Observations from Observing
Instead of trying to minimise their effect on participants by distancing themselves, researchers could try to understand this effect by getting more involved — perhaps, even joining in. Being in the thick of in-the-wild studies may offer other benefits as well. For example, sensitising the researcher to key elements of the participant experience to guide interviews or observations. (1)
Kate, Saumya, and I are exploring the bus system for our third project in IXD lab. We decided to focus our project on what we often hear is the biggest complaint against the Pittsburgh bus system — the wait for the buses to arrive. Initially, in order to start to understand the problem/opportunity space better, Saumya and I planned on doing interviews at the intersection of Baum Ave. and S. Negley Ave. (at this time we were still broadly considering how one navigates their neighborhood as a theme and had not narrowed down to the bus stop). We chose this intersection because it was situated next to two bus stops and a large grocery store, Market District.
We headed out to ask people questions that we had outlined as a framework for conversation. We thought we’d have the most difficulty in getting people to talk to us, but when we approached, everyone was willing to talk answer our questions — if a bit hesitantly. But the conversations were halting and limited. We weren’t getting people to tell stories about the experiences like we hoped, even when we pushed them to “describe a recent experience.” They seemed put off by our ambush.
We decided, instead, to observe for a while, I at the intersection and Saumya at the bus stop. And unexpected things started to happen. People began to to talk to us. One man commented nonchalantly toward me about his exasperation at the wait for the traffic signal. And conversations began to flow more easily. We saw a man who had been waiting at the bus stop for a very long time with us, and when we asked what bus he was waiting for, he told us the number and commiserated with us about his frustrations, unprompted. When he asked us further questions he was willing to delve into deeper stories. Even when he asked what bus we were waiting for and we explained that we were just watching the buses pass for a school project he seemed no less reticent to share—since we had been already been established as equals waiting for the bus.
In putting herself in the position of experiencing waiting for the bus, Saumya better understood the mental state that provoked — in context. The longer the wait, the more tempted we were to talk to those who had also been waiting around us to get a sense of what they knew about the wait time. At first, we were hesitant to ask the man what bus he was waiting for, but the longer the wait extended, the easier it became. So we more fully understood the implications of the frustrations that people were experiencing (as opposed to just hearing that the wait frustrated them).
It quickly became clear to us that participating in the activity we were trying to gain insight into had benefits for our research and the design. As we do more interviews and observation, I think we will use a similar method rather than approach-and-interview. Perhaps, similar methods could be used during the wait at the bus stop to apply a participatory design method without interfering too greatly in the lives of bus passengers who are not inclined to fully invest themselves when approached.
Sources
- Rose Johnson, Yvonne Rogers, Janet van der Linden, Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze, “Being in the thick of in-the-wild studies: the challenges and insights of researcher participation,” in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’12) (New York: ACM Press, 2012): 1135–1144.
