I feel compelled to reiterate my note-taking plea here: Don't do it!
Note-taking splits your attention and tends to change the behavior of
the subject. It's aurally, visually and actively intrusive.
Note-taking is evil.
Use a tape recorder or a web cam or a small video camera you can mount
on the cubicle wall and aim, or similar (depending on what behaviors
you're particularly studying) but if at all possible, don't take
notes. Much of what you would take notes on can be translated into
sound simply by asking questions. Then schedule time between sessions
when you can jot down your notes and aides de memoir.
I realize that contemporary note-taking is in some cases simply
unavoidable, but make sure that you really need to do it in this case
before automatically incorporating it.
kt
Katie Albers
Founder & Principal Consultant
FirstThought
User Experience Strategy & Project Management
310 356 7550
[email protected]
On Feb 2, 2009, at 1:54 PM, Josh Evnin wrote:
To add to the great advice above:
- Make sure the people you'll be observing are prepared for you to
be
there. They SHOULD NOT clear their schedules to be with you. They
should
have real, regular work to get done while you're with them and you
need to
set that expectation ahead of time.
- An hour or two for each observation should be a good amount of
time,
but make sure that you're observing enough of the "important
stuff." The
"important stuff" is the same as the Big Questions Dana talks about.
- I second Nicholas's idea of starting the day with a group
meeting, but
don't let this go too long. Maybe half an hour, maybe. One thing
I've done
in the past is give people some "homework" at this meeting. You
can hand out
disposable cameras for people to take photos of their work spaces
(if this
is alright with the organization), or ask people to think about
the last
time they did that really important activity and write a quick
paragraph
about it so that you can take it away afterward.
- Remember to relax, and don't make promises about things you
might be
able to fix.
- Will you have anybody from your organization and/or the client's
organization to do the observations with you? My best Contextual
Inquiry
research has ended with a client doing the big presentation to
their own
people. In my experience, clients buy into this type of user
research almost
immediately. Invite clients and coworkers to the observations if
possible,
and if not, have them help you with the analysis afterward. If
even *that
* is not possible, then make sure that your analysis and modeling
are big
and visible, so people are interested in what you've done.
- Do your initial analysis *immediately*. Even if you take copious
notes,
the things people said are going to bleed together. I would type
up or
formalize your notes on the plane ride home.
That's all I've got off the top of my head. Me and a coworker
presented a
paper at Agile 2008 about this topic, and I think there's a lot more
in
there about my experience doing a quick Contextual Inquiry. Here's
the link
to the paper:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/stamp/stamp.jsp?
arnumber=4599535&isnumber=4599440
Good luck!
Josh
On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 2:59 PM, Nicholas Iozzo <[email protected]>
wrote:
I have found it is generally better to open the day with a group
meeting. No matter how much explaining you do ahead of time, you will
still likely be scheduled to meet with the wrong folks.
The group meeting will allow the managers to have their say and give
them a forum to tell you many things. You can then use that to start
asking specific task questions. Usually during the course of these
questions, they will say "Well, Sue does that". Great time to say,
"I'd love to spend some time with Sue later today then to see how
she does it."
I have found that during the course of this opening meeting, names of
individuals get brought up as the person who does X. This is the best
way for you to then select whom you want to meet with and learn more
about task x.
Of course, as the prior posted mentioned. Preparation is the most
important thing to do. Know what you want to observe, know how many
events you want to observe, have research questions you want
answered. Prepare a study guide....
During the course of the day, you will be presented with more
opportunities then you have time to follow-up on. You need to have
spent time developing your study guide so you can make on-the-fly
decisions on how to best use your time.
Even if your research techniques are all about not interfering with
the user and letting it naturally flow. If you have not made
decisions about what you want to learn, then you will not learn
anything.
This is more practical then ideal. Ideally you would have lots of
time to spend with everyone, so you will be able to learn all you
can. Practically, you have a very limited amount of time to spend
with a limited number of folks. So you have to plan on how to use it
wisely.
Get clearance before you even bring out any recording devices. Many
companies do not like it.
Good luck.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38073
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