• Introduction
• Thesis   
  • Personal Design Research definition
  • Human Centered Design Research
  • Thesis goals
  • Work completed
• Project and Methods   
  • Introduction
  • Pre-research   
    • Bounding terms
    • Exploration of terms
  • Recruiting  
    • Overview
    • Process
    • Screening for ambivalence
  • Probes  
    • Overview
    • Evocative probes
    • Blank probes
    • Cameras
    • Distribution
  • Interviews  
    • Overview
    • Teams
    • Spaces
    • Photography
  • Analysis  
    • Approaches
    • Content based
    • Reflections
  • Findings  
    • Overview
    • Reflections
  • Outcomes
• Conclusion

Project and
Methods:
Analysis:
Approaches:

Ways of looking at returned materials

In the paper Super Studio: Clarity and Ambiguity in Probes the writers note: "There are few descriptions, however, of how designers are to analyze the probes and there is no consensus on the practical definition of 'analysis' when in the domain of design" (L. Nugent, 2007, pg 2). then describe how the Passing on the Future Super Studio worked with their returned material. Women Who Play used similar methods. Below is a summary of these methods. For a detailed account of the Super Studio method please see the Nugen et al. paper.

In Design Probes Mattelmäki surveys four possible ways of interpreting probe material.

• "Applying interpretation models"--using known models or structures
• "Interpretation in the terms of the material"--using the materials to form new categories, topics, groupings, and associations.
• "Condensing and combining"--collecting well selected material and combing them to produce a portrait of the research.
• "Direct interpretation"--directly working with individual returns, examining singular details and working from them.
  (Mattelmäki, pg 88-96)

However, these methods do not necessarily require processing the material in a designerly way. The Super Studio method is based on interpretation through design work. As is the method used for Women Who Play.

All returns are first translated into a workable form, e.g. interviews transcribed, awkward items photographed, multi-page items scanned and printed out as one-sided prints. In their new forms, all the returns are put up in the same physical space, allowing for a first taking-in of all the material. The material can now be sub-divided into in any combination of four different ways. 

1. Every return can be treated as an individual. The designers can use one or more return to create their own combination for reflection and inspiration. This can be thought of as mining the material for individual gems. This correlates to Gaver's method and "Direct interpretation".
2. The work can be grouped into silos by participant. In this way the designer works to understand each person from multiple perspectives.
3. The work can be grouped by task completed. In this way all the returns from one probe or one set of questions would be placed together and the designer seeks to understand each of the participants through the lens of that one activity.
4. The work can be kept as a whole, with all the material up, designers can take all the information in and look for trends or themes across all people and tasks. This correlates with "Interpretation in the terms of the material."

Once the material is sub-divided, researchers then work to use their skills as designers to understand it. This is what is uniquely Art Center based. This can vary from creating info graphics, typologies, or Venn diagrams to emotional compositions or juxtapositions. It is important at this stage the any kind of averaging or summarizing is avoided. Every exploration must take care to preserve the texture and individuality of the material. These explorations are refined, through a critiquing process, until they--or the process of making them--reveals non-obvious insights into the subject.

With the video game landscape map it was possible to treat the colored data points like an info graphic. By encoding "self" (participant) and "friend" in a code of circles and squares, and retaining the color and game label, it was possible to create graphs of the colors varying meanings. Through those graphs it was possible to see which colors had contested meaning. From the graphs color swatches were constructed for the different kinds of games. These swatches represent the emotional impact, as expressed through color, that the women have for each kind of game. Averaging was avoided by keeping each woman's selections discreet. 

It desirable for all returns to be back to the researchers at the same time. In the Blux study, all materials where gathered and in the researchers possession over the same weekend. This allowed work to begin in a smooth way--it was clear what materials existed, they could be distributed to designers at once, and steady deadlines could be set. Women Who Play had a few straggling returns, that unvaryingly were less influential in the study than the returns that came in at once. This is due to work beginning on the first material and the later material fitting into that work already begun.

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