Post-theme 5 : Design research

Lecture + seminar

The seminar and the lecture had different purpose or approach on the matter of Design research. The seminar was mostly focus on the empirical data, how to obtain it, what the differences. We came up with my group to the end that there were different type of data, therefore different of empirical data. Most likely the researcher is gonna drives the car by himself so he feels it. It is based on experience upon data we gathered. Those observations and measuring make the empirical data.
One sentence that stayed in my mind is that Collecting empirical data isn't the meaning of doing research. You have to use those data to do research about it.

Then we went on the Replicability subject. In a lot of cases this is not necessary to replicate, because after few years you cannot replicate in the exact same way. The aim isn't to get the same result but to have more specific group of human, more research. It is not only to understand what one did, but to follow his steps.  So you can follow his reasoning. Lots of experiences and research have been made in world war II and they have been really influenced by that time. Knowing that, we can framework their research understand it, replicate it in a very close way in order to understand their reasoning, their train of thought. As I mentioned in the seminar, in that case, the journey is more important than the destination. 

When you use design in the process, this is a part of the research.
As a researcher you can choose to add empirical data.  In a research you can do a pre study that results as knowledge but this knowledge will be used for the actual research. This is a step by step process. That you have to use research in order to come up with a result, once you have it, it allows you and open the door to a new research that comes up with a new result that you are gonna be able to use for another research, etc. The last research being what you aimed for at the beginning. And this is what the lecturer confessed in writing your research is that you can't come up with all the steps of the ladder you needed to do, but only with the result of your last and actual research. The aim being to be as clear as possible.

In design research, researchers have to take care about what they use, how they use it and therefore and the test subject will use them (The turn to practice, not the way we thing it would be). For example in Anders's research,The gps would blur the original question. There are some part of the research that have to be removed in order to keep the original question. For example for the gps, it would become the main attention. It needs that the design process doesn't alternate anything or doesn't become to point of attention.

Post-theme 4 : Research

Lecture + seminar

For this theme, we didn't have the seminar to let us reflect more on the matter, but the lecture should have covered the different paths we could be lead to. Basically, the lecture reflected on the research made by Ilias and his co-workers on Drumming in immersive virtual reality. We used his research as a base to explain the concept of researching, how to proceed, what to use and what not.

On the first thing research depends are numerical measurements. They need to have some background, some raw data in order to proceed and understand the principle. As Theory needed it, researches are nothing without them. They are this raw data. In order to acquire them, you can have multiple source of information, such as asking the participants directly using questionnaires with questions pretty simple so they understand and answer the most accurately possible. Measuring through electronic equipment, it allows to have some real and concrete and precise data that we will be able to use to understand the process we are looking for. And finally we can observe the subjects product or the heart of the research under controlled conditions. Allowing us to adjust the conditions according to what we really need or what needs to be change.

Once we have our result, its time to interpret them. Because even if you use a constructed experiments, that you follow all the rules this is not the data that are talking, it doesn't make sense to have those data by themselves. This is still the researchers talking, the ones who built theories based on what they see from the tests.
An important thing to remember in a research is that we can't create our own questionnaires, they need to be approved by a greater instance. if you start a research you will most likely use standards ones, which have been tried and tested in order to be the most accurate possible on the results they wanna show. This allows you to have the right answer and the right kind of data you are looking for. For example there is a difference to be made between independent and dependent variables, the distinction is low. For instance : The time you use to study will affect your grade test. But your grade test will never affect your study time (Maybe for the next exam because you are angry since you got a bad grade after studying a lot, but this is not the point...) So the study time is the Independent variable and the grade test is the dependent variable. Because it doesn't make sense the other way around.

Then the question that comes up to mind is why is a way more used that the other ? I had a friend who built an app for an helping tool in the daily life and he didn't know which type of button to choose between a swiping one, an touch one or an holding one. The three of them had the same actions, but when conducting a research you would want to know, what is the true liked one. So as a researcher you would need to test each buttons, see which one has the more uses. Then understand and ask yourself, why did this one was significantly more used ? Would he have been that used if this were for an other action ? Does the way of interacting in a app depends on the button you are using for a specific action ? Those kind of questions. I find it interesting to understand and really comprehend the WHY.

