Scrapbook - Unit 5

Research on Information Users

I thought the Free Library of Philadelphia questionnaire was an excellent survey - it was in-depth, they talked to a huge sample, and they got to the meat of what they were looking for. The data they gathered seemed necessary and efficient in meeting their needs and in extending information services to their patrons.

Surveys and data collection provide a way for organizations to learn more about who uses their services - they get data about their target audience, so to speak. I understand the need to use this data to improve services, but what about the people who don't go to the Free Library of Philadelphia or to Pret a Manger? Perhaps another way to look at information gathering is to look at who isn't using your services in order to expand your audience. These surveys could potentially give feedback to the manager on what the organization is doing well and what needs an adjustment. If they're having staff issues or systems issues, the manager can make her decisions to change the organization accordingly. Also, executives could plan for the future by knowing which direction the organization needs to go in and what other services should be offered in the future.

By asking about the effectiveness of the information systems (such as the USPS and the Library Survey did) I can judge whether or not I should make radical changes to my information system or continue to improve upon what I already have. The point of all organizations, regardless of who they are, is to keep customers happy; by analyzing customer satisfaction surveys, organizations can assess how successful they are at doing this; and, if they need improvement, they have the data that tells them how they should improve.

I think the Free Library of Philadelphia survey was the best survey out of the set. They were obviously trying to find out who came to their library, what their goals were in the library, and how effective (or not) each one of their surveys were to these patrons. I think the USPS survey should add a comments section. The most interesting open-ended survey question I have seen was on the library survey - they ask "What three things would you change about the library" - what an interesting way to get at the users perspective! It keeps them involved in the survey. For the library and the restaurant, I would like to have traffic statistics - i.e., how many people are going in and out of the organization in a day or week's time. This information would tell me when I am over- or under-staffed so that I could adjust my employees work schedules accordingly.

I prefer mostly yes/no and likert-type survey questions with one open-ended question for comment. When you're analyzing a significant amount of data, these close-ended questions are much easier to analyze. On the other hand, it's important to allow users to say what they want to say without being bound by my questions, hence the 'comments' question at the end of the survey.

I was pretty upset after reading Bauder's article - I can't believe schools allow market researchers to come and disrupt school time for research!! If I were a parent, I would be VERY upset. They're saying that they are building shows around what kids are into now, but is that really what they're doing? Aren't they essentially just marketing what they think kids want to see? What about kids with different opinions from the majority - can they not watch what they want to on TV? I do agree with the creator of Blues Clues - but I don't think it was her market research that helped her design the show, I think it was her Master's in Child Development that made Blues Clues such a success. This type of research just seems to be from a market standpoint - I just can't believe that some big television company wants to do good, not evil, with this type of information. If collection developers did this type of research, their collections would only include what's popular, and not a wide range of topics for all to enjoy. This popularity measure of information is what makes Google's PageRank mechanism so scary - if only the most popular documents in the world are returned at the top of the retrieved set how do I find rare documents? It's simple, I don't.

I think I had so many problems with this article because of the questions the researcher was asking the kids about personal life - involvement with parents, grandparents, etc. If the kids said that their parents were annoying would the network create shows that put parents down? It seems that a few years ago all of the cartoons made parents look ridiculous - how does this effect children?

Final Thoughts

I think the formal survey used by the Free Library of Philadelphia was the most useful out of this set of information - I could tell exactly what they were looking for in their questions. Nothing was vague, and every question was appropriate (unlike Nickelodeon's tactics - I still can't believe they disrupted school for market research!). I also enjoyed reading Bauersfeld and Halgren's study of how to gather data from end-users. If you are designing an interface for a specific audience, you should know what their likes and dislikes are - and they even used different tactics of getting at this information. I particularly liked their condensed ethnographic interview tactics and their interactive feature conceptualization (a la sticky notes) - this reminded me of systems analysis! Dr. Haas taught us this sticky note approach to designing systems to meet the needs of users. If people can visualize what they want and visually represent that to the designer, it seems to work a lot better than simply explaining the issue.

I also think that it is important to determine what you want to do with your information so as to determine how you want to get this information. Since Bauersfeld and Halgren were looking to design an interface for a very specific group of people, they did an in-depth study to find their information, in the short amount of time they had available. The Free Library of Philadelphia wanted to ask their many patrons questions and this best way to get information from such a large number of people is through a survey.

Different methods very much decide what type of information you get - do you want quantitative or qualitative data? Qualitative data, at least from my point of view, provides the researcher with more open-ended responses. Quantitative data is a quick way to find the specific answers you want from your users. Also, in the realm of qualitative and quantitative information there are many ways to go - ethnographic studies, an interview in your office, etc. Ethnographic studies take the most amount of time but I think provide the most valuable information. I love the way Solomon got information for his study (and not just because you're my instructor! :) ) because you really got every piece of data possible out of that group of people to fully understand their work process. Of course, time is always of the essence, and if you have a short amount of time, quantitative methods work too, you just won't receive as much honest data - by honest, I mean that surveys don't really give participants the opportunity to say exactly what they mean.

Surveys and other forms of research put the information professional in an interesting role - that of information seeker. The hardest part of this process is determining what method of research will give you the type of information you are looking for - how will you get data from your user? Qualitative methods such as interviews, ethnographic studies, and conceptualization activities allow the researcher to interact with their participants and provide the most valuable data to the researcher. Quantitative studies like surveys provide the researcher a way to get data quickly, and data that is easily and scientifically analyzed. The situation the researcher is in and the type of data they want to collect both affect what type of data collection methods are used.