Reading seminar #1 - Reflection

During the last exercise we chose the ferry route Slussen to Allmäna gränd.

I read the 2^nd edition of the book.

Chapter 7 discussed the iterative process of gathering data, interpreting it and understanding what the users require/need. There are several ways to gather data, questionnaires, interviews, focus groups/workshops, observation and studying documentation. For now, interviews and observation seem like the most reasonable data-gathering technique.

Chapter 12 is about observation of users, i.e watching and listening to users. When doing this it's good to have specific questions and goals in mind that the observation can answer. We have planned to do a "quick and dirty" observation of the route. Example of questions we can have in mind are "Which target group can we expect?", "Are there different groups of people at different times of the day?", "What are they doing while on the ferry?". After this, we will evaluate the information we have gathered right away, as the book suggests.

Chapter 13 described how to conduct interviews/questionnaires and how to prepare them. There are different kinds of interviews, unstructured, structured and semi-structured. Unstructured focus on more open questions and answers, whereas structured use more “closed” questions which generates more precise answers, semi-structured are somewhere in between. Analyzing unstructured interviews are more time-consuming but might give more rich answers. Unstructured interviews seems to be the best alternative to begin with, since we're not really sure how to direct the questions yet. After we have scouted the route we will create an "interview script" to make it easier for everyone in the group to ask about the same things, which in turn will make it easier to interpret the data.

Some questions for the seminar:
Which are the optimal ways of gathering data for this project? Should we for example consider questionnaires?

How can we minimize “dissonance” in the data gathering (i.e have as little influence as possible towards the ones answering the questions)?