There are several main methodologies which were applied in the research. The
“In-depth interview” is the method of acquiring data from users’ thoughts. The “Affinity Diagram” and “Means-End Analysis” are the method to analyze a great quantity of data.
Furthermore, “Group discussion with prototypes” is the way to probe users’ ideas about the design and the issues.
2.3.1 In-depth interview
In-depth, qualitative interviews are excellent tools to use in probing users’ thoughts and evaluating systems. An in-depth interview is an open-ended, discovery-oriented method that is well suited for describing both system processes and outcomes from the perspective of the target audience. The goal of the interview is to deeply explore the respondent's point of view, feelings and perspectives. In this sense, in-depth interviews yield information.
There are key characteristics that differentiate an in-depth, qualitative research interview from a regular interview. Some key characteristics of in-depth interviews include:
a. Open-ended Questions.
Questions should be worded so that respondents cannot simply answer yes or no, but must expound on the topic.
b. Semi-structured Format.
Although you should have some pre-planned questions to ask during the interview, you must also allow questions to flow naturally, based on information provided by the respondent.
c. Seek understanding and interpretation.
You should try to interpret what you are hearing, as well as seek clarity and a deeper understanding from the respondent throughout the interview.
d. Conversational.
You should be conversational, but your role is primarily that of a listener. There should be smooth transitions from one topic to the next.
e. Record responses.
The responses are recorded, typically with audiotape and written notes (i.e., field notes)
f. Record observations.
You observe and record non-verbal behaviors on the field notes as they occur.
g. Record reflections.
You record your views and feelings immediately after the interview as well. (Guion, 2001)
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In this research, this method was adopted in the investigation stage to interview the informants about their past experience watching live shows. In this phase, the questions were easier to answerer and the total time is shorter around 30 to 45 minutes, because the purpose of the first stage is to comprehend the overall situation. Though, the process of interviewing still followed the guidelines above. In addition, the method was also applied in the discussion with prototypes stage. When the informants were invited to The East Gate, they were interviewed with more deep questions in around 1 to 1.5 hour to find out what they think about the prototypes.
2.3.2 Affinity Diagram
The Affinity Diagram was devised by Jiro Kawakita in the 1960s and is sometimes referred to as the KJ Method. The affinity diagram is a tool used to gather and organize ideas, opinions, issues, etc. The tool is commonly used within project management and allows large numbers of ideas to be sorted into groups for review and analysis.
Ishikawa(1990) recommends using the affinity diagram when facts or thoughts are uncertain and need to be organized, when preexisting ideas or paradigms need to be clarified, and when unity within a team needs to be created.
In this study, the Affinity Diagram is used for sorting and organizing informants’
opinions about sharing experiences into related groups. After interviewing several informants, we need to organize and consolidate each idea from different informants. Some statements were similar and some were not so important to be notice. In this purpose, we simply marked keynotes from interviews and wrote on 3" x 5" cards or Post-it (cards are more durable, but Post-its stay where they are put–even on vertical surfaces). The cards with similar statements or ideas may then be moved into similar groups. Each group is named with a header card and the groups are again grouped into larger groups. In this way a hierarchy or tree is built, bottom-up. The result is known as an Affinity Diagram. From the diagram, some issues which were worthy to be noticed would be raised up. Then the results would help us to do further qualitative interpretations. To sum up, it is the method that helps us researchers to have a clear standpoint to control a large number of gathered information from users’ opinions.
2.3.3 Means-End Analysis
Means-End Analysis(MEA) is one of the oldest ideas in Artificial Intelligence for controlling search in problem solving computer programs. It was named and studied by Newell, Shaw, and Simon in the 1950s, and was the key idea behind the General Problem Solver (GPS) (McDermott, 1966) It is also a technique used as a creativity tool, most frequently mentioned in engineering books on design methods. Means-End Chain is also a
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technique in marketing for categorizing customer goals.
The Means-End Chain theory is based on the assumption that consumers connect the motivation to purchase a product with positive emotions. A hierarchical value system (eg, comfort) of the consumers towards a product mean that buyers ask for brands as a set of characteristics (means) to achieve desirable states (ends) to. Often these value hierarchies are unconscious and therefore difficult to measure the resulting decision behavior. The Means-End Chain theory provides methods represent these cognitive mental decision processes. (Herrmann Andreas, 1996)
In this research, MEA is used to organize keynotes from interviews to three levels which are ends (objectives), means (methods), and attributes (characteristics). The operation process of Means-End Analysis for analyze data from interview are as follows,
a. Take out the functional, social or psychological objectives and put them in the
“ends” category.
b. Collect the following ways or actions for the individual purpose and put them into
“means” category.
c. Gather concrete and abstract characteristics of a product or an activity and put them into “attributes” category.
After sorting all data into three categories, three categories were arranged and presented horizontally as a framework. Meanwhile, the MEA method was collocated with an Affinity Diagram in this research. All keynotes gathered from each informants were sorted into three categories followed with MEA, then arranged those keynotes in each categories with Affinity Diagram. From the framework, researchers could find out the association in each subcategory and interpret the relationships in between.
2.3.4 Group discussion with prototypes
Prototyping puts concrete interfaces into the hands of users much earlier than the final product, albeit limited in features, shows and stability. A prototype is an original type, form, or instance of something serving as a typical example, basis, or standard for other things of the same category. Prototypes are used to confirm and verify consumer interest in a proposed design whereas other prototypes will attempt to verify the shows or suitability of a specific design approach.
In general, an iterative series of prototypes will be designed, constructed and tested as the final design emerges and is prepared for production. With rare exceptions, multiple
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iterations of prototypes are used to progressively refine the design. A common strategy is to design, test, evaluate and then modify the design based on analysis of the prototype.
Interaction designers use a variety of prototyping techniques to test aspects of design ideas. These can be roughly divided into three classes: those that test the role of an artifact, those that test its look and feel and those that test its implementation. Sometimes, these are called experience prototypes to emphasize their interactive nature. Prototypes can be physical or digital, high or low-fidelity. (Borchers, 2001)
To let informants experience prototypes is any kind of representation, in any medium, that is designed to understand, explore or communicate what it might be like to engage with the product, space or system we are designing. Obviously this can include design prototyping techniques such as storyboards, scenarios, sketches, videos, or steps through simulations, all of which certainly add value by communicating elements that make up an experience. (Buchenau & Suri, 2000)
In order to gain what users care for and their reception about the design techniques in this research, the method of prototyping was adopted to probe informants’ idea about the co-experience design concepts. In the prototyping phase, we developed concepts and chose three designs which has different attributes, then made the prototypes on card boards and put them in the research field. Several informants were invited to the field and experienced those prototypes. After experiencing, they discuss what they have experienced and how they felt. In a word, prototypes as a probing research tool to grasp users’ ideas about the design and help researcher to sort users’ thoughts about design techniques.
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- Chapter 3 - METHODOLOGY
This research aims at discussing designing techniques and corresponding effects by way of analyzing users’ feeling and thoughts in co-experience. The prototypes serve as research tools to explore what users care and need in co-experience platforms. The research plan could be separated into two stages. Firstly, the primary investigating stage was to collect and analyze data from interviewees to obtain a general understanding about current sharing platform. Secondly, the users’ opinions were brought up by means of designing prototypes and field-testing.
In this research, the main issues involved the whole context of sharing experiences in social interactions and unintelligible thoughts of users. We focus on the shared-experience of watching live-show, such as music, drama show, or any kinds of ball games, as our main investigated activities. The results can be applied to all sorts of sharing experience platforms.