This originally appeared in my HCDE 210 process blog (syklla.wordpress.com), this was my first experience with User Research in my freshman year of college.
For this sprint, I sat in the main entryway of the Odegaard Library and watched how people behaved. I found three common practices – the Sitting Practice, the Working Practice and the Socializing Practice. I choose to take the sitting in the area being observed to try and blend in rather than going up above the area to get a better view, but would raise suspicion. I also took notes on my laptop so that to another in the area it would appear that I was working on an essay or something similar, rather than writing rapidly in a notebook. Below is the Memo I wrote and an Appendix of my notes. Sprint 6 – Memo and Appendix
A question that I encountered was the same as one of the problems that I found. It was a question of the ethics versus the purity of the observations. You have to find the balance between having accurate unaffected notes (because people behave differently when they know they are being watched) and being creepy. In the future, I feel that this issue will need to be further addressed.
Wildcard – If you did this sprint again with more time and resources what would you do differently?
I would want to make more detailed observations about more individuals’ practices. While working on this sprint, I often had to choose between seeing one person’s whole process for one of the practices or seeing the general activity in the area. With more manpower, a very detailed study could be done and more detailed data could be collected.
I think I was pretty good at not influencing my observation subjects, except for one person. She sat right across from me and as the half hour passed, we made awkward eye contact increasingly often. This could have had an effect on her behavior if she had become suspicious that she was being watched. I tried my hardest to make impartial notes but may have gotten distracted or spent too long on the activities of one person or group and missed something. This issue would be important to address if it turned out that I had missed a unique practice that highlighted an important design challenge.
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