Link

Authors
Minna Isomursu University of Oulu
Kari Kuutti University of Oulu
Soili Väinämö University of Oulu

Participatory Design archive
Proceedings of the eighth conference on Participatory design: Artful integration: interweaving media, materials and practices - Volume 1 table of contents
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
SESSION: Methodological considerations table of contents
Pages: 83 - 92
Year of Publication: 2004
ISBN:1-58113-851-2

Abstract:
This paper describes experiences from using a field testing technique for collecting user experience information for evaluating mobile applications used in everyday life. Our technique is based on the usage of mobile camera phones that are used for capturing video and audio during the use of the mobile application. The users helped researchers in collecting user experience material by shooting the video clips themselves. To our surprise they also started to participate actively by presenting "miniplays" in the clips to make their point clear. Our results show that with this technique we can get richer emotional material and more versatile usage situations than with traditional observation methods, and additionally there is clearly a yet unexplored potential to develop a more systematic design method around participation.

MyDiscussion:
A mobile map + location-sensitive ads application, hosted on a PDA, was user tested on the streets of Finland using video. The innovation was not to shadow the users with a video-camera by a member of the research team, but giving another member of the group of users a video-phone so the grouo could do their own recording. This changes the situation from standard shadowing int three ways: 1) users are far more willing and open to share experiences with their friends, becoming much more communicative in showing their triumphs and frustrations 2) There is no researcher to whom the user can turn when the user is stuck, thus removing the 'help me!' factor that makes the shadowed user experience artificial when compared to an actual user experience using the product 3) mobile phones are so much part of the urban landscape that users do not become self-concious with regards to onlookers about being shadowed.

Of course the video experience immediatly becomes participatory between the user and the friend with the phone, and the teams start communicating their ideas and feelings using staged drama. It is easy to find this predictable once you read the paper, but it is a good reminder that users actually do always want to express themselves about the tools they use, and will if they have the right tools. The resulting video is not suitable for doing data-oriented user studies about products, as the user is not videoed all through the experience in a controlled locations. It is extremely good for getting soft data like emotions, major points of frustrations in the product, as those will be vdieoed, and enthousiasm over specific features.

The paper puts the video and the technique in a larger context of user-participation in design, using video as more than a registering tool but also a design tool, and validity in ehtnographic studies by de-influencing the context as a researcher.