Stephann Makri

Ann Blandford

Dominic Furniss

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) addresses problems of interaction design: understanding user needs to inform design, delivering novel designs that meet user needs, and evaluating new and existing designs to determine their success in meeting user needs. Qualitative methods have an essential role to play in this enterprise, particularly in understanding user needs and behaviours and evaluating situated use of technology. Qualitative methods allow HCI researchers to ask questions where the answers are more complex and interesting than "true" or "false," and may also be unexpected. In this lecture, we draw on the analogy of making a documentary film to discuss important issues in qualitative HCI research: historically, films were presented as finished products, giving the viewer little insight into the production process; more recently, there has been a trend to go behind the scenes to expose some of the painstaking work that went into creating the final cut. Similarly, in qualitative research, the essential work behind the scenes is rarely discussed. There are many "how to" guides for particular methods, but few texts that start with the purpose of a study and then discuss the important details of how to select a suitable method, how to adapt it to fit the study context, or how to deal with unexpected challenges that arise. We address this gap by presenting a repertoire of qualitative techniques for understanding user needs, practices and experiences with technology for the purpose of informing design. We also discuss practical considerations such as tactics for recruiting participants and ways of getting started when faced with a pile of interview transcripts. Our particular focus is on semi-structured qualitative studies, which occupy a space between ethnography and surveys—typically involving observations, interviews and similar methods for data gathering, and methods of analysis based on systematic coding of data. Just as a documentary team faces challenges that often go unreported when arranging expeditions or interviews and gathering and editing footage within time and budget constraints, so the qualitative research team faces challenges in obtaining ethical clearance, recruiting participants, analysing data, choosing how and what to report, etc. We present illustrative examples drawn from prior experience to bring to life the purpose, planning and practical considerations of doing qualitative studies for interaction design. We include takeaway checklists for planning, conducting, reporting and evaluating semi-structured qualitative studies.

Going Behind the Scenes

Qualitative HCI Research

Paul Curzon

Nick Bryan-Kinns

Laurence Nigay

Reading has arguably the longest and richest history of any domain for scientifically considering the impact of technology on the user. From the 1920s to the 1950s, Miles Tinker [1963] and other researchers ran hundreds of user tests that examined the effects of different fonts and text layout variables, such as the amount of vertical space between each line of text (called leading). Their research focused on user performance, and reading speed was the favoured measure. They charted the effect of the manipulated variables on reading speed, looking for the point at which their participants could read the fastest. Their assumption was that faster reading speeds created a more optimal experience. Printers and publishers eagerly consumed this research. In recent years, some of these variables have been reexamined as the technology and capabilities evolve with the advent of computers and computer screens. Dillon [1992] examined how to design textual information for an electronic environment. Boyarski et al. [1998] examined the effect of fonts that were designed for computer screens. Dyson & Kipping [1998] examined the effect of line length on computer screens. Larson et al. [2000] examined the effect of 3-D rotation on reading. Gugerty et al. [2004] demonstrated a reading performance advantage with the Microsoft ClearType display technology.

Proceedings of HCI 2006

People and Computers XX - Engage

Jean Vanderdonckt

Phil Gray

In 2001 AFIHM and the British HCI Group combined their annual conferences, bringing together the best features of each organisation's separate conference series, and providing a special opportunity for the French- and English-speaking HCI communities to interact. This volume contains the full papers presented at IHM-HCI 2001, the 15th annual conference of the British HCI group, a specialist group of the British Computer Society and the 14th annual conference of the Association Francophone d'interaction Homme-Machine, an independent association for any French-speaking person who is interested in Human-Computer Interaction. Human-Computer Interaction is a discipline well-suited to such a multi-linguistic and multi-cultural conference since it brings together researchers and practitioners from a variety of disciplines with very different ways of thinking and working. As a community we are already used to tackling the challenges of working across such boundaries, dealing with the problems and taking advantage of the richness of the resulting insights: interaction without frontiers. The papers presented in this volume cover all the main areas of HCI research, but also focus on considering the challenges of new applications addressing the following themes: - Enriching HCI by crossing national, linguistic and cultural boundaries; - Achieving greater co-operation between disciplines to deliver usable, useful and exciting design solutions; - Benefiting from experience gained in other application areas; - Transcending interaction constraints through the use of novel technologies; - Supporting mobile users.

Ann Blandford

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