Post: Theme 5 - Design research

This theme was quite different than the others. We only had lectures and no seminar. I felt that the lack of having a seminar will make this post different than my previous posts after the theme. I felt that after this theme, comparing to the previous themes, I only have my own reflection to base my knowledge and perception on. I think this have disadvantages since we did not get the chance to discuss our opinions with others therefore I’ll write this reflection mostly based on the lectures and some own thoughts. I do not feel that I have gained as much since this themes pre posting as I have on the first themes. I have also noticed them being less and less philosophical than the first themes.

Haibo Lee discussed the process from having an idea to developing a finished product. From his lecture the main point as I perceived was that the most important thing is to define a problem, after having done that finding a solution is the easy part. In fact he said you should put 90% effort into finding and defining the problem and the last 10% on coming up with a solution. He later on continued by talking about how you should reason when choosing, validating,evaluating and marketing your idea. I felt his guidelines were pretty straight forward and it wasn’t hard to grasp at all, mostly since it is not completely new information to me. Good lecture with good points and knowledge directly towards our engineering field.

In the other lecture with Anders Lundström he discussed the difference between two types of prototyping; industrial research prototyping and design research prototyping. I hard trouble grasping everything from Anders lecture, since it felt a bit unstructured. But what I did understand that I didn’t know earlier is that prototype itself does not have to be made in order to solve anything but they are also there to help gain knowledge. This is primarily applied to when using a design research.

I felt that a seminar for this theme would have been well needed. It would have been fun knowing how others perceived the lectures to be and the pre assignment, since I feel feelings could have differed which makes the discussion more interesting.  Overall I felt this theme to be very interesting since it can be related to our engineering field, and could very much be something that I might use in a work situation.

Theme 4 - Comments

Links to comments on other students blogs:

1. ixxzw
2. fromplatotocasestudies
3. dm2572lisa
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8. elindm2572
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Pre - Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research

1. Which qualitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?
2. What did you learn about qualitative methods from reading the paper?
3. Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the qualitative method or methods have been improved?

I read the paper ““Maybe you don’t want to face it” – College students’ perspectives on cyberbullying” published in Computers in Human behavior (Impact factor: 2,69). The article aims to learn more about college students opinion on cyberbullying and how they are affected by it in social and learning environments. When collecting data the researchers used a qualitative method to gain a deeper understanding, which is also the methods biggest benefit, of the students definition of cyberbullying and to later on determine if they perceive cyberbullying to be an issue. They also chose this method because they felt that little research has been made on the subject by using qualitative methods.  

Six focus groups, of 6-10 participants per group, were conducted by the two researcher. Taking turns on one asking the questions and the other taking notes. To be able to conduct good interviews you need be experienced or educated researchers, in this case they both were experienced and felt that they were well enough qualified. Makes me wonder though, how are we to know for sure?

The participants were found through different methods, such as posters on billboards or informing younger students during class. Usually this is also a limitation when it comes to qualitative researches; it’s hard to find volunteering participants. In fact they got a total of 54 students, where all of the participants received course credits and a $25 gift card. This is something I see as a potential methodological problem. The participants may have participated for the wrong cause, and their level of activity during the focus groups may have been affected by the thought of being in it only for the money or course credits. Another limitations is that even if they got quite a few students all of them were from the same college which can not make their research generalizable to the general public.

I am also dubious on focus groups on a subject that can be sensitive is the best method. The students were all from the same school, only that can make a student not wanting to share sensitive personal opinions. I believe a combination of interviews one-on-one with half the students would have been a good complement to the focus groups. They could also have improved the unequal gender participation. 85% were females but the researcher did not distinct the males from the females in the results or conclusion.

Something I felt the researcher did very well that was new to me and I found to be smart was the way they analyzed the data collected. They decided to each go through all the transcriptions made by a hired third party independently. After this they met up and summarized their findings with each other. Later on they had a follow up focus group discuss their findings and see if they agreed or disagreed.

