Lesson04

Data Gathering
- Introduction
- Five Key Issues
- Data Recording

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Objectives
The main aims of the chapter are to: Discuss how to plan
and run a successful data gathering program. Enable you
to plan and run an interview. Enable you to design a
simple questionnaire. Enable you to plan and carry out
an observation.

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Introduction
This chapter presents some techniques for data gathering that
are commonly used in interaction design activities. In particular,
data gathering is a central part of discovering requirements and
evaluation. Within the requirements activity, data gathering is
conducted to collect sufficient, accurate, and relevant data so
that design can proceed. Within evaluation, data gathering
captures user reactions and their performance with a system or
prototype. All of the techniques that we will discuss can be done
with little to no programming or technical skills. Recently,
techniques for scraping large volumes of data from online
activities, such as Twitter posts, have become available. These
and other techniques for managing huge amounts of data, and
the implications of their use, are discussed in Chapter 10,12/01/24
“Data 4
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at Scale.”
Three main techniques for gathering data are introduced in
this chapter: interviews, questionnaires, and observation.
The next chapter discusses how to analyze and interpret the
data collected. Interviews involve an interviewer asking one
or more interviewees a set of questions, which may be
highly structured or unstructured; interviews are usually
synchronous and are often face-to-face, but they don’t have
to be. Increasingly, interviews are conducted remotely using
one of the many teleconferencing systems, such as Skype or
Zoom, or on the phone. Questionnaires are a series of
questions designed to be answered asynchronously, that is,
without the presence of the investigator. These
questionnaires may be paper-based or available online
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Observation may be direct or indirect. Direct observation
involves spending time with individuals observing their activities
as they happen. Indirect observation involves making a record of
the user’s activity as it happens, to be studied at a later date. All
three techniques may be used to collect qualitative or
quantitative data.
Although this is a small set of basic techniques, they are flexible
and can be combined and extended in many ways. Indeed, it is
important not to focus on just one data gathering technique, if
possible, but to use them in combination so as to avoid biases
that are inherent in any one approach. The way in which each
technique is used varies, depending on the interaction design
activity being undertaken. More detailed descriptions of how
they are used and additional techniques relevant only to specific
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activities of the lifecycle are given in later chapters
Five Key Issues
Data gathering sessions need to be planned and carried
out carefully. Specific issues relating to the three data
gathering techniques are discussed in the following
sections, but first we consider five key issues that require
attention for any data gathering session to be successful:
goal setting, identifying participants, the relationship
between the data collector and the data provider,
triangulation, and pilot studies

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Setting Goals
The main reason for gathering data at all is to glean
information about something. For example, you might
want to understand how technology fits into normal
family life, or you might want to identify which of two
icons representing ‘send message’ is easier to use, or
you might want to find out whether the redesign you are
planning for a hand-held meter reader is along the right
lines. There are many different reasons for gathering
data, and before beginning it is important to identify
specific goals for the study.

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The goals that are set will influence the nature of the
data gathering sessions, the data gathering techniques
to be used, and also the analysis to be performed. Once
the goals have been set, you can concentrate on what
data to look for and what to do with it once it is gathered
The goals may be expressed more or less formally, e.g.
using some structured or even mathematical format, or
using a simple description such as the ones in the
previous paragraph, but whatever the format they should
be clear and concise. In interaction design it is more
usual to express goals for data gathering informally

