Studio 8: Identifying Research Activities & Methods; Advice/ Supervision on Key Assignment

We are required to scan the handout given by the lecturer and to find all the research activities that were involved.

Research Activities

• 'Hands on' and 'reflective' activities. Produces qualitative information. Gives them 1st hand experience of the system. Gives an indication on how good the system will appear to the real users. Any problems they come across they can rectify before the actual users can experience it.
• Two types of experience. Produces qualitative information. Visitor for adult’s and educational for children. Allows for developing the experience. Covers wider area of users therefore giving designers a better idea of what is required from the system.
• Observations of tours and everyday functioning of the house. Qualitative information. Gives an insight on how things are run and where different parts of the system can be implemented. Observing tours can give designers of what is required, what is good and what is bad in these tours and incorporating what they have found out in the current system.
• Interviews with staff. Qualitative and quantitative information. Personal opinion is important. Staff can give more ideas for the system. They would know what the visitors would like to see and how. After the interviews, potential for flexibility can be identified.
• Working with maps. Qualitative information. Get familiar with the area. Positioning of objects, parts of the house, garden layout etc.
• Video presentations. Qualitative and quantitative information.
• Walking around the grounds. Qualitative information. Get a physical feel of the premises. Getting to know everything is, deciding what will be where.
• Demonstration of system prototypes. Qualitative information. Shows how the system will work. Begin user testing with prototype. Identify improvements to produce new prototypes.
• Workshops and interviews videotaped. Qualitative information. Information can be seen later. Can be used for future reference. Video analysis.
• Scale modelling. Qualitative information. Provides a reference for discussion. Identifying key locations. Identifying what is interesting about those locations.
• ‘In situ’ activity. Come to what offset means in terms of user experience. Issues become clear once the system has been experienced by them.