Dr. Max L. Wilson

Lecture Schedule

Semester 1 Project

Studying Mobile Phone Environments

The basis of the study, for which you can discuss, improve, expand, or add to, etc, is to add a script to peoples phones that simply takes pictures out of a mobile phone camera during calls (or at any other time?).

As well as capturing calls at call time, you should also meet up with participants periodically to talk about the calls and the pictures taken. There will be issues or privacy in pictures to think about in your protocol.

Things to think about:

• What else do you want to know about each call?
• Any ethical questions
• What to talk about with participants
• How you will analyse your data

For extra info - you should read this paper as an idea of a similar study protocol and exploratory investigation.

Courseworks

Assignment 1 (20%): (Now) Due 11:59pm 8th November 2009

Study Preparation Documents

You will create a detailed step-by-step study plan for the Semester 1 Class Project, based upon your group's discussions and plans. While the plan for the project should be made as a group, your submitted plan will be individual. You should think carefully about how much time you are planning to spend with participants and what you are asking them to do.

You can be creative and thoughful, but explain what YOU want to do, and what has to be considered, and what resources are needed.It's a plan, not a final set-in-stone event.

Your report should include:

• Overview of methods to be used - and any assumptions being taken into account
• Schedule of meetings with participants
• Time-estimated Step-by-Step plan per meeting
• Scripted explanations
• Any documents for participants, including questionnaires, informed consent, etc

Incomplete set of example documents for a lab-study. Obviously they need improving, and should be applicable to a field study

Submission details to come.

Assignment 2 (40%): Due: See below

Field Study Performance and Report

The final design of the study protocol and code has been completed and tested in 3 seperate Nokia phones. The study is ready to begin, and you will each be helping to run the study. You will be expected to find 2 participants each and perform the study with them over a 2 week period. The period will conclude with in-class analyses, and individual report writing.

The documents you need are included in this file. Included is:

1. consent_form.pdf - for participants to read and sign
2. consent_rights.pdf - for participants to read as they sign the consent form
3. study_instructions.pdf - something for them to keep on hand between weekly interviews
4. questionnaire_initial.doc - for the first meeting
5. questionnaire_weekly.doc - for the weekly meetings
6. The study application file that can be installed on the phones

Alternative Method
If, for some reason, you struggle with the idea of, or struggle to find participants with the right type of phone, you may opt to run an offline diary study with the following changes:

• Still ask them to take a picture after each phone call
• You should still collect pictures from them each week
• Provide participants with a small booklet of paper forms, or a small pocketpad, they can fill out for each call
• The mini-forms or pocket pad, should remind them to note:
  
  
  • Time and approximate length of the call
  • Type: Friend, Family, Work related, Machine (e.g. voicemail), Service (e.g. bank) or Other (ask to state what it was).
  • Feeling: Surprised, Happy, Indifferent, Sad, Embarrased, Angry, Other (ask to state what it was).
  • 3-5 words to remember the call
• As the phone wont be reminding them to do this per call, you should consider personally contacting them slightly more frequently, but without intruding on them.
• You should make the booklet, or small pocket pad, small and portable for participants, and provide them with a small pen perhaps.

Interim deadline: 8th March 2010:

1. All coded transcripts of interviews emailed to me, including a list of the chosen codes and their definitions.
2. Codes and definitions brought to class at 11am.

Final deadline: NOW 17th March 2010 11:59pm: Final report in style of conference paper:

1. 10 page ACM format - as per CHI instructions (e.g. see point 4) - but not anonymous.
2. All the typical sections including references (you will need to include that in the work you do for this coursework).
3. You should try and find related papers to see what would be expected
4. Try to maintain a professional past tense scientific paper style as with other CHI papers
5. Your results should/can include the class analysis of the coded interviews on the 8th March

Instructions for submitting through turnitin will be provided nearer the time.

Marking will be based on the quality of your interview transcripts and choice of codes from the first deadline. The ACM paper will be marked on: related work, description of method, presentation of results, quality of writing and choice of references.

Assignment 3 (40%): Due: See below

Lab Study Performance and Report

In this coursework you will take turns in running and participating in a lab-based user study. Initially working in pairs, one of you will run the lab study on the other, and then you will swap.

The aim of the study is to see if tag-clouds on a web search engine will help people learn about unfamiliar topics. The procedural information and study documents are here and the Instructions are here.

When everyone has performed the study with each other, you will upload your results to a google spreadsheet (instructions are in the documents above). Your coursework includes, therefore, the analysis of this data with appropriate statistical methods. You may want to analyse the number of factual statements created, the number of additional keywords, time, etc and check if they vary by topic, familiarity, or age etc. You might want to see if there is any variation in age or task or user interface.

To handin: A report that includes:

• A method section, describing the procedure etc of the study in typical academic reporting style/sections
• A results section, describing your analysis (inc choice of stats)
• A dicussion section, interpretting the higher level meaning of the results, and thus making design recommendations
• A reflection on the challenges of being the evaluator, including a discussion of things you would do differently in the future.
• A reflection on the experience of being a participant, including a discussion of any behaviours learned from your partnering evaluator.
• A reflection on the design of the study, including ways in which you might change it if you were to run it again.

Deadline 1: 25th April 2010 11:59pm
Upload the data analysis to the google spreadsheet listed in the project download files.

Deadline 2: 16th May 2010 11:59pm
A report as specified above.

Marking will be based on the quality of the description of the methods, the choice and quality of analysis, the depth of discussion, and the detail of your discussion on being both participants and evaluators. You may want to look at example publications to see good method, results, and discussion sections.

Pairs
Simon+Jon
Emma+George
Steve+Andy
Laurie+Claudio+Abi

remember - one take even tasks, the other take odd tasks. choose the one you know least about ideally.