Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques

From the Publisher:
Written by the author of the best-selling HyperText & HyperMedia, this book provides an excellent guide to the methods of usability engineering. Special features: emphasizes cost-effective methods that will help developers improve their user interfaces immediately, shows you how to avoid the four most frequently listed reasons for delay in software projects, provides step-by-step information about which methods to use at various stages during the development life cycle, and offers information on the unique issues relating to informational usability. You do not need to have previous knowledge of usability to implement the methods provided, yet all of the latest research is covered.

Usability Engineering

The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

From the Publisher: 
A Question of Identity 
Life on the Screen is a fascinating and wide-ranging investigation of the impact of computers and networking on society, peoples' perceptions of themselves, and the individual's relationship to machines. Sherry Turkle, a Professor of the Sociology of Science at MIT and a licensed psychologist, uses Internet MUDs (multi-user domains, or in older gaming parlance multi-user dungeons) as a launching pad for explorations of software design, user interfaces, simulation, artificial intelligence, artificial life, agents, "bots," virtual reality, and "the on-line way of life." 
Turkle's discussion of postmodernism is particularly enlightening. She shows how postmodern concepts in art, architecture, and ethics are related to concrete topics much closer to home, for example AI research (Minsky's "Society of Mind") and even MUDs (exemplified by students with X-window terminals who are doing homework in one window and simultaneously playing out several different roles in the same MUD in other windows). Those of you who have (like me) been turned off by the shallow, pretentious, meaningless paintings and sculptures that litter our museums of modern art may have a different perspective after hearing what Turkle has to say. 
This is a psychoanalytical book, not a technical one. However, software developers and engineers will find it highly accessible because of the depth of the author's technical understanding and credibility. Unlike most other authors in this genre, Turkle does not constantly jar the technically-literate reader with blatant errors or bogus assertions about how things work. Although I personally don't have time or patience for MUDs,view most of AI as snake-oil, and abhor postmodern architecture, I thought the time spent reading this book was an extremely good investment.

스크린 위의 삶 = Life on the screen : identity in the age of the internet

Doing Qualitative Research

From the Publisher:
Accomplished authors, Preece, Rogers and Sharp, have written a key new textbook on this core subject area. Interaction Design deals with a broad scope of issues, topics and paradigms that has traditionally been the scope of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Interaction Design (ID). The book covers psychological and social aspects of users, interaction styles, user requirements, design approaches, usability and evaluation, traditional and future interface paradigms and the role of theory in informing design. The topics will be grounded in the design process and the aim is to present relevant issues in an integrated and coherent way, rather than assembling a collection of chapters on individual HCI topics. 
KEY FEATURES: 
· This truly integrated approach to HCI provides students with background information from psychology, sociology, anthropology, information systems and computer science 
· Provides principles and skills for designing any technology through the use of many interesting and state of the art examples 
· The author supported, highly interactive Web Site provides resources that allow students to collaborate on experiments, participate in design competitions, collaborate on design, find resources and communicate with others 
· The accompanying Web Site also features examples, step-by-step exercises and templates for questionnaires 
CONTENTS: 
Preface 
1. What is interaction design? 
Interview with Gitta Saloman 
2. Understanding and conceptualizing interaction 
Interview with Terry Winograd 
3. Understanding users 
4. Understanding and designing for collaboration and communication 
Interview with AbigailSellen 
5. Understanding how interfaces affect users 
6 The process of interaction design 
Interview with Gillian Crampton Smith 
7 Identifying needs and establishing requirements 
Interview with Suzanne Robertson 
8 Design, prototyping and construction 
9 User-centered approaches to interaction design 
Interview with Karen Holtzblatt 
10 Introducing evaluation 
11 A framework for evaluation 
12 Observing users 
Interview with Sara Bly 
13 Asking users and experts 
Interview with Jakob Nielsen 
14 Testing and modeling users 
Interview with Ben Shneiderman 
15 Doing design and evaluation in the real world: communicators and advisory systems 
Epilogue 
Glossary

