Seminar 1 - Individual notes

Ch. 7 Data gathering

The chapter as a whole describes the different techniques, issues and purposes regarding data gathering as a subject.

The three different techniques that are described in this chapter are Interviews, Questionnaires and Observations. Which techniques to use at what time varies according to the situation, there are advantages and disadvantages depending on the nature of the situation. More often that not, it's better to combine them even though it can be costly and time consuming.

They further explain that there are five key issues that we're looking at when it comes to data gathering. The issues described are goal setting, identifying participants, the relationship between the data collector and the data provider and the pilot studies

Different ways of saving the information from the techniques described are either through, video, audio or taking notes, either by hand or typing.

What I personally enjoy and think is one of the best way of learning, is through the observing technique mentioned above. There's a saying that "Children doesn't do as you say, they do as you do" and there's alot of truth involved in that, especially when it comes to people close to us. It can be hard sometimes to determine why they do as they though just through observing, which is why we chose to either combine it with other techniques or lean towards using other types of observation such as the think-aloud technique. It still has its drawbacks, but is still a pretty decent solution when going through different cases or scenarios with users.

Ch. 8 Data analysis, interpretation and presentation

This chapter begins to explain the difference between Quantitative and Qualitative analysis. Quantitative analysis tends to value the statistical or mathematical information when it comes to observing different cases, i.e numbers and sizes. Qualitative analysis on the other hand are more interested in patterns and themes of the data presented to the research.

You could more or less divide these different methods by saying that the Quantitative analysis focuses on the what, when and who, and the Qualitative analysis focuses on the why and how.

Ch. 10 Establishing requirements

(To keep it short)

This chapter is mainly to focus on what, how and why you need requirements for your project. What kind of requirements are needed and why are they needed? How are we supposed to meet these requirements?

This is also where personas and scenarios are presented.