In the following sections, the methodologies related to this research include interviews, probe diaries, participatory design activities and field trials, which would be introduced and compared.
2.3.1 Dyad Interview
The differences between several familiar qualitative methods, such as focus group, several types of interviews, and ethnography methods, have been early introduced by Ireland (2003).
A traditional one-to-one interview has been generally used by most researchers especially about design evaluation. One person would be interviewed alone by a researcher with a tightly scripted or a loose outline. This kind of interview is ideal for understanding the thought, sentiments, or reflections of individuals about a topic or a design with less concern for the possible influence on others. Meanwhile, the individual interview might be appropriate for some issues involved in personal privacy.
In this research, the qualitative research methods are conducted in the primary stage of this research to profoundly uncover the connotation of people’s experiences in their communicating activities, and to extend the innovative and precise perspectives on human connectedness.
In opposition to individual interviews, the dyad interview is essential research method in previous studies. In dyad interview, a moderator would follow an outline or lightly scripted guidelines to interview two persons who are friends as a pair. The procedure for dyad interviews is not such exact as that for individual interviews, and the duration of dyad interview is much longer. Dyad interviews, or “friendship pairs” interviews, are a powerful
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forum to explore issues which are difficult for people to articulate their opinions and at the same time to make people interviewed feel comfortable and relaxed because they are companied by their friends (Ireland, 2003).
Since the two friends are interviewed as a pair, the canvass would be more animated, insightful, and very candid. The interviewees might be reminded or prompted by each other, and different aspects of some issues could be extended. Furthermore, a significant merit of a dyad interview is that it can reflect the true interactions between the two interviewees. That is quite helpful when the investigation on social relationships is conducted and communication issues are discussed.
2.3.2 Probe Diaries
A diary methodology is a self-documentation in the social sciences-- a common method of ethnography through sampling and analysis of diaries recorded by respondents (DeLongis et al., 1992; Koskinen, 2002). And its process and result are often used in culture probes (Gaver et al., 1999; Horst et al., 2004).
A traditional diary is a structured self-report used in home economics, business studies, pedagogy, field studied and historical researches. Typically each page of it is similar to a questionnaire, and the respondents have to fill each page at regular intervals in a long period of research time. It is an experience sampling method, and respondents have to recode their cognitions, emotions, or activities. A diary as a research instrument could be applied to a brief or a profile of a participant, or could be a pilot study of an indefinite issue. It is also portable for a respondent to carry and record. Besides, there are several merits of diaries to support a research outside a lab:
To increase the validity of aggregation and demonstration of multiple indicators, To reduce recall error in self-reports and experiments, and
To assist in the non-access fields.
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In addition, compared with other field observation, to use diaries is much efficient and low-priced (Koskinen, 2002).
On the other hand, ethnomethodology (Garfinkle, 1967) is the study of the ways in which people make sense of their social world. Ethnomethodologists assume that the social order is illusory, potentially chaotic, and a coherent pattern constructed in the minds of social actors with a series of sense impressions and experiences they confront. For this reason, Garfinkle developed methods in the past that 'breach' or 'break' the everyday routines of people’s lives and observe their reactions to reveal and to interpret people’s inherent activity principles to maintain the normal flow of life in social interactions.
Extending several different ethnography methods, Gaver (1999) conceived culture probes integrating the concept of ethnomethodology and the diary methodology, towards visual self-documentation for design. The researchers provide participants with several different tools, such as diaries, post cards, digital cameras, or PDAs, and also ask them to record in a period of time or fulfill some tasks. These tools might irritate participants’ lives but incite them to reinterpret their experiences and impressions. Hence, the researchers could comprehend people’s needs and values and have an insight into the context of their lives and cultures.
At times, the researchers could deliberate upon some issues in a field, where is private and non-access to entering for long term investigation. Since it is not sufficient for the researchers to comprehend the whole context, conducting the interviews, culture probes and diaries might be efficient to use. In the case of high-tech companies, the researchers are not allowed to enter engineers’ actual working offices to do field observation, and it is also forbidden to use a camera, a video, an audio recorder, or any recording device to record engineers’ lives, since the advanced high-tech research and development of a company are confidentially protected.
Therefore, to perceive the real interactions and fundamental needs between the occupied high-tech engineers in communicating context, probe diaries were decided to use.
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2.3.3 Participatory Design
Gibson (1982) and Norman (1988) ever mentioned that the perceived and actual fundamental properties of things would affect the possible usage of things, and furthermore, the pith of ‘functional analysis’ (Löwgren, 2000) is to find out the needed and desired aspects of an artifact. Gedenryd (1982) and Schön (1993) also emphasized that the problem setting should be done with the objects in a study since the potential usage and meaning of the product in a future situation may abound out of freedom and uncertainty. Besides, the empathy of users could be an inquiry into a purpose.
Product designers and developers detected the benefits from direct consumer feedbacks, and launched into a new qualitative user-centered approach, to which consumers or objects of study could participate. In addition, they work upon the design through out the whole product development process, and then could involve in making consistency between what they thought and what consumers reflected (Sanders, 1994).
In order to meet the needs and desires of users, at the initial stage of problem setting in a research, several methods, such as interviews, field observations, focus groups, or preceding introduced culture probes are commonly used to explore the issues in truly usage situations.
Then, in the design prototyping sections, workshops with the development methods like brain storming would be carried out. Sometimes development panel, a kind of representative group, would be asked to work with the designers and researchers to make a collage or prototype.
On the other hand, co-design method (Sander, 2000; Westerlund et al, 2003) is also considered as a kind of participatory design. Not only the objects in a study participate and influence the whole design process, but the experts and scholars of different disciplines, such as ethnography, psychology, computer science, industrial design, and interaction design, would investigate together and give their own opinions on the design issues. Westerlund et al.
(2003) programmed such a process find out the specific problems in a field and get hold of the reasonable and meaningful design ideas from these different field experts.
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If an artifact is meaningful, it would be determined by a well usage, fitting into the existing environment, or other memorable perceptions. Therefore, It is crucial to gain the opinions from users and experts together, and then to have the stimulation in real settings to discover users’ needs and desires.
2.3.4 Field Trials
Usability tests with user involvement made beforehand sometimes could not manifest the real situations where people will use the products. Even if ethnographic user research methods, which Contextual Inquiry (Beyer et al., 1998) and others (Ireland, 2003) used at the beginning of the development process, could give some ideas about the usage of the current technology.
The methods also provide the values people may already have, but they hardly anticipate in completely new technologies or to unprecedented media. Most field studies in work related to environment are effective to explore some essential findings for redesigning or product development. However, such field investigations or field estimations invariably need much time, costs, and efforts (Gaver, et al., 1999; Browne et al., 2001; Jääskö et al., 2003).
Until people use the products actually in their own environments, designers or researchers wouldn’t comprehend on the possible meanings of new product concepts. Mäkelä, et al. (2000) described the significance and effect of field trials. They stated that field trial methods, prototypes had better to be tested in a real field, which helps researchers or designers to gain the unanticipated product concepts in a real setting. In a design development process, field trials not only give a way to evaluate if the design matches the users’ requirements and perceptions, but reflect lots of different aspects of product prospective usability and possible values. For subsequent redesigning, field trial would also be an effective and economy method to review decisions made in design development, and aid researchers or designer to have more conceptions of the real usage situations.
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