Theme 4: Qualitative methods

Reflections on:

Fernaeus, Y. & Jacobsson, M. (2009). Comics, Robots, Fashion and Programming: outlining the concept of actDresses. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction. New York: ACM. 

The article provides an interesting take on HCI development in the form of letting physical elements control a certain device. The “actdresses” is used as a metaphor for how the devices should behave or what the characteristics of the device should be at any given moment, chosen by the user. The idea was founded from using symbols from fashion and comics as a way of controlling digital devices. The method used for creating the actdresses was to put together already existing pieces of code for making programs that described how the device should behave for the different actdsesses. The method was inspired by visual programming but what distinguishes the system is that a physical sign shows the immediate physical context for and that it produces perceivable actions.

I think that the physical approach with this particular HCI development is interesting and somewhat rare these days. I guess this example could be used in educational purpose regarding behaviors. But I think it could also be seen as a step in AI design as human behaviors is applied to describe how digital devices should work. This example with artdresses could also be seen as a further development of toys for children in the style of previous dolls or tamagotchi that are supposed to be “taken care of”.

Research paper:

Journal: Computer Standards & Interfaces, Vol. 29 Issue 2, February 2007. Impact factor: 1.257

Article: An exploratory investigation of two internet-based communication modes

Source: Web of knowledge, web of science

1.     Which qualitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?

In this article, a qualitative method is used for comparing instant messaging (IM) and e-mail as communication tools while performing a group task within a team. The method was used to determine what modes of communication IM or E-mail provoked, like; task effectiveness, task satisfaction, playfulness and ease of use. The subjects for the method were graduate business student and had prior experience of e-mail and IM.  The students were divided into two groups; the E-mail group and the IM-group. Each group was then subdivided into small task teams. The persons within the team were geographically separated and only allowed to communicate by the assigned communication method.

One benefit of this method could be that the target group is specified as students and not more general so conclusions may be drawn from that specific target group and could maybe be applied to other similar groups of people (students). The communications were logged for close analysis and the data from the survey was measured by variables of interest. The narrow target group of the study is of course also a limitation as a generalization of the result can’t be done beyond the target group.

2.     What did you learn about qualitative methods from reading the paper?

That there are many different ways to attack a research problem and that generalization and that qualitative method sometimes can be quite useful. As in this case where thorough documentation and analysis is carried out.

3.     Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the qualitative method or methods have been improved?

They could have included additional measurements for determine the modes of communication, for instance they could have included facial expressions and physical behaviors while the communication was carried out instead of just analyzing the text.