quartz/content/notes/needfinding.md

title	aliases	tags
needfinding		info203

how to start imporving or designing inerface how to identify the gap or use interface issues

needdfinding tries to identify issues, often through observational studies (qualitative)

"the trick [challenge] to finding ideas is to convince yourself that everyone and everything has a story to tell" "The other trick if finding out the difference between power and knowledge. You dont start at the top if you want to find a story, you start in the middle. Because its the people in the middle that do the work" "self conciousness is the enemy of interestingness" -malcolm gladwell

1 Methods

• participant-observation

  • Apprenticeship
    • set a partnership with the people to be observed
    • be taught the steps in the process
    • observe the practives
    • validate what you are observing with those observed as you go along
    • e.g.,
      • apprenticeship is eVision user
      • task: find in which room INFO203 is
      • problem: I do not have a timetable in eVision like students
    • allows you to capture the context of use and the issues and needs
      • what do people do now
      • what values and goals do people have
      • how are these particular activities embedded in the larger context
      • similarities and differences across people
      • other types of context that are relevant -> time of day, social context

• interviewing

  • avoid leading questions
  • choose sample representative of real users
  • often impractical
  • can be structured or semi-structured
  • effective for high level

• Longitudinal studies

  • sporadic use -> when the product is used rarely
  • used when you cannot use observational studies
  • diaries
    • scale better than direct observation (less time consuming)
    • give people a diary to copmlete
    • structred task
    • can use journals, camera, voice, video
    • tailor the recording to the context
    • may require practice, training, reminding
      • use of ntifications, digital calendars, phone calls
  • Experience sampling
    • use txt, phone calls , calendars, notifications to recieve feeback or actively remind people
    • choose interval depending on study context