I was poking around Amazon tonight and noticed that Kuniavsky had made its way into my recommendations list (am I that much of an HCI dork? perhaps…), so I decided that was a sign that I should just buy it.

Have you heard of Rank SI yet?

I hope you do submit your project to CHI. It would be cool if a few SI teams made it to the conference round.

Thanks for taking the survey! Couple of quick thoughts and questions.

1) After reading a couple of reviews, I added the Kuniavsky book to my reading list. The recommendation is much appreciated.

2) You’re right.

3) Yes — I think this was a manifestation of my “I wish I had time for more interviews” feelings, and I had concerns about putting them in. The survey ended up largely as a modified version of our interview protocol with some other questions jammed in. Deletion of some of the open-ended questions probably would have been wiser.

4) I agree, at least in principle . We’ve been doing interviews alongside, but — after looking at the results as of Weds — felt a need to cast a slightly wider net. It’ll be interesting to see if, in the end, we really feel that the survey added to our knowledge or if it was largely a time sink.

5) Yeah, I did a quick run-through with a friend from home, which fixed some major problems. Getting some input from people who have been through 622 is a great idea and will probably use if we do another survey.

What did you think of 682? It’s feeling very similar to a course I took previously (and I learned just the other day that the syllabi of the two courses are actually based (at least in part) on the same coures, so that explains some things. It feel like a helpful experience, but largely too rushed to get the depth I feel I need to get out of the masters program.

Yes — this is for CHI 2007 SDC. We’re not 100% committed to submitting it (I think we’re waiting to make sure we all feel good about the product), but that’s the goal.

CHI-opportunity aside, I think my team also gravitated towards the idea of looking at a broader problem rather than trying to redo an existing tool. We’re finding, though, that the schedule seems to lend itself much more towards the other sort of problem.

Sean

You’ll learn more about surveys in 622 but here is some constructive criticism:

1. You should checkout Observing the User Experience by Mike Kuniavsky. He has a lot of information about surveys and includes some sample survey scales.

2. The scale on question 9 has some problems. “As much as possible” is a different measure than “frequently” (intent vs actual behavior). For instance, I want to walk to places as much as possible but I do it rarely.

3. Open ended questions (pages 5,6) would be better as interview questions. Open ended questions are really hard to analyze in a survey and they place too much burden on the survey taker. I almost stopped taking your survey when I saw them.

4. For this kind of design research, I think you might be better off doing a few interviews (even if they’re just with friends) than a survey. A survey is good for getting statistically significant data about a large number of people. However, at this stage of your research, I’m guessing you want to learn more about your users’ pains and interviews are going to give you a certain depth that surveys won’t.

5. You should pilot your survey with other people who are not in your group – do they understand it? You might want to instill the help of some second years who have already taken 622.

good luck!

(is this for the CHI 2007 SDC?)