· a user study of a large multi user interactive in a real world scenario.
· how successful technologies of this kind are in a communal context.
· an implementation of a system called Dynamo in a high school common room.
· Interest in studying the extent to which the students would use the Dynamo surface.
· Visual of the results found from the 10 days deployment of the Dynamo system
· How easily Dynamo is adopted and how frequently it is used.
Example 1 of qualitative data:
There were 150 students in the 6th form; most of the students had been together at the high school for a number of years and so knew each other relatively well, although obviously some were better friends than others. There was considerable ovement in and out of the room during the course of any day. In the period prior to the Dynamo deployment, we observed up to 20 students (at any given period) spending time in the common room between classes and at breaks.
The students made use of the space for a variety of purposes. They would hang out with friends in free periods, sometimes doing schoolwork, but mostly socialising. Often they would be in small groups sitting or standing around the tables, and occasionally sitting on their own. We saw instances where students staged spontaneous activities and performances, such as playing a guitar. They also brought in CDs and played them in the room on the shared CD player. A preliminary survey showed a high level of personal device ownership, with mobile phones being most popular, and digital still cameras, USB and zip disks and MP3 walkmans the next most commonly owned devices. We observed instances of students passing around their digital cameras to show others photos they had recently taken. We also observed students sending each other photos via their MMS mobile phones. The students reported high use of email and IM for communication and media sharing.’
(Page 4, paragraph 1 and 2).
Example 2 of qualitative data:
5.2.1. Drawing Others In
This first vignette presents a typical interaction around Dynamo:
Mike (second from left in Figure 10) goes through items from his
pen drive and from the parcels on Dynamo. For the next 15
minutes, people come in and out of the room, and occasionally chat
to him about the visual material on-screen. Shortly, two groups
gather on two of the back tables (right of Figure 10). Mike opens up
a series of items, spreading them out across the screen: these
include MP3s and some photos. He then opens a PowerPoint show
containing a series of visual illusions. As he goes through each
slide, he turns to the others in the room, gauging their reactions and
engaging his friend sitting next to him in banter:
‘That’s quality!’ ‘Oh yeah, it is very good, yeah’…
‘Do you have any more like that?’
Soon the others in the room become an audience, watching keenly
and discussing the illusions amongst themselves. During the show,
some others arrive and watch whilst still standing, and contributing
verbally (‘ahh – oh mate, I love those ones!’). When the slides
finish, Mike then puts on some music, and opens some photos, upsizing
each one consecutively, and each time getting an audience
reaction. He then proceeds to go through the parcels, looking at
photos and leaving some open down the right and left sides of the
surface. He leaves his PowerPoint show in a public parcel when he
finishes.
Figure 10: Mike (pictured front left), performing to the room
(Page 6, paragraphs 3 and 4)
Example 1 of quantitative data:
Based upon these high-level actions, a density of interaction over the course of each of the 10 days of deployment can be generated (Figure 5). The value in each cell indicates the number of discrete interactions as logged by the system for a particular time slot. It is worth noting how the general rhythm of use followed the overall daily timetable with usage peaking around the morning break and lunch time. The usage on Day 5 reflects a fieldtrip day without classes, with a significant number of students (who did not attend the fieldtrip) spending most of the day in the common room.
(Page 5, paragraph 1)
Figure 5: Aggregate usage through the study (numbers refer to direct interactions as defined in section 5.1)
Example 2 of quantitative data:
During the course of deployment students used the surface to display a wide variety of media. Figure 6 shows the types of media displayed on the surface.
(Page 5, paragraph 2)
Figure 6: Media displayed on the Dynamo surface
Example of qualitative data represented as quantitative
One example of qualitative data which has been represented as quantitative data is the down is the different types of downloads children did. The method used to display the information is a bar graph showing the specific downloads made and the number times they were made. This is qualitative data as the researchers had seen and recorded children offering and requesting downloads from each other.
(Page 5, paragraph 3 and figure 7).