Source:

Golman, M. & Crosslin K. (2014). “Maybe you don’t want to face it” – College students’ perspectives on cyberbullying. Published in journal: Computers in Human Behavior. http://www.sciencedirect.com.focus.lib.kth.se/science/article/pii/S0747563214004476

1. Briefly explain to a first year university student what a case study is.
2. Use the "Process of Building Theory from Case Study Research" (Eisenhardt, summarized in Table 1) to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your selected paper.

1. A case study is an in-depth investigation of a subject that is used to look at individuals, groups or communities. The data is collected through different methods, such as interviews observations. Case studies are a form of qualitative descriptive researches. The goal of case studies is to understand the complexity of the case study in every way possible.

2. 

Paper: The social sharing of emotion (SSE) in online social networks: A case study in Live
Journal: Computers in human behavior

Strengths:

• Clear and well defined research questions in the beginning. This is something that is pointed out to be important by Eisenhardt because a good research focus helps the authors not to loose the main theme and start collecting unnecessary and confusing data.  
• More than one person did the research in this case study. This increases the chances of getting a better perspective on things and possibly new ideas and insights on the study.
• They used different tools when collecting data which is also something preferable and strengthening for case studies.  

Weaknesses:

• According to Eisenhardt a good case study is built on 4 to 10 cases. This study had 3 cases which affects the complexity of the study.

Source:

• C.T. Rodríguez Hidalgo, 
• E.S.H. Tan, 
• P.W.J. Verlegh. (2015). 
The social sharing of emotion (SSE) in online social networks: A case study in Live. http://www.sciencedirect.com.focus.lib.kth.se/science/article/pii/S0747563215003726

Post - Theme 4: Quantitative research

The reading material for this theme was easy to read. Us being able to choose one of the papers on our own made a big different. I chose a paper that was interesting to read which made it more easy to understand and analyze. The paper by Ilias and colleagues was also easy to read and a good example of quantitative research.

Regarding the assignment for the pre post I felt that it could have been better organized. By starting with the first question you basically analyze the chosen paper with the knowledge that you already had from before. But if the assignment would have been to first reflect on advantages and disadvantages of quantitative methods I believe it would have given many better tools to reflect on the papers research methods. My advantage on this assignment was having done my bachelor thesis where we read a lot about different methods and how to analyze them and avoid common mistakes. I think that those who haven’t had any experience at all with quantitative and qualitative methods maybe would have gained by answering the latter questions first.

As said, I was already familiar with quantitative and qualitative methods so the pre assignment didn’t give me anything. During the seminar my group discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the two methods. We agreed on the difference between them and it felt that we all had grasped the concepts pretty well. A qualitative method is used to achieve a deeper and broader understanding of something. The method could use methods such as conducting interviews with smaller groups. The goal is to understand and develop the knowledge towards the area. Qualitative methods provides the researcher a good opportunity to discover new areas they didn’t know existed. An example is by having an interview with open questions that may lead to the participant mentioning something that wasn’t even taken into consideration during the research. This type of method is more flexible. On the other hand quantitative methods are about numbers, statistic, large amount of data. We also discussed scenarios where these two are most efficient when combined. I brought up a scenario where you are researching an application. The app has a button and a swipe function for the exact same action and the researcher wants to investigate this. The researcher could then use a quantitative method to ask through e.g. a questionnaire how many that use the button function versus the swipe function. This would show which function that is the most popular. To further investigate the researcher would need to use a qualitative method to ask the users questions such as, "Why they prefer a certain type of function?", "What is the reason to one function being more popular than the other?".

Another thing that I found to be interesting during the seminar was the discussion if quantitative or qualitative methods could ever be objective or more objective than the other. The answer was that everything has an impact. Things such as the researcher's location, knowledge, choice of method, or formulation of questions to participants. Everything has been decided by the researcher and affected by something, therefor complete objectivity can never be achieved.

