The researcher has to be careful not to cross the you-are-not-the-user line and start designing for his or her own wants and needs.It’s difficult to participate, observe, and take notes at the same time.It can take a long time for the group to accept the researcher as a member and become comfortable with him or her.Active involvement in the group can cause the researcher to lose objectivity and may lead to bias.By participating in activities, the researcher can inadvertently influence the other participants’ behavior.The following disadvantages of participant observation have probably prevented its wider adoption in design research: What Are Its Disadvantages? Active involvement in the group can cause the researcher to lose objectivity and may lead to bias. The researcher is simply with the group all day, observing and participating in whatever happens. Participating eliminates the formality of scheduled research sessions, in which participants expect to answer questions or demonstrate specific tasks.As a group member, the researcher spends more time with the participants and gets to observe them in more varied situations.Group members often feel more comfortable and act more naturally when a researcher participates in their activities rather than just sitting back and observing silently.As a new group member, the researcher often notices things that group members take for granted, such as group rules and norms.Performing activities with the group gives the researcher greater empathy, as well as a much more in-depth understanding of the group members and their activities.Participating in a group as a new member requires the researcher to learn about the group and its activities in much greater detail than when simply observing and taking notes.In comparison to pure observation studies that don’t involve any participation by the researcher, participant observation provides the following advantages: So why haven’t we adopted participant observation in design research? If we look at its advantages and disadvantages, perhaps we can determine whether we can adapt this method to the needs of design research projects. Participant observation studies have provided some of the most valuable insights in anthropology and sociology. These are participant observation studies. These are the types of studies that probably come to mind when you think about anthropology or sociology-for example, an anthropologist goes to live with a tribe in the Amazon rainforest or a sociologist moves into a housing project to learn about poverty. Participating in the group gives them the ability to experience events in the same way other group members experience them. Instead of observing as an outsider, they play two roles at once-objective observer and subjective participant. When we go into the field to observe people performing tasks, we remain outside observers, asking questions and taking notes, but not getting involved in their activities ourselves.Īnthropologists and sociologists often practice participant observation, in which they join a group as a participating member to get a first-hand perspective of the group and their activities.
But we haven’t adopted one signature method of anthropology: participant observation. In the field of UX design research, we’ve borrowed and adapted many research methods from anthropology to enable us to better understand people and their needs.
0 kommentar(er)
