Design Research and Observation

Tues. 6:00-9:00p Fri. 2:30-4:20p

Design Observation/ research ART 315

Fall 2017

Human-Centered Design

ARC 108

Kaleb Dean kaleb.dean@trnty.edu

ART 315

Human-Centered Design

ARC 108

Tues. 6:00-9:00p Fri. 2:30-4:20p

Human beings are both curious and creative. We are researchers and designers in ways that are inextricably linked… [we] “think to build” and we “build to think”. Jane Fulton Suri Fall 2017

Kaleb Dean kaleb.dean@trnty.edu

ART 315

Human-Centered Design

ARC 108

Tues. 6:00-9:00p Fri. 2:30-4:20p

Design research has come of age. Hundreds of papers and books have been written about it’s importance, and how, when, why, and by whom it should be done.

Organizations, and not just innovation consultancies, have adopted it, hired researchers to plan, implement and execute it, and consider it part of their product development process. Schools, and not just the method and process-oriented ones (IIT ID, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, University of Toronto) are teaching it, and not just at the graduate level. Designers‌ what does it mean for us?

Fall 2017

Kaleb Dean kaleb.dean@trnty.edu

ART 315

Human-Centered Design

ARC 108

Tues. 6:00-9:00p Fri. 2:30-4:20p

Design is transformative. What we design has an impact on the world, both man-made and natural. The transformation is both purposeful (intended) and incidental (or worse accidental). A research mindset, an intellectual curiosity, empowers us as designers to understand the effect our objects, processes, and experiences have on the world socially, culturally, intellectually, emotionally, physically, and environmentally. Specifically, design research allows us to better understand the needs of those we are designing for, and thereby create things that have meaning and are of value.

Fall 2017

Kaleb Dean kaleb.dean@trnty.edu

ART 315

In-class activity

Observational research

Human-Centered Design

ARC 108

Tues. 6:00-9:00p Fri. 2:30-4:20p

In human-centered design we are interested gaining insight from user experiences. One primary research method we use to gather data about users is observation. Observation often reveals needs that people are unable to articulate.

As a class we will observe in the Library for 30 minutes and gather data.

Here are some helpful tips: / Find a comfortable place to observe one person/group interacting doing an activity. Alternately, you could observe an object/service as long as there are people interacting with it. / Use the AEIOU framework to guide your observation, pay attention to barriers, repurposed objects and work-arounds. / Document your observation with photos, sketches and notes.

Fall 2017

Kaleb Dean kaleb.dean@trnty.edu

ART 315

Human-Centered Design

Design Method

Tues. 6:00-9:00p Fri. 2:30-4:20p

AEIOY is an organizational framework reminding the researcher to attend to, document, and code information under a guiding taxonomy of Activities, Environments, Interactions, Objects, and Users.1

AEIOU 1. The AEIOU frameswork is credited to Rick Robinson, Ilya Prokopoff, John Cain, and Julie Pokorny, then at the Doblin Group in Chicago, in 1991. Rick Robinson carried the framework to E-Lab LLC, where it appeared in company publicity materials in the late 1990s.

ARC 108

Further Reading Wasson, Christina. “Ethnography in the Field of Design.� Human Organization 59, no. 4 (2000): 377-388.

Even when observations are only casually or semi-structured, it pays to have an organizational framework in mind, such that the researcher attends to key details. AEIUO is an easy mnemonic for guiding and coding observations. As a heuristic, or rule of thumb, the taxonomy defines each feature of the observation as follows

For a short description of the framework based on the work of Robinson et al. and the former E-Lab publicity materials, see http:// www.ethnohub.com/faq/ what-aeiou-framework

Fall 2017

Kaleb Dean kaleb.dean@trnty.edu

ART 315

Human-Centered Design

Design Method

ARC 108

Tues. 6:00-9:00p Fri. 2:30-4:20p

/ Activities are goal directed sets of actions. What are the pathways that

AEIOU

people take toward the things they want to accomplish, including specific processes? / Environments include the entire arena in which activities take place. For example, what describes the atmosphere and function of the context, including individual

1. The AEIOU frameswork is credited to Rick Robinson, Ilya Prokopoff, John Cain, and Julie Pokorny, then at the Doblin Group in Chicago, in 1991. Rick Robinson carried the framework to E-Lab LLC, where it appeared in company publicity materials in the late 1990s.

For a short description of the framework based on the work of Robinson et al. and the former E-Lab publicity materials, see http:// www.ethnohub.com/faq/ what-aeiou-framework

Fall 2017

Further Reading Wasson, Christina. “Ethnography in the Field of Design.� Human Organization 59, no. 4 (2000): 377-388.

and shared spaces? / Interactions are between a person and someone or something else, and are the building blocks of activities. What is the nature of routine and special interactions between people, between people and objects in their environment, and across distances? / Objects are the building blocks of the environment, key elements some times put to complex or even unitended uses, possibly changing their function, meaning, and context. For example, what are the objects and devices people have in their environments, and how do these relate to their activities? / Users are the people whose behaviors, preferences, and needs are being observed. Who is present? What are their roles and relationships? What are their values and biases?

Kaleb Dean kaleb.dean@trnty.edu

ART 315

Human-Centered Design

Design Method

AEIOU 1. The AEIOU frameswork is credited to Rick Robinson, Ilya Prokopoff, John Cain, and Julie Pokorny, then at the Doblin Group in Chicago, in 1991. Rick Robinson carried the framework to E-Lab LLC, where it appeared in company publicity materials in the late 1990s.

Further Reading Wasson, Christina. “Ethnography in the Field of Design.� Human Organization 59, no. 4 (2000): 377-388.

ARC 108

Tues. 6:00-9:00p Fri. 2:30-4:20p

The elements of the framework are not independent, but are interrelated parts with critical interactions between each part. The AEIOU framework can be applied in any ethnographic or observational method, guiding familliar collection techniques includeing notes, photos, and interviews. AEIOU can be used to develop a worksheet for categorizing or coding observational notes as they occur, or as a set of broad categories under which several more specific subcategoris or codes can be created. Although AEIOU offers present categories for observation and coding, further analysis can be conducted.

For a short description of the framework based on the work of Robinson et al. and the former E-Lab publicity materials, see http:// www.ethnohub.com/faq/ what-aeiou-framework

Fall 2017

Kaleb Dean kaleb.dean@trnty.edu

ART 315

Human-Centered Design

ARC 108

Tues. 6:00-9:00p Fri. 2:30-4:20p

Go forth.

Fall 2017

Kaleb Dean kaleb.dean@trnty.edu