Notes Reading Seminar 1

In chapter seven the author mentions the iterative process of gathering data and how to gather data. Three different types of data-gathering method are discussed in the book interviews, questionnaires and observations. Because we want to gather information around an idea we’ll choose interviews as our main data-gathering method. Our interview will contain both open-ended and closed question for us to determine whether our users are familiar with the systems that we will use.

Chapter eight discuss how the gathered data should be analyzed. The author stresses that when analysing data, we should be as objective as possible. This is because our conclusions should be supported by the data we've gathered.  We’ll have many open-ended questions and this will in turn lead to qualitative data. The book notes that when analysing qualitative data there emerges categories and patterns or themes of responses. When categorizing data, we’ll have to develop a categorization scheme that will emerge from the data itself. The categorization should not lead to biasing analysis or the analyser confirming past impressions about the data gathered.

Chapter ten introduces the concept of requirements and discuss the importance of them. This is to ensure that the customer get what they ask for in an interactive product. Task descriptions are used throughout the development and consist of three types of descriptions, scenarios, use cases and essential use cases. There are different ways to find out about requirements. The requirements emerge during the data-gathering stage. We haven’t come up with any requirements yet but they should popup after our data has been gathered and analysed. 

A question that i want to discuss is, when sampling for participants doesn't this lead to getting a certain perspective on the data gathered?

The picture below describes how a product could end up without requirements.