Reading seminar 1 - Notes

The main points discussed in the required literature centre around the process of gathering and analyzing data in an as effective and structured manner as possible. We are taught how to plan and conduct different kinds of investigations such as interviews, questionnaires, field observations etc. It is shown how to analyze their specific pros and cons in time required, possible sources of error, their different results in data and later how to execute these as scientifically as possible in order to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data relevant to the original studies. The processing and assessment of this data should then be conducted just as during the previous step and with further precautions towards assumptions, bias and other factors which might tilt the results in favour of something not originally represented in the data. Some useful ways of presenting data(personas, user cases, etc.) are then discussed and weighted for their pros and cons. A more concrete article regarding the practice of "User centred system design" (UCSD) highlights some of the previously discussed concepts and also shows clear examples of some of the possible pitfalls when applying these. Overall I recognized most of the concepts discussed from previous knowledge and therefore enjoyed reading about the specific reasoning behind the techniques rather than just accepting them as truth as I’ve previously had to do. A question I would like to discuss at the upcoming seminar would be why group interviews are recommended at all even though we have a flood of studies showing how peoples perception drastically can be altered when subjected to peer pressure?