The research makes a way as a very thorough method that aims to understand why and how to some very specific questions. The more informations we have on what we are looking for, the more understanding we will have of it. And the more understanding of its, the more understanding of all, general knowledge. This is through those research that we understand the world and the humans, how we interact with each other and where we are going.

And when doing qualitative or quantitative research, never forget to test your questionnaires.

Pre-theme 5 : Design research

Texts read :
Finding design qualities in a tangible programming space - Fernaeus & Tholander
Differentiated Driving Range - Lundström 

What is the 'empirical data' in these two papers?

Those papers acquires their empirical data through two different ways. The first paper offers a collecting data through the observation of children's actions when they interact with the experimental designs, the prototype.The second acquires those data in different ways, through the stat of art analysis and an iterative design exploration and finally interviews in order to understand how the guess-o-meters works.

Can practical design work in itself be considered a 'knowledge contribution'?

Obviously, it would depend on the definition of what we think of knowledge. In my point of view, it can be considered as knowledge contribution. The learn by doing improves the way you perceive the object and increase or knowledge based on our experience with our failures. Moreover, being a way and not a destination, it allows to open doors to wider researches.

 

Are there any differences in design intentions within a research project, compared to design in general?

The design intentions within a research project is precisely chosen. You can adapt your design intentions with what you aim to do. This is one particularity that allows the researcher to have a clearer way for his research project. The researcher can in his design intentions put the user in the center of the research, called user entered or keep it self centred and experience it yourself. The difference that shines from this is instead of putting the light on the sensation for general design the researcher would shine the light on the functionality aspect. One offers a new knowledge (Design intention) the other see that everything works as intended (design in general)

Is research in tech domains such as these ever replicable? How may we account for aspects such as time/historical setting, skills of the designers, available tools, etc? 

They may be replicable but it depends mostly on how the research has been conducted. We have to keep in mind the aim of the initial study, the knowledge of the researcher that first tried it. In order to replicate all the correct conditions. Moreover, the study which is going to be replicable needs to be user center, otherwise the self centred research can be hardly replicable. This is why its important that we take into account every aspects in order to make it the more identical as the first one so at the end of theses researches it can lead to better and further development in the tech domain. it's important to understand older research to create news one. It needs a continual and infinite development.

Are there any important differences with design driven research compared to other research practices?

The Driven research depends on the users to try it in order to get as maximum data as impossible. The more we have the more accurate the research will be. This is a qualitative process, users give feedback and this is precious because the research aims to be used by others. So they are the best one to give their opinion on what works and what not. Once they all have tried it, the research can draw very accurate conclusions on what has been liked and what has been hated. And go in the right direction for the rest of the research.

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Post-theme 3 : Research and theory

Lecture + Seminar

The seminar widen my vision upon the world about theory. This is more complicated to represent as It seemed to be.  As a lot of people mentioned in the seminar and will probably mention in their blog, a theory provides an explanatory framework for an observer. What does that really mean?

In order to understand what theory represents, we have to start from the very beginning. Before everything, we have to ask ourselves some question, what am I looking for, what am I doing this for .... The aim is to understand and answer a "Why". Once we do, we have the question and ready to start the research process.

Raw data, information, etc. By themselves they are pretty useless and don't mean much without the meaning or the purpose of the theory. But once added up, we start to see a certain pattern between the numbers... The pattern starts to answer in some weird and unnoticed ways the question we first asked ourselves. 

Then once we have our question and the results of our researches we can start elaborate some hypothesis in order to narrow down to what we are really looking for. 

Once everything is done we can create our theory on what we just talked and searched about.

Even though this would be the perfect way to do this, lots of theories has been created with a very messy process. Meaning that the search the hypothesis are a bit random from each other... Most of the time, you have a main theory and a lots of information about the question but something invalid it and it redefines your body of work and make you start over. This is an ongoing process. Called "Anarchist Theory".

