Last week, I sent a “final” draft of my second year project proposal to my committee. I discussed the project with my advisors and in the second year project class where I continued to get valuable feedback. Most importantly, I am trying to be cautious about ascribing motivations to observed user behavior. Ed Hutchins suggested that I consider my data to be of two classes: behavior type 1 (a fairly objective report of user behavior based on recorded videos of desktop activity) and behavior type 2 (comments provided in interviews about user goals, motivations, an perceptions of others). There may or may not be a relationship between user reports and user behavior; surely, motivations for online participation involve multiple factors that users may or may not even be aware of. Regardless, it will be interesting to analyze and compare these two types of behavior, and Iwill be cautious about taking user reports at face value.
The second year project class mostly questioned the value of this data to researchers and designers. I said that my goal was to explore new and interesting combinations of social web technologies and usagepatterns (implicit information sharing, interactions with others, etc.), rather than evaluating how the general population uses these tools today. Consequently, I will collect data from early adopters, or “lead–users”—individuals who have worked out methods and stable patterns of using such systems beneficially in their daily lives.Early adopters are the first users of new Web tools. As such, they can provide a critical perspective on the technology state space. Lead–users may also be the developers of new technology; understanding their usage and behaviors patterns may inform us of the evolution of technology. In fact, by studying their activities, our research may additionally influence technology development. Finally, as Web technologies and access to the Internet become more pervasive, the tools and behaviors observed in early adopters today may eventually become widespread in the general population. (Does that address the question? Perhaps somewhat..and perhaps it still needs tobe developed more thoroughly?)
I have also begun coordinating my research “team” (including 4 undergraduate assistants). Their first task involves performing a pilot test of my data collection procedures. I gave them directions for capturing some of their online activity along with a few “deadlines.” The biggest problem I see for data collection at the moment involves uploading large data files to a shared server for the research team to access. I’ve looked into several online services that allow data storage and sharing: civil netizen seems the most promising at this point, although Jim may set up an FTP server for me. The undergraduates and I are planning to test the recording software and upload procedures this coming week. Subsequently, we will review the (pilot) data together and discuss technical and/or research issuesthat may have arisen. From this, I hope some of the undergrads will begin brainstorming interview questions, while others may begin reviewing the relevant literature.
I am back at PARC for the next two weeks, where I will focus my time on the enterprise tagging research project. However, in this time, I also plan to contact (and attempt to recruit) several participants for the UCSD study.
