As ever, it’s ages since the last update. Apologies.
So, I ran the study I mentioned back in November: 42 people volunteered their time! I’m really pleased about that, it’s far greater participation than I’d hoped for — especially as taking part required a good two and a half hours out of people’s days, and all I could offer in compensation was tea and biscuits. People can be so generous.
So, since the study, I’ve been deeply buried in analysing the huge quantity of data generated: it falls into two broad categories. Firstly, there is explicit feedback from participants: I asked people to fill in questionnaires about their experiences, and also take part in a recorded group discussion at the end of each session. So I have written and audio data on that — and some numeric stuff, as some of the questions included Likert scale type tick boxes. In addition to all that, I also have the actual artefacts people generated! The study involved asking people to work in pairs or threes to come up with high-level designs, using one of three different methods — each group produced two such artefacts, so I have over forty of those, too.
I had no idea how much work was involved in putting together a study: the design, ethics review, recruitment, logistics (room bookings, getting money for tea and biscuits, getting tea and biscuits), actually keeping sessions going smoothly… and similarly, I had no idea quite how big a task the data analysis would be!
Still, I’m getting there. 