Project 2: Observation

Due at 12:00 noon, Tuesday, April 8

This project will have you engage in situation-specific observation. The course project theme is Social Communication: Novel everyday experiences using technology to stay connected. In this assignment, you will begin the process of exploring this topic with an eye towards informing your final project (P4). The goal of this observation is to immerse yourself in observing an activity to help you identify a need that would lead to forming a design Point of View.

First, you have to form a group. Form teams of 3, and record your team in the P2 Group Google Form before you leave class today. Use the time when you're not presenting your P1 poster to the teaching team to mingle with the rest of the class, see each others' work, and form a team. Think of this as an opportunity to try a group before committing to them for the final project.

Second, pick a communication setting/activity of interest to you. Do you want to study communication among friends? among family? nearby people? remote people? among kids? among elderly? What compelling needs might be addressed with video, audio, text, or some combination from a mobile device or computer? Perhaps you can observe a new communication setting that currently isn't supported by any tools (like communication with pets, across language barriers, with deities, with the deceased).

These first two steps can be a sort of chicken and egg problem--would you like to form a group that you'd like to work with and agree on a communication setting? Or would you like to see who else is interested in the same communication setting that you are and form a group around it? Either way, the important thing is to settle on this quickly.

Third, pick two appropriate methodologies from the ones we discussed in class (or described in the readings) to investigate this activity. Are you trying to deeply understand a novel or special activity that would best be explored by interviews or ethnographic observation? Is it an activity that you can all do as participant observation? Would you learn more from casually observing lots of examples in a public space, or more deeply observing a few examples? Justify your methodology decision.

Fourth, collect data about places and people engaging in your chosen activity. Use the principles discussed in class and in the assigned readings to identify the practices and goals of the various participants in the activity. At this first stage you aren't trying to come up with a design solution, but instead are assembling a wide variety of materials that can inspire design. Bring a notebook and use the camera on your phone! Take pictures, make notes, and draw sketches. Read the notes on observation and interviews. In observing and interviewing don't just look at the specific activities, but also look behind them to the underlying cognitive, emotional, and social meanings.

Fifth, analyze the data and document what insights you gained from the data. This might include reviewing recordings to identify recurring themes, grouping observed behaviors into common categories into, identifying representative quotes, pictures, video clips, etc. for presentations. The goal here is to understand what they are doing and why they are doing it to identify insights on unmet needs or how it could be improved.

Sixth, prepare a short (4-minute) presentation based on what you learned from your observation. The presentation should include:

• What activity you studied
• How you observed it
• Data analysis description
• List of insights

Seventh, reflect on what you learned from this exercise.

This project should be done in teams of 3; each team is responsible for choosing observation sites and collecting data. Think of this as an opportunity to try a group before committing to them for the final project on P4. Sites and interviewees should be chosen to get different perspectives on a chosen application area. Conducting observations/interviews in groups of 2-3 allows you to get multiple perspectives and point things out to each other; it also allows one person to take rich notes while another may be more engaged with a respondent or activity. The team should then synthesize the results of your observations and prepare a presentation together.

Reading
Read the d.school handouts on Observation, Synthesis.

Deliverables
The project has the following deliverables:

1. Observations and Documentation - 12:00 noon, Tues 4/8
   P2 Submission Google Form
   The deliverables should consist of synthesized data regarding your organized observations and analyses. Your team should compose stand-alone slide deck of your observations as either a PowerPoint file, PDF document, or web page. While we want you to cover the four points listed above, how you organize the presentation is up to you. Do not submit a raw "dump" of materials; rather, organize a subset of your most salient, insightful or inspiring observations and insights. Use the P2 Submission Google Form to submit your SUNetIDs and pointer to the presentation by 12:00 noon on Tuesday, April 8. For reference, here are some examples of successful documents from past courses (but they were looking at a different domain and went beyond observation to brainstorming and proposing a design--we are not asking for the design steps, only the observation part): 1, 2, 3.


2. Potential Presentation - In class, Tuesday 4/8
   The teaching team will review the submitted slide decks and pick several to present in class. Each team should be prepared to present a short (4-minute, timed!) presentation walking through the slides. We will then spend some time discussing, critiquing, and giving feedback on the presentation as a class. You will need to meet before Tuesday to prepare and rehearse it. While we won't be able to hear all presentations in class, we could pick from any of the submitted slide decks.


3. Individual Reflection - By end of day, Wednesday 4/9
   Individually, write a brief reflection on your own experience working on the project: creative process, team process, data analysis process, and what you might do next time. Submit your reflection using the provided P2 Reflection Google Form.
   
   In terms of team effort, we will assume that all team members put in their fair share unless we hear otherwise. If a team member went above and beyond, or other team members did not contribute sufficiently, please include those in your comments. Be sure to include your estimates of the relative contribution of all your group members.

Grading:

• 20%   Activity and Methodology Choice Did they pick an appropriate activity to observe and methodology to study it?
  
• 30%   Observation Data collection work evidenced by documentation
  
• 20%   Quality of the data analysis: Does it synthesize the observational data into compelling insights?
  
• 20%   Communication Does the slide deck effectively communicate the work done?
  
• 10%   Individual Reflection What did you learn about the design process from observing? What would you do differently?

P2 Grading Rubric