Identifying research activities and methods

The purpose of this task was to identify research activities and the methods for them. We identified this by looking at a real academic publication. The first part was to list all the research activities that were on.

Below shows most of the research activities found in the hand out publication. Along side of them is written whether the activity was quantitative method – it is counting quantities (numbers, statistics, graphs etc), qualitative method – looking at qualities (description, explanation, argument etc) or both.

Ref Source: http://www.cogentcomputing.org/~john_h/DIS06.pdf

Research Activities

• Users may be encouraged to be ‘hands on’, engaging with and enacting the activity. Some methods ask users to role-play envisioned activities employing the future technology in the actual use environment. Others build full-scale models or provide high-fidelity simulations, e.g. video-prototypes that users can evaluate (page 110 – paragraph 7) - Quantitative

• At Chawton House we used a variety of methods, mixing ‘hands-on’ and ‘reflective’ activities. We worked with maps to ground discussions, had curators experience prototypes in situ, enacting how visitors to the estate would interact with the system, and ran a full-scale ‘demonstrator’ of the system in the grounds of Chawton House. (page 111 – paragraph 2) - Both

• Chawton House staff was interested in working with us to explore the possibilities for new kinds of technology-enhanced tours of the grounds. We met and interacted with several of the (approximately 15) staff, mainly working with three key people: Greg, the acting director; Sue, the assistant librarian; and Alan, the estate manager. (page 111 – paragraph 4) - Both

• As a first cut into the large space of possible visitor experiences we decided together with the curators to focus on two kinds of visitor experience: one for adult visitors; the other an educational experience for schoolchildren. We further decided to develop the educational experience as an early demonstrator to bootstrap the curators’ understanding of what was possible, which we would then build on in the future when creating further visitor experiences. (page 111 – paragraph 7) – Qualitative

• Our co-design activities consisted of four workshops of about two hours each, which involved the three core staff members on all occasions apart from Alan’s absence from the fourth. The workshops focused on understanding their work and the setting, developing ideas for visitor tours including the educational experience, and collecting material to be presented by the mobile devices. After the third workshop, the educational experience, a school fieldtrip designed in collaboration with teachers, took place. The fourth workshop focused on reflection on this experience, particularly how other kinds of visitor experience could be developed as part of our longer-term co-design relationship. (page 111 – paragraph 8) - Both

• We asked curators what they know about the house and grounds, what kinds of things they tell visitors when giving tours, and what themes are important for tours. Inspired by the use of maps and small-scale models in Participatory Design [17, 19], we printed a large map and populated it with models of buildings. The map provided a shared reference for discussion, enabling the curators to point out key locations and to tell us the things that are interesting about those locations. (page 112 – paragraph 1) – Qualitative

• Sue, Alan and Greg took three researchers on separate guided tours. A second researcher on each tour videotaped it. The tapes provided us with material for possible reuse in audio tours. (page 112 – paragraph 2) – Quantitative

• Following this workshop, a set of audio segments were selected and cut by the research team from the recordings. These were of sufficient quality and interest to be used as content for our system. (page 112 – paragraph 2) – Qualitative

• We showed curators a short video of the Ambient Wood project to provide an impression both of the technology and the kinds of activities that can be created for children. We then took the curators on a walk around the grounds with a laptop, playing selected audio clips to give an impression of how visitors might experience this. (page 112 – paragraph 3) - Both

• It took around two hours and consisted of four phases. First, Sue gave a guided tour of the house to the whole group. Then the children explored the grounds in pairs, free to go wherever they wanted. They were followed by researchers recording what they did, but not by teachers. Each pair of children shared a single portable device with location sensing and the ability to record audio and text. (page 112 – paragraph 5) - Both

• We presented a 30 minute video (providing an overview of the fieldtrip itself and the subsequent writing activity), summarized feedback from teachers and children, and showed them the stories the children had written. (page 113 – paragraph 3 – Qualitative

• Then the curators walked around the grounds, with the device and content used by the children. For this activity, unlike the fieldtrip, there was no location detection and thus no dynamic delivery of information. We used a ‘static deck’, the device giving directions of where to go next, after a set of instructions and information related to one location had been finished. (page 113 – paragraph 3) – Quantitative

• Over the course of the project, curators were repeatedly exposed to new ways of thinking about how content could be used to construct novel forms of tours. In particular, content being delivered by technology rather than humans; content being broken up into separate clips that could be shuffled, allowing visitors to follow flexible rather than fixed paths; and visiting locations in any order. (page 113– paragraph 5) - Qualitative

• In Workshop 1, we asked curators to think of different kinds of tours of the grounds; particularly whether and how far they needed to be guided or whether visitors could go where they liked. (page 113– paragraph 6) - Qualitative

• We walked with the three curators and a laptop to different locations in the grounds and played a few clips at places where visitors might hear them. As part of the demonstration, we started in a different place to where tours normally start. Later-on curators remarked that it was an intriguing idea to start tours at the gate, a different route to their usual one. (page 114– paragraph 3) - Both

• In the second hour of Workshop 3, the curators examined transcripts of audio clips. (page 114– paragraph 5) – Qualitative

• Interviewed directly after the fieldtrip, Alan commented: “The children were walking – sort of scurrying around. [We] would be interested, because if you can say to children, go off and they come back 2 or 3 hours later, you haven’t spent that time doing that.” (page 114– paragraph 6) - Qualitative