Theme 3 - Comments

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Pre Theme 5 - Design Research - Part 2

PART II

1. What is the 'empirical data' in these two papers?

Finding design qualities in a tangible programming space - Fernaeus & Tholander: Data collected from observing the children’s actions when using the prototype.  

Differentiated Driving Range - Lundström: Uses multiple methods such as conducting an state of the art analysis in the beginning, interviewing participants, analyzing blogs and forums.

2. Can practical design work in itself be considered a 'knowledge contribution'?

I think that practical design work can be considered as a knowledge contribution. The creators ideas are a part of the design and the design research could lead to further development through other researches. Making it a knowledge contribution.

3. Are there any differences in design intentions within a research project, compared to design in general?

When designing within a research project the method used is usually carefully chosen. Depending on the type of research you can also adapt your design intentions. It could be user centered meaning putting the user in focus when designing or self centered meaning putting yourself in the shoes of the user. I believe that this type of design and general design differ on this type of design being more focused on the functionality aspect of the design rather on mostly fulfilling a sensation as general design does.

4. Is research in tech domains such as these ever replicable? How may we account for aspects such as time/historical setting, skills of the designers, available tools, etc?

I believe it can be replicable. Although you have to take into account the researchers own knowledge on how a good objectified research is done. It also depends on the type of methods being used. I mean if the research is user centered then it can be replicable, but if the research is self centered that is not possible. And I believe this leads to further development of the tech domain.

5. Are there any important differences with design driven research compared to other research practices?

The design driven research is qualitative. It provides options of conducting the research through observations providing a deeper understanding and more accurate conclusions. This research also strives to make products as good as they could possibly be and focus is more on the functionality and testing. Meanwhile other research practice feels more about contributing with knowledge and information.

SOURCES:

Fernaeus, Y. & Tholander, J. (2006). Finding design qualities in a tangible programming space - Fernaeus & Tholander. Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University.

Lundström, A. (2014). Differentiated Driving Range - Lundström. Media Technology and Interaction Design. KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Pre Theme 5 - Design research - Part 1

PART I

1. How can media technologies be evaluated?

Media technology can be evaluated in different ways. I think that it’s important to take into account the type and purpose of the technology that you are going to evaluate. In the article by Réhman, Sun, Liu and Li they had a prototype which they evaluated through having user tests. They also focused on other aspects by having three keywords as a point of view; effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. It's a good way to evaluate media technologies, since the artifact rarely affects only one aspect of the user.

2. What role will prototypes play in research?

Prototypes have a big role in researches on new or developed media technologies. Prototypes have the advantages of giving the designer and developer a chance to try if their ideas are understood by the future users. It gives possibilities of detecting new errors or misinterpretations that can be later on fixed and prevented having in the final product. Prototypes could also open up to new idea. Sometimes products with an initial purpose could suddenly show that it can also have a new purpose for a user that wasn’t taken under consideration when designing.

3. Why could it be necessary to develop a proof of concept prototype?

Proof of concept is a demonstration through documented evidence to show that a potential product can be successful. This concept helps the developer to minimize the potential errors in the final product and lead to a difference maker for success or failure.

4. What are characteristics and limitations of prototypes?

Prototypes are samples of the final product, it’s not finished and can differ from the final product. Its characteristics are to give the users an idea of what it could be and how it could work to be able to try the product and evaluate it before final production. When making a prototype there are limitations such as expenses for materials or workers and time limits. In prototypes alternative materials can be used to lower expenses and when working on projects you often have time limits and can’t do everything you would like to make it perfect. This could affect users when testing the prototype and create limitations on their experience of the potential product.

5. How can design research be communicated/presented?

Design research can be presented by having data collected through e.g. questionnaires or interviews that are later on analyzed and summarized. You could also add visual explanations, such as images or videos, helping the readers understand. These types of methods can be very useful.

SOURCES: 
Réhman, S., Sun, J., Liu, L., & Li, H. (2008). Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 10(6), 1022-1033