# WS17 - User Research Methods - Lecture Outline

0. course admin
1. history: three waves of hci
   - first wave of HCI: human factors/engineering, ergonomics, optimise human-machine fit, maximise efficiency
   - second wave of HCI: cognitive revolution, information processing, mostly office-settings, behavioural science
   - third wave of HCI: situated perspectives, everything everywhere, creating opportunities, engaging, experiencing, connecting
1. paradigms
   - (post-)positivism
   - critical theory/transformative
   - constructivism/interpretivism
1. qualitative methods intro
   - ethnography
   - anthropology
   - ethnography for design
   - ethnographic methods
   - why / what can it contribute
   - types of ethnography
   - relevance to academic fields and industry
   - challenges
   - responsibilities
   - terminology
1. observations
   - when are they useful?
   - how to do them?
   - how to collect data?
   - into the field
   - deciding focus and approach
   - tools
   - things to pay attention to
   - challenges
   - reflective practice
   - data capture methods (pen & paper, digital notes, photos, audio, video, collected artefacts, sensor-based)
   - debriefing
   - bias
   - reporting strategies
   - memos
1. interviews
   - when are they useful? how to do them? what is difficult? how to collect data?
   - how useful?
   - types of interviews
   - unstructured interviews
   - semi-structured interviews
   - setting up
   - asking questions
   - questions: open vs closed, neutral vs oppinonated, simple vs complicated
   - best friend questions
   - mindfullness
   - closing
   - consent (forms)
1. group techniques
   - focus groups
   - fishbowl
   - barcamp
   - world cafe
   - breakout sessions
   - open space
1. other methods
   - online research, digital ethnography, social networks
   - experience sampling and diaries
   - probes - technology, cultural
   - auto-ethnography
   - sensor-based methods
1. ethics
   - virtue ethics
   - deontology
   - consequentialism
   - informed consent and consent forms
   - ethics boards
   - online research
1. analysis
   - preparation, e.g. transcribing
   - kinds of data
   - induction vs deduction
   - affinity mapping
   - grounded theory and coding
   - thematic analysis
   - coding tools
1. role of theory
   - why theories
   - various theories (activity theory, distributed cognition, ethnomethodology, phenomenology, embodied cognition, symbolic interactionism, critical theory, actor network theory)
1. surveys
   - quantitative or qualitative
   - common structure
   - types of questions
   - tipps for good questions
   - population sampling methods
   - analysis
   - tools
1. lab studies
   - where and when?
   - types of research / lab studies
   - usability testing
1. quantitative analysis
   - types of research/questions we can ask
   - descriptive statistics
   - relational questions
   - causal questions
   - proving causality
   - dependent and independent variables
   - experiment hypotheses and goals
   - participants
   - within- and between-subject design
   - experiment design
   - interpreting results
   - significance and effect sizes
1. towards design
   - why user research?
   - how to present results
   - academic papers
   - personas
   - storyboards
   - task descriptions and scenarios
   - hierarchical task analysis
   - contextual design
   - types of models (flow, sequence, physical, cultural, artefact)
   - visioning
   - storyboarding