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CPE/CSC 484 User-Centered Interface Design and Development Winter 2007
Status Final
Points 10
DeadlineWeek 7

CPE/CSC 484-W07 Assignment 3: User Data Collection

Team Assignment

This assignment is to be performed in a team of about 3-5 people, preferably continuing with the team from the previous assignment.

Goals and Objectives

Description

In this assignment you will select a topic or task you need user input for, choose a data collection method appropriate for this purpose, set up a data collection station, and conduct a sample session with outside participants or class mates. Ideally, the topic should be related to your final team project; if your team feels that it is not suitable, you can select a different topic for the user data collection task.

Look at this activity from the perspective of team members who need to justify to their boss the overhead and expenses involved in this data collection activity. If you add up the actual expenses, the time spent by the developers, the time spent by the participants, and possibly the costs affiliated with the use of external participants, you will quickly see that such activities can become quite expensive. So it is very important to determine what you want to achieve, to carefully plan the setup and procedures, and to perform a thorough evaluation of the collected data, and to complete this assignment professionally.

Data Collection Station

During one of the lab sessions, probably on Thursday, Feb. 22, each team will set up its data collection station. While some team members guide the data collection activities at their station, the other team members will act as participants at the station of another team. You can also use this opportunity to collect data from outside participants. However, one goal of this assignment is to give everybody in class an impression of different data collection techniques, so the data collection stations should not be too far away. One possibility is to set up stations in the breezeway in front of our lab building and ask passers-by to fill out questionnaires or participate in experiments. You can also do a trial run during that event to test your methods, and then do the actual data collection outside of class.

We will discuss some practical aspects of this event in class. For example, we can conduct this session in a synchronized manner, with time slots of a defined length during which one cohort of participants goes through an activity. Alternatively, participants go through an activity at their own pace, and then proceed to the next station.

Video, Audio, and Computer Activity Recording

In order to become familiar with the basic setup, your team needs to record the activities of the participants. The most frequently used methods are video recording (either with a video camera or a Webcam), audio recording (with a tape recorder, dictation devices, or electronic voice recording), and the logging of computer activities (key strokes, mouse movements). Your team can select the most appropriate activity, but if possible, I would like to have at least one example of each. If you have suitable equipment that can be used, feel free to do so. We can also get equipment from Cal Poly's Media Services department; please let me know as soon as possible if your team requires specialized equipment.

Participant Consent

Experiments involving humans (and possibly also those involving animals) are subject to some laws and guidelines. Cal Poly has a Human Subjects Committee, which maintains a Web page on this topic at http://www.calpoly.edu/~sdavis/human.htm. While classroom activities are exempt from the more stringent requirements (such as approval of the experiments), you need to be aware of these policies, and some of the laws that they are based on. In general, you should tell participants in advance what you expect them to do, what the potential difficulties and risks are, and what you are planning to do with the data collected. This is of course most essential if you are collecting personal data. I strongly recommend refraining from collecting potentially sensitive data like home addresses, home phone numbers, racial or ethnical background, religion or faith, sexual orientation, etc. Additionally, I cannot possibly imagine a scenario for this exercise where it would be legitimate for you to collect data like Social Security, credit card, or bank information.

For the more common activities like questionnaires, surveys, or focus groups, it is common practice to use "informed consent" forms that participants sign at the beginning. You can find examples on the Human Subjects Committee Web page (see above, or http://www.calpoly.edu/~sdavis/human2.htm for a template to be used on anonymous questionnaires), or on Blackboard under last year's material for this assignment.

Submission and Deadline

You can view the deliverable for this activity as a report to your boss, or to venture capitalists who might be interested in providing funding for your project. Of course the main emphasis is to convince them that your overall project is great, but in this particular part, you can actually collect data that show them what others think of it.

At the end of the next lab period after the data collection station event, post the materials you used on the respective Blackboard forum. This should include:

As with the previous exercises, I will collect feedback from the teams. Please return the feedback sheets as soon as possible after the event. We will make the feedback available to the respective teams. This information is also very useful for accreditation purposes, so please returnn the completed forms after you've had a chance to look at them.

Grading Criteria

Criteria Collection Station:

Criteria Documents:

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