Exercise 1

Summary

The given project task is to create an interactive interface that will either help travelers to get from A to B or to design an interactive experience for the travelers in order to improve the the current travel experience or to create a new kind of travel experience.

After deciding on the usergroup, we want to focus on during the project (-  which will be tourists in stockholm in our case), we discussed which type of data gatharing methods we want to use. In order to get a broad range of insights and to be able to identify as many problems with the current system as possible, we want collect qualitative data and thereby to perform triangulation  - study the field of our task (public transporation in Stockholm) from diffrent perspectives.

The aim of our fieldstudies is to explore the issues around transporation in Stockholm (especially connected to our target group) and to understand the activities of the user before, during and after the travel and their context. Therefore we decided both to conduct  interviews with people from our target group as well as to perform direct observations on the field (in Slussen, on the boat and in Allmänna Gränd ) - methodological triangulation. 

During the exercise session we also ideated on questions for the interviews. As we aim to have semi-structured interview, the questions are listed in the following part are only meant as a basic script for guidance. The interviews will be conducted by all group members on Sunday (20th September). The goup members will form groups of 2-3 and each group will seperatly interview people from our target group - investigator triangulation. The interview will be audio recorded and transcripted and analyzed afterwards. Interviews will take place at the ferry stations in Slussen and Allmänna Gränd as well as on the ferry itself at diffrent times - triangulation of data.
The state-of-the-arts-analysis will be done on the SL-App, the SL-Homepage and Google Maps. An analysis of further relevant technologies might be conducted after inquiring the users about other technologies they preferably use.

user group:           Tourists in Stockholm
route:                    Slussen - Allmänna Gränd (Ferry)
data gathering:    Interview, direct observation

Interview Questions

• Gender:   __m        __f
• Age:        
• Tourist:    __yes     __no, but_________
• Where are you from?
• How long have you been in Stockholm?
• How often do you travel with public transportation? __1-2*per week   __3-5*per week   __daily
• Which public transport do you prefer?    __ bus    __pendeltag   __metro    __boat   __....     
• Why?
• What do yo like about it?
• Why did you choose this type of transport? 
• Why don't to use the tourist boat?
• Where did you get the information from to plan your journey? 
• Was there enough information to plan properly?
• What additional information did you wish to have? 
• Was it hard to find the boat?
• What are you expectation on the journey? Did the journey live up to your expectation?
• How did you feel during your journey?
• What did you love about the trip?
• What did you like?
• What did you hate about the trip?
• What did you dislike?
• What kind of improvement would you propose?
• What problems occur before/during/after the journey?
• What diffrences do you see between the public transportion system in Stockholm and the one in your home country?
• What do you like about the transportation system in Stockholm? What do you dislike?
• How would you design public transportation, if you get the chance to redesign it as you want?

Seminar 1

Discussion

We discussed the different methods of data gathering and which method is best suited for our project. 
Interviews are useful when in need for qualitative data, while questionnaires are more efficient at gathering quantitative data. 
We concluded that qualitative data is what we need; we want the opinion and ideas of the users in order to come up with a relevant project for our target group.

Observations also allows us to gather qualitative data, and can be used as well. The difference between interviews and observations is that interviews provide information about what the user believes he wants or how he interacts, while observations gives us data in what the user actually wants or how it interacts. 
Instead of choosing between them, we found it to be a sound idea to use both methods for our initial data gathering. 

There are different kinds of interviews and observations. Since our focus is to gather ideas and opinions, a  completely structured interview is the last thing we need - we will instead use an semi-tructured interview. 
The observations can either be performed in direct or indirect fashion. The direct approach focus on how well a subject performs to complete a specific task. However one has to consider, that they know, they are being observed  and that, therefore, their performance might be influenced by that knowledge. The indirect approach reveals how the user would actually solve a task, and captures details that would otherwise go unnoticed (e.g. most users are in a hurry or staring at their phone in the target environment and doesn't pay attention to text in the interface, which would never happen in a direct observation).

Speaking of environment: to make sure that any observed data is authentic we should gather data for different times of the day or locations.

Summary

• We want qualitative data rather than quantitative data
• To collect the data, we want to use different data gathering methods (methodology triangulation ): unstructured interviews and observations (we've not decided if we want to use direct or indirect observations)
• We also want to use data triangulation , meaning getting data from diffrent information sources (people) at difrent times and places to be able to identify diffrent problems.