Site Observations, Cultural

Probes, & Other Design Methods

Dr. Will Kurlinkus
What Types of User
Data Are You
Required to Collect?

• At least 5 sources of data altogether

• 2 interviews
• 1 survey
• 1 something else: Site observation,
cultural probe, etc.
• 1 duplicate or something else

We’re shooting for a little

methodological data triangulation:
compensating for the weaknesses of
some methods with other
Tell Us What Your Topic Is
& How You Can Make it
Do-Able
Test Your Survey
Questions With
a Group of Your
Peers
1. Do any questions seem biased in terms of
positive or negative language?
2. Are any questions confusing? (not sure what
it’s asking or key terms need to be defined?)
3. Do any questions seem missing?
4. Is the intro clear?
 • "What people say, what people do, and what people say they do are
entirely different things.” —Margaret Mead
Ethnographic • The goal of ethnography is to immerse yourself in the culture of your
Site subjects
• Hawthorne Effect: people are likely to change their behavior if they know
Observations they are being observed.
• Field study (site observation relatively incognito) vs. contextual inquiry
(having an insider explain the site to you)
Site Observations: Where
Can you Go to Observe Your
Problem & Users in The
Wild? What Might You Hope
to Find? Write Three Site
Observation Research
Questions
Build Variety & Perspectives
into Your Site Observation
• Does time of day affect your site?
• Does perspective affect your site?: think about
purposefully observing from multiple user viewpoints
(the biker vs. the pedestrian)
• What’s focal is causal: interrogation rooms, fights in
a café.
• Open (the whole site wholistaclly) vs. focused
observation (focusing on areas, user types, and
tasks)
• Are there multiple areas/locales within your site that you
might observe from?
When are the best times for
your site to be observed? Why?
Map your local-–what does it
look like and where might
observation best take place?
What are the different
perspectives/scenes you might
want to do focused observations
of?
Ethnographic
Note Taking
1. Date, time, and place of observation
2. Specific facts, numbers, details of what happens at the site
3. Sensory impressions: sights, sounds, textures, smells, taste
4. Key Activities, Environments, Interactions, Objects, and Users
(AEIOU)
5. Specific words, phrases, summaries of conversations, and
insider language (quotes)
6. Photos?
7. Questions about people or behaviors at the site for future
investigation
8. Thick description: observations on the connections between
what people are doing and why they are doing it.
Making as
Research:
Cultural Probes
What might you
get your users to
make to learn
more about them?
Empathic Modeling:
What Might You Do to
Put Yourselves in the
Shoes of Your
Participants? What
Activities and Processes?
Guided Tour:
Who Might You
Ask to Take You
On a Tour of the
Problem/Context
Scenario Testing:
Write a Scenario for
a User to Capture
Their Reaction.
What would you do
in this situation?
User Prototyping: How Might You
Ask Your User to Redesign the
Problem?
Focus Group: Who
Might You Get
Together in A Group?
How might group
dynamics change
answers from
individual interviews?