INFO 272. Qualitative Research Methods

12 March 2009

Assignment 2

You must record your interviews

Themes reviewed

interviewing as a negotiation:letting the interviewee lead the wayguiding toward topics, providing prompts and

encouragement, memory jogs

what is projective interviewing? creative strategies for

eliciting description, interpretation that incorporate materials (photos, objects, diagrams etc) into the interview process

…but can be distracting, time-consuming, intrusive

what is projective interviewing? Mapping Exercises

Spatial mapsSocial mapsTours

PhotoelicitationPhoto diaries

Sorting TasksPersonal construct interviews

Technology/Cultural Probes

mapping exercises

geographical spacesmap of the home, neighborhood

social spacessocial network mappinghierarchical diagramming

hierarchical diagramming

touring spaces

home tours - to elicit responses to the material environment, comments on arrangement of space

tour of computer ‘interior’ tour of a mobile phone – address book,

text messages, call log

“photographs are charged with psychological and highly emotional elements and symbols. In the depth study of culture it is often this very characteristic that allows people to express their ethos while reading the photographs.” [Collier and Collier]

beyond photos: stories, skits

Family Photo Albums

photoelicitation

sorting activities

images of technologies, settings, advertisements, peopleon what basis would you

sort these images?pick the odd one out of a

group and explain.

e.g. personal construct interviews

Example: “The Meaning of Domestic Technologies: a personal construct analysis of familial gender relations” – Sonia Livingstone

Topic: Looking at how husbands and wives separately experience and account for their domestic technologies

Method: separate interviews with husband and wife, in home, for 45 minutes. Asked to sort technologies into groups and explain.

outcome: women emphasize domestic technologies as necessities, different notions of control over tech, the telephone as key difference

cultural/technology probes Emerging in the HCI

community An interdisciplinary

methodological approach “A probe is an instrument that is

deployed to find out about the unknown - to hopefully return with useful or interesting data.” [Hutchinson et al.]

Recall our discussion of subjectivity

[Gaver et al.]

[Gaver et al.]

cultural/technology probes

RECALL: 1 Advantage & 1 Disadvantage [of interviewing]

artificiality: distance from event/experience

efficiency: generate a large amount of material on a specific topic in a short amount of time

Bridging the distance between lived experience and the artificiality of the interview event

Aiding memory (cognitive assistance) Accessing the affective dimension of

experience Engagement and the research partnership --

keeping interviewees committed to the task

Projective Techniques: some benefits

In summary…who creates the artifact varies…Authored Artifact Produced for…

By 3rd Party Magazine ads …reasons external to the research project

Family photos

Consumer technologies

By Researcher Technology probes …the sake of the research projectPhoto or Card Decks

(for sorting)

By Interviewee Photo diaries

Maps of Salient Environs

When Produced Purpose Served by the Artifact

In the course of the interview (i.e. maps, diagrams, drawings)

As a memory jog

Discussion piece

Analytical device

In the course of everyday life (i.e. photo diaries, photo tasks)

As a memory jog

Closing the distance between lived experience and the interview event

To address access issues

…and when/where the artifact is created varies…

BACKUP

Relevance

"artifacts as culture derives…from their active participation in a process of social self-creation in which they are directly constitutive of our understanding of ourselves and others...” [Miller, Material Culture and Mass Consumption]

analysing interviews

transcribing – tedious but necessaryhow tedious? 1:3 ratio

(interview:transcription time)memory jog – making links between

interviewscode as you go, but make transcript itself

visually distinct from your codes