology materials and
colors and air-cushioned heels anymore. They wanted simplicity and authenticity,
and Baysie picked up on that. She brought back the Converse One Star, which was
a vulcanized, suède, low-top classic old-school sneaker from the nineteen-
seventies, and, sure enough, the One Star quickly became the signature shoe of the
retro era. Remember what Kurt Cobain was wearing in the famous picture of him
lying dead on the ground after committing suicide?
26. virtual ethnography
➝ extends the traditional notions of “field” and ethnographic
study from the observation of co-located, face-to-face
interactions, to physically distributed, technologically mediated
interactions in virtual networks and virtual communities
➝ attempts to maintain the values of traditional ethnography
through providing a "thick" description through the
"immersion" of the researcher in the lives of their subjects
➝ focus on the subject makes virtual ethnography quite distinct
from web usage datamining or social network analysis,
although it may use similar techniques to identify or map
networks
➝ examples: studies of chat rooms, distributed gaming
communities
27. living labs
➝ first proposed by Jarmo Surinen, a Finnish architect
➝ innovation platform
➝ implement complex new technologies or platforms in a community
➝ observe usage and user responses over period of time
➝ debrief users and let them suggest new functionality, ways of using
technology
➝ living lab at Helsinki University of Technology
www.helsinkilivinglab.fi
➝ network of European Living Labs as innovation infrastructure
http://www.livinglabs-europe.com
Living labs follow the same philosophy as the development methodology proposed by
Sasse et al. 1994 for CSCW systems – provide basic platform, let users experience it,
and propose further functionality.
28. example – Jan Chipchase
www.janchipchase.com
glimpses of studies for mobile technologies
obtaining just-in-time insurance for
small pockets of time using
pre-paid mobile phones
insurance vending machines for travelers
at Haneda Airport – making it possible to
sign up for snow-sports insurance late on
in the prepare-for-travel process
29. basic methods
➝ interview where the action happens
➝ be flexible - avoid fixed set of questions
➝ focus on goals first, tasks second
➝ avoid making the user a designer
➝ avoid discussions of technology
➝ encourage storytelling
➝ ask for a show and tell
➝ avoid leading questions
30. summary
➝ ethnography is about using observation to understand a
system (consisting of people, technology or both)
➝ has been successfully applied to usability and other areas
of design, to:
➝ identify user needs
➝ described complex work environments and social
systems
➝ to understand how and why people use technology in a
certain way
➝ new forms of capturing and analysis are evolving – e.g.
digital & virtual ethnography
➝ get creative with your data collection strategy!