The aim here is to build your theory on existing theory. I will finish this blog by the closest definition of theory I could come up with.

With my group during the seminar we came up with a theory I had already explained in my first blog reception saying that theory, or at least ideas, truths or any objection concept we believe in, will be true and stay true until proven othewise. We used the example of the black and brown bear, saying that all of those animals are only black and brown, until we find one white. And the theory will modify itself from All bears are black and brown to All bears are black, brown and white. Until we find a pinky bear.
Are we therefore to accept this as a truth or shall we reject it because we are never sure. For example, if the actual truth is only black and brown bears, we deep down we believe that there will be a white one someday and that means our current truth is false, should we reject totally this current truth without knowing if the white bear will come some day ? I'm asking this question because science can be the black and brown bears. Until they discover something new, we have to believe in our current truth.

To conclude with a definition of theory based on what I just said above, I would go with this definition :
A theory is made of propositions that aims to identify objects and their relation to each other.

This definition puts in perspective the things i've mentionned above, their relation to each other, their timeframe in time and space.

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Pre-Theme 4 : Quantitative research

Text read : 

Do Men Advance Faster Than Women? Debunking the Gender Performance Gap in Two Massively Multiplayer Online Games - Journal of computer-mediated communication
JCMC Two Year Impact Factor: 3.117
JCMC Five Year Impact Factor: 3.799

IEEE VR 2012 - Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality

I have chosen the article " Do men advance faster than women in video games. The main focused was to determine if the usual conception that female gamer are usually worst better than male gamer was true.  In a world that tends to a more open world to video games, the question seemed to matter in order to not have the same misspercetion about the gender in the video game world as in the business world or any other world for the matter.

They based their studies upon the USA's population and the chinese population. And in two video games EverQuest II and Chevalier Romance III. Both game offers a long game experience that allows the player to improve his character over time.

Each participant records their timeplayed (which is a option directly in the game), their class of their charactere in the game, their player gender and their interaction in the virtual world. All their data was calculated upon the Kenward-Roger method. Study based on about 10 000 players. (80% male/20% female)

The study could have been wrong in the sense where player could have lied about their gender, but there would be no reason to do so.

The resultat shows that women perform as well as man do over time. There are, by definition, no disctinction to be made between male and female in a video game. (Of that kind at least) And therefore, believing in that way constitutes the first step for unequality in videogames.
But this study opens a door to understand why female are not that very commun on a very competitive level. (E-sport).

This is the limitation of this study. The results may differ upon the type of game studied. Future studies in various game genres and diverse cultures are needed to confirm the generalizability of findings reported here.

But overall, their method was very  rigorous. And they open up a whole new possibility of case study. This is the first of a long serie in order to determine more accuratly the video game industry and the distinction between male and female and might it be the first step of removing the cliches between Male and Female.

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The druming experience was a very interesting article based on virtual reality and the illusion of our body. Do we modify who we are based on how our body looks. Even though this was based on drum (which is a very good music indicator to determine how we react), our virtual body ownership illusion is a great concept to grasp.

This study compares if people will play, act, move differently if they have a different body (Gender, skin tone, etc) in the game and in the reality. So they incarnated different personnalities and see how they react.

Lots of study material to collect the data from each session for each individuals,  based on how the upper body reacts and "danse" to the drum's music and depending on which body they were incarnating.

The difference between male and women didn't matter a lot. Maybe the music isn't a source of differenciation between gender. More of a skin tone matter. Result, yes people play the drum differently depending on how they look in the game and no how they look in real life. The body ownership illusion has completly modify their personnality.

This qualitative study allows to focus on what the researchers are really looking for. This allows a more precise study and a better understanding of things since we can look closer to each result. However, the more result we have, the less possible it is to look closely to each and every result.

This quantitative study allows to have a wide panel of results and that we can determine pattern and diagnose with the results. It's proven to be right since a large number proves that a lot of people reacts, act that way. However, it is hardly possible to have a deeper understanding of thing as the qualitative study.

Both have their benefices and limitations and they are complementary and not distinct.