Interaction Design

Little attention has focused so far on evaluating the success of online communities. This paper begins to identify some key determinants of sociability and usability that help to determine their success. Determinants of sociability include obvious measures such as the number of participants in a community, the number of messages per unit of time, members' satisfaction, and some less obvious measures such as amount of reciprocity, the number of on-topic messages, trustworthiness and several others. Measures of usability include numbers of errors, productivity, user satisfaction and others. The list is not exhaustive but it is intended to provide a starting point for research on this important topic that will lead to develop of metrics. To avoid creating false impressions it is advisable to use several measures and to triangulate with qualitative data, particularly from ethnographic studies.

Sociability and usability in online communities: Determining and measuring success

As online groups grow in number and type, understanding lurking is becoming increasingly important. Recent reports indicate that lurkers make up over 90% of online groups, yet little is known about them.This paper presents a demographic study of lurking in email-based discussion lists (DLs) with an emphasis on health and software-support DLs. Four primary questions are examined. One, how prevalent is lurking, and do health and software-support DLs differ? Two, how do lurking levels vary as the definition is broadened from zero posts in 12 weeks to 3 or fewer posts in 12 weeks? Three, is there a relationship between lurking and the size of the DL, and four, is there a relationship between lurking and traffic level?When lurking is defined as no posts, the mean lurking level for all DLs is lower than the reported 90%. Health-support DLs have on average significantly fewer lurkers (46%) than software-support DLs (82%). Lurking varies widely ranging from 0 to 99%. The relationships between lurking, group size and traffic are also examined.

/pdf/lurker-demographics-counting-the-silent-2rmrjpvg16.pdf

Lurker demographics: counting the silent

A revision of the #1 text in the Human Computer Interaction field, Interaction Design, the third edition is an ideal resource for learning the interdisciplinary skills needed for interaction design, human-computer interaction, information design, web design and ubiquitous computing. 

The authors are acknowledged leaders and educators in their field, with a strong global reputation. They bring depth of scope to the subject in this new edition, encompassing the latest technologies and devices including social networking, Web 2.0 and mobile devices. The third edition also adds, develops and updates cases, examples and questions to bring the book in line with the latest in Human Computer Interaction.

Interaction Design offers a cross-disciplinary, practical and process-oriented approach to Human Computer Interaction, showing not just what principles ought to apply to Interaction Design, but crucially how they can be applied. The book focuses on how to design interactive products that enhance and extend the way people communicate, interact and work. Motivating examples are included to illustrate both technical, but also social and ethical issues, making the book approachable and adaptable for both Computer Science and non-Computer Science users. Interviews with key HCI luminaries are included and provide an insight into current and future trends.

Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. Second Edition

The aim of this research is to develop an in-depth understanding of the dynamics of online group interaction and the relationship between the participation in an online community and an individual's off-line life. The 2h-year study of a thriving online health support community (Bob's ACL WWWBoard) used a broad fieldwork approach, guided by the ethnographic research techniques of observation, interviewing, and archival research in combination with analysis of the group's dynamics during a one-week period. Research tools from the social sciences were used to develop a thick, rich description of the group. The significant findings of this study include: dependable and reliable technology is more important than state-of-the-art technology in this community; strong community development exists despite little differentiation of the community space provided by the software; members reported that participation in the community positively influenced their offline lives; strong group norms of support and reciprocity made externally-driven governance unnecessary; tools used to assess group dynamics in face-to-face groups provide meaningful information about online group dynamics; and, membership patterns in the community and strong subgroups actively contributed to the community's stability and vitality.

/pdf/a-multilevel-analysis-of-sociability-usability-and-community-u2gk3alc0b.pdf

Jenny Preece

Papers

Interaction Design

Sociability and usability in online communities: Determining and measuring success

Lurker demographics: counting the silent

Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. Second Edition

A multilevel analysis of sociability, usability, and community dynamics in an online health community