Activity 1: Close To You
Activity 2: Digital Ecosystem
Activity 3: Typical Weekday
One theme I found very common throughout the research activity was convenience. It seems that my participant really sought information and such that was quick, convenient, and fit easily into the day. When I tried to dig deeper into why she sought information from certain sources, she would simply say “because it’s convenient.” She noticed that she has actually been consuming more online news in new forms rather than traditional TV as she had in the past. She also pointed out that she was tired of watching video in general and preferred skimming an article to learn information. I also found that particular types of news seemed to come up at the same time of day. For example, the morning time included the most news about weather, traffic, and general news. During the day, the information consumed leaned more towards business or other topics relating to her profession. Then in the evening, was more information related to hobbies, interests, and other more interesting topics. I found it interesting that all of her “must haves” and “nice to haves” did not involve connectivity or technology but more things that she actually needed to survive and things that she really appreciated the value of. I expected more answers like phone, social media, or laptop so I was definitely surprised by that. Overall, I learned that my participant sought convenient, reliable, and quick sources of information.
I definitely learned that being a researcher is not easy. I slightly struggled throughout the interview and felt like I could have been better prepared. The first activity was particularly hard because I was not sure how to correctly guide the right answers. For example, my participant kept leaning towards answers that were intangible, like relationships, and I was unsure if I should correct her and ask for a new answer or just let the conversation flow and see where it goes. I then had a hard time defining some of the media she was consuming and whether to consider it a blog or a news website. I found myself really wanting to lead the conversation more towards answers that “fit the model” because I wanted a quality analysis. I think defining the questions more clearly and being more specific would help to fix a lot of the issues I had but I also think that for some research purposes it is better to be vague. I was also not expecting to feel the pressure from the participant that I did. I thought the experience would be more relaxed but I found it pretty stressful to explain the questions to the participant without swaying her answers. The last exercise was particularly exhaustive to the participant. Half way through the list, she was wondering how many were left. I realized it is very important to consider the length and magnitude of thought that the activity will require and this is definitely something to consider in my next interview. I probably should have broken up the activities over a couple of days. Overall, I learned a few very important lessons for hosting a research activity and I also realized that it was not as easy as I had expected.
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