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Identifying Participants
The goals you develop for your data gathering session will indicate
the kind of people you want to gather data from. Those people who fit
this profile are called the population. In some cases, the people you
need to gather data from may be clearly identifiable – maybe
because there is a small group of users and you have access to each
one. However, it is more likely that you will need to choose the
participants to include in your data gathering, and this is called
sampling. The situation where you have access to all members of
your target population is called saturation sampling, but this is quite
rare. Assuming that you will be choosing to involve a proportion of
your population in data gathering, then you have two options:
probability sampling or nonprobability sampling. In the former case,
the most commonly used approaches are simple random sampling or
stratified sampling; in the latter the most common are convenience
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sampling or volunteer panels.
The crucial difference between probability and non-
probability methods is that in the former you can apply
statistical tests and generalize to the whole population,
while in the latter such generalizations are not robust.
Using statistics also requires having a sufficient number
of participants. What exactly ‘sufficient’ means will
depend on the type of data being collected and the kind
of statistical tests that need to be applied. This can be a
complex issue so if not confident with statistics, it is best
to consult with a someone who knows about them. See
Sue and Ritter (2012) for a more detailed treatment of
sampling
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Relationship with Participants
One significant aspect of any data gathering is the
relationship between the person (people) doing the
gathering and the person (people) providing the data.
Making sure that this relationship is clear and professional
will help to clarify the nature of the study. One way in which
this can be achieved is to ask participants to sign an
informed consent form. The details of this form will vary, but
it usually asks the participants to confirm that the purpose of
the data gathering and how the data will be used have been
explained to them and that they are happy to continue. It
also often includes a statement that participants may
withdraw at any time, and that in this case none of their
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data will be used in the study.
It is common practice in many countries to use an
informed consent form when running evaluation sessions,
particularly where the participants are members of the
public, or are volunteers in a research project. The
informed consent form is intended to protect the
interests of both the data gatherer and the data provider
(see Chapter 13). The gatherer wants to know that the
data she collects can be used in her analysis, presented
to interested parties, and published in reports (as
appropriate). The data provider wants reassurance that
the information he gives will not be used for other
purposes, or in any context that would be detrimental to
him.
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For example, he wants to be sure that personal contact
information and other personal details are not made
public. This is especially true when people with
disabilities or children are being interviewed. In the case
of children, using an informed consent form reassures
parents that their children will not be asked threatening,
inappropriate, or embarrassing questions, or be asked to
look at disturbing or violent images. In these cases,
parents are asked to sign the form. Figure 7.1 shows an
example of a typical informed consent form.

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Triangulation
is a term used to refer to the investigation of a phenomenon from (at
least) two different perspectives (Denzin, 2006; Jupp, 2006). Four
types of triangulation have been defined (Jupp, 2006):
1. Triangulation of data means that data is drawn from different
sources at different times, in different places, or from different people
(possibly by using a different sampling technique).
2. Investigator triangulation means that different researchers
(observers, interviewers, etc.) have been used to collect and interpret
the data.
3. Triangulation of theories means the use of different theoretical
frameworks through which to view the data or findings.
4. Methodological triangulation means to employ different data
gathering techniques.
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Pilot Studies
A pilot study is a small trial run of the main study. The aim is to make
sure that the proposed method is viable before embarking on the real
study. Data gathering participants can be (and usually are) very
unpredictable, even when a lot of time and effort has been spent
carefully planning the data gathering session. Plans should be tested
by doing a pilot study before launching into the main study. For
example, the equipment and instructions that are to be used can be
checked, the questions for an interview or in a questionnaire can be
tested for clarity, and an experimental procedure can be confirmed as
viable. Potential problems can be identified in advance so that they
can be corrected. Distributing 500 questionnaires and then being told
that two of the questions were very confusing wastes time, annoys
participants, and is an expensive error that could have been avoided
by doing a pilot study.
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If it is difficult to find people to participate or if access to
participants is limited, colleagues or peers can be asked
to comment. Getting comments from peers is quick and
inexpensive and can be a substitute for a pilot study. It is
important to note that anyone involved in a pilot study
cannot be involved in the main study. Why? Because
they will know more about the study and this can distort
the results

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Data Recording
Capturing data is necessary so that the results of a data
gathering session can be analyzed and shared. Some forms
of data gathering, such as questionnaires, diaries,
interaction logging, scraping, and collecting work artifacts,
are self-documenting and no further recording is necessary.
For other techniques, however, there is a choice in recording
approaches. The most common of these are taking notes,
photographs, or recording audio or video. Often, several
data recording approaches are used together. For example,
an interview may be voice recorded, and then to help the
interviewer in later analysis, a photograph of the interviewee
may be taken to remind the interviewer about the context of
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the discussion.
Which data recording approaches are used will depend on
the goal of the study and how the data will be used, the
context, the time and resources available, and the sensitivity
of the situation; the choice of data recording approach will
affect the level of detail collected and how intrusive the data
gathering will be. In most settings, audio recording,
photographs, and notes will be sufficient. In others, it is
essential to collect video data so as to record in detail the
intricacies of the activity and its context. Three common
data recording approaches are discussed next.
- Notes Plus Photographs
- Audio Plus Photographs
- Video
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