Reading Seminar 1 - notes (Yrin)

This reading seminar encompasses data gathering, data analysis and establishing requirements. What follows is my summary of what I consider to be the essential concepts.

There is an inherent conflict in doing data gathering and analysis in HCI design. On the one hand, you have to make choices of tools and study design that enable the gathering of the right kind of information (from the appropriate group of subjects). On the other hand (since you're designing new ways for humans to interact with technology) you often don't know exactly what you are looking for. As a result, you have to be constantly prepared to think outside the box.

Even when you think you have pinned down the design and are just doing studies to "fit the parameters", you have to be prepared for the possibility of a major design change emerging from the analysis of the data.

The course book surveys some of the most common data gathering and analysis techniques. It reminds the reader that one can't just ask the first question that comes to mind and hope to get a reliable answer. Rather one has to consider how the questions are framed and what assumptions they rely on. A point to remember, I think, is that this matters for internal design discussions just as much as actual subject interviews.

The book goes on to stress the importance of establishing requirements. The requirements have an important organizational role, in terms of being something concrete that one can reference during the design process. The merits of design decisions---inherently subjective and "loose"---can be measured by their impact in the requirements.