Seminar 1 - Navid

Gather data

Chapter seven mainly explains the data gathering concept and its techniques, which are interviews, questionnaires and observation. Traditionally, one of the major objectives of most HCI courses is to develop a product or idea which makes everyday life easier and the information in this chapter plays a major role in helping the software engineer to achieve this goal. Data gathering is presumably the part that requires the most time and work.

Analyze data 

In chapter eight, the search for theme and pattern is discussed. More specifically, it tells us that, if for instance 80 percent of everyone who participated in filling the questionnaires answered equally, we should automatically assume that the majority of people will give that same answer. This will save us time and resources since we simply cannot ask a whole population! However, for this assumption to be more accurate, we also have to question different groups that are relatable and not just one type of people.

Set requirements

To be able to develop a useful product or idea, we also need to specify at least a couple of solid requirements and principles to follow, since we do not want to have costly and unnecessary errors during development. For instance, if we desire to develop a writing desk for students we should at least plan to make it cheap (since students usually struggle with money and economics), yet still try to make a solid one. This is one of the risks that are brought up in chapter ten.

A question that the group should focus on is: What is the best way to capture people's interest so that they willingly participate in the interviews and questionnaires?