Enriching dialogue between researchers and participants
Enriching dialogue between researchers and participants
It can be difficult for participants of research interviews or focus groups to open up and share the full scope of their personal experiences. Across a number of research projects, I’ve used unique tools and activities as a means of sensitising participants to complex felt experiences, acting as an agent for more insightful researcher-participant dialogue.
Research Question
How can user researchers uncover more impactful insights in interview sessions?
Project OutcomeS
A series of new research tools and activities to be conducted during interview sessions.
Memory Probes
Memory Probes were used to explore the relationship between a possession's traces of use and human memories. Participants were provided with the probe kit to revisit and capture properties and memories relating to their chosen possession to then share in an interview session.
The probe kit used in the field study containing a disposable camera, an ink pad, a set of alphabet stamps, a SoundTag, two pieces of clay, a pencil and a loose-leaf photo album.
The participant drops a stamp on the desk to simulate the sound of a wooden doll crashing into the ground.
The participant uses pencil rubbings of her helmet alongside a hand-drawn storyboard to narrate her experience of falling off her motorcycle.
BENEFITS
Created a dialogue with participants in which they had to narrate rather than describe their experiences.
Provided participants with greater control over the focus of conversation and revealing of information to the researcher.
Association Cards
Association Cards were used alongside interviews to reveal the wealth of thoughts that physical and digital products bring to mind. Participants were asked to list all of the things that come to mind when engaging with a belonging such as an object, collection or digital library.
An associations card describing the thoughts brought to mind by a pair of ruby earrings.
BENEFITS
Shines light on subtle aspects of perception that may otherwise be overlooked or filtered out from interview discussions.
Reveals the layers of seemingly unrelated thoughts brought to mind by a topic.
Object Interventions
Object Interventions is a method to help explore people's emotional connections to their everyday belongings. Participants were asked to swap several of their existing household possessions with a newly introduced version of the same product (i.e. swap their own mug with a mug we provided) for a period of 2 weeks.
BENEFITS
Reveal the emotional significance of everyday belongings that is often overlooked.
Disrupts routine and provides a (functionally) identical replacement product for comparison, improving participants ability to identify and express the underlying significance of their own belongings.
Identity Timelines
Identity Timelines were used to reveal the role of people's belongings in reaffirming who they are, who they were and who they wish to become. Participants were given timelines to list their most cherished belongings at various stages throughout their life in relation to 1 of 3 aspects of their identity.
Personal Identity: Individual interests, values, behaviours and tastes.
Social Identity: Interpersonal relationships to others.
Organisational Identity: values, goals and behaviours within working environments.
BENEFITS
Dividing aspects of a participant’s identity helps reveal the complexity and diversity of an individual’s attitudes and experiences.
The timeline format helps guide participants to reflect on changes in their lives and what they believe will be important to them in the future.
Spatial Ratings
Spatial Ratings is an alternative to bipolar scaling methods such as the Likert scale (strongly agree to strongly disagree) that involves physically positioning the things to be rated within a space. It can be done with physical items, notes or cards containing participant responses.
Rating objects or responses by positioning them within a spatial quadrant or scale.
BENEFITS
Spatial positioning provides a more intuitive way for participants to rate multiple items in comparison to the common numerical Likert scale.
Allows participants to see their ratings in relation to one another and make adjustments on the fly, providing more honest data.
Helps both interviewer and participant to comparatively discuss and reflect on each of the rated items.
Publications
Association Cards and Spatial Ratings - Daniel Orth, Clementine Thurgood and Elise van den Hoven. 2020. Embodying Meaningful Digital Media: A Strategy to Design for Product Attachment in the Digital Age. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction ACM, 81-94.
Association Cards and Spatial Ratings - Daniel Orth, Clementine Thurgood and Elise van den Hoven. 2019. Designing Meaningful Products in the Digital Age: How Users Value Their Technological Possessions. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 26(5), 34.
Association Cards and Spatial Ratings - Daniel Orth, Clementine Thurgood and Elise van den Hoven. 2018. Designing Objects with Meaningful Associations. International Journal of Design, 12(2), 91-104.
Object Interventions, Identity Timelines and Spatial Ratings - Daniel Orth and Elise van den Hoven. 2016. "I wouldn't choose that key ring; it's not me": A design study of cherished possessions and the self. In Proceedings of the 28th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction ACM, 316-325.
Involvement
I designed, developed and deployed Association Cards, Object Interventions, Identity Timelines and Spatial Ratings with the oversight of Elise van den Hoven and Clementine Thurgood from the Materialising Memories team.
All Memory Probe materials were developed and deployed by Wenn-Chieh Tsai with the oversight of Elise van den Hoven from the Materialising Memories team. I collaborated with Wenn-Chieh in piloting the probe kit materials and analysing and reporting the study findings.