Process: During the field study
By: Etienne Gernez
Tags: Design, Onsite, Oicl, UX, Course

Chapter summary: what to focus on when you are in the field

Carrying out a field study is about following your plan, and being prepared to adapt the plan to how the events actually unfold in the field. In this chapter we present the key activities that will help you structure your work in the field:

Inform the participants on the site of the field study: make sure to be able to explain the motivation, objective and plan of the field study. We recommend to have it in writing, and to train for sharing the same content orally.

Capture images, videos and data: follow your plan for what to document, and how to do it. Be clear on your specific choices. Train to ask for permission before capturing anything.

Observe and interview: explore a specific topic with an informant by asking questions and interacting with their work. While doing so, be respectful of the informant’s work and privacy.

Collect structured data: connect your observations, photos, hand-written notes, to the main field study objectives.

Debrief: after each observation session, review your notes and summarise the most important observations. Reflect upon your findings and prepare follow-up questions and ideas for the next your of observations.

Organise data in the field: structure your data so that it is possible to come back to it at a later stage. Someone not familiar with your project should be able to understand how you organise your data.

Adjust the plan: assess what data still needs to be collected with regards to the initial field study plan, and update the plan accordingly.

Introducing your study to your informants

When you come to the site of your study, you need to introduce yourself and make sure that the field work can formally start. Some people might have been informed about your study, but most likely not all the people you will meet know who you are and why you are here. So you need to start with the highest authority on the site before you can go down in the chain of command. For example when we work on ships, we always start with a meeting with the captain and we go together through the field study plan. We often hold a presentation for the whole crew to introduce the field study once and for all, depending on the availability of the crew at that time.

The most important part of introducing the study to the participants is to agree upon what you can observe and capture, and what is off limits. This is the beginning of a process where you build trust and transparency into your relation with your informants, so that they can feel free to share information with you. To that end, make sure to inform your informants about their rights to decline to participate, or to stop their participation at any time of the study. We present this information orally and in writing, using a document we call “information letter”.

Personal conduct

Always keep your social antenna up. Be courteous and respectful but, at the same time, interested in what goes on. Be honest about your intentions. Ask questions if the situation allows for it, but accept it if the users don’t want to talk. Empathy takes you a long way, and some humour never hurts.

Remember that your notes may be read by others — for example, over your shoulder or if you walk away and leave your book. You may even want to leave your book out intentionally to let people have a look and, thus, avoid suspicion. Notes of a more personal nature can be made on your computer or in a different book that you keep in a private space. Being open and telling the users why you do the things that you do is good for increased acceptance.

Beware of ‘photo and documentation fatigue’. The users may find it annoying or intrusive if you are too eager, always using your camera or writing in your book. Always ask before taking photos of people or if you want to make video/audio recordings. If the users accept it, be clear on when you start and stop the recording. If the users say no, respect their wishes.

Observing

Be explorative and look at everything as something interesting. Use your all your senses to enrich your visual observation with a full physical experience of the field: the sounds, the smells, the feeling in your hands, the movements of your body when navigating this new space.

Look out for details, repeating patterns, start making connections. Make note of what happens the way you thought it would, and make note of what does not. Whenever possible, try to put yourself in the shoes of your informant. If you get offered the opportunity to try to operate some of the systems your informant is working with, make sure that you have the clearance to do so.

Keep the mantra that “there is always something to observe”. You will experience moments when you have the impression that nothing is going on. What actually happens then? What are your informants doing when it seems that they are not engaged with a specific task? How do they know that they do not need to engage right now, and what will make them resume their work task?

Reflecting

Document your observations with notes, sketches, photos and videos — if relevant, and permitted. Your notes are part of an ensemble of rich documentation formats that complete each other, and they need to capture several layers of observation.

The first layer is an objective observation and description of what happens. You can think of observation as a form of interpreting information, rather than a form of recording information. This means that observation needs to be completed by a second layer of reflection over the observations: what does this observation mean for the field study goals and the design process it is informing? For instance: is your observation a description of a problem (or maybe a type of problem)? What kind of design potential can you foresee based on your observation of this problem? The reflection layer is much more subjective, it is driven by your experience and your personal judgements.

It is challenging to distinguish observations from reflections at first. The distinction in itself is not the most important: what matters most is to work consciously with the process of reflecting over your observations, and using this process to fuel your ideation, and the evaluation of your ideas. Take the time to practice, because it will increase the quality of your output from the field study, and kickstart the analysis of your field study findings.

You can read more about design reflection in the chapter about our Design-driven research model.

Debriefing

You cannot rely on your memory alone, so it is extremely important to do a debriefing after each observation session. Make a summary of the most important observations, and reflect upon their importance for the study’s purpose and for your design work. Then write a summary of your reflections as well. You may want to keep a separate account for these summaries, e.g. on your computer. This way, you can reflect openly about what you have observed without being afraid of others reading it.

To help you debrief, we use and recommend a method coming from systems oriented design - the “ZIP- analysis”:

Z = Zoom. Used to identify areas or points where you need to do more research.

I = Innovation/intervention. Used to identify ideas or solutions to a problem.

P = Potential. Used to identify areas with potential for improvement.

A good follow-up is to sketch or refine design ideas, so that you can present them to your informants. After long hours of observing, debriefing may be tough, but it is very important to do it while the observations are fresh. Remember: You cannot rely on your memory!

Conclude your debrief with an update of your upcoming observation sessions. Try to stick to your field study plan as much as possible, but do not miss out on new opportunities that you present themselves while you are on the field. Remember to make room for spending time with your informants without your observation gear, and without any specific goal to reach.

After long hours of observing, debriefing may be tough, but it is very important to do it while the observations are fresh. What you have seen must be interpreted in relation to your situated design work, so debriefing is the most important process to make the most of the field study.

Work as a team

Assuming that you are not working on your own on the field, you can split the workload with your team. You can split according to your area of expertise or interest. You can also split in terms of cognitive workload. For instance when working with interviews, one team member can be responsible of introducing the field study, and taking the lead in asking questions. Another one can focus on taking notes, and a third one on taking photos. It is always easier and more comfortable for your informant to relate to only one person, instead of a whole team.

Remember to swap roles along the way to make sure to expose yourself to new locations and domains of competence, as well as training your whole set of skills.

Metadata

In your hand-written notes, make sure to always record the timestamps of your observations, as well as the location and context of your observations. This metadata will help you connect your notes with your photos and videos by comparing the timestamps, and possibly the geolocation.

We also recommend to write down as much details as you can, even the most trivial and obvious things. When you go through your notes after your observation session, all these details will help you remember the context, and replace your ideas in their context of observation.

Data structuring

We use a simple data structure that helps us navigate through different field studies and their content. Basically, a field study is a collection of observation sessions, and each session is made of data. Usually there is idle time or a change of scene between the sessions, but exactly what constitutes a session is up to you to decide. The idea is that each session has a well-defined duration and purpose.

The reason for structuring a field study into observation sessions is to facilitate the post-processing of the field data, and to be able to track the evolution of data from “fresh insights” to “solid conclusions”. At first the data is unstructured and consists of hand-written notes, many photos, some videos, ideas described with a few words or quickly hand-drawn sketches, notes from discussions with informants and colleagues. Interpretation and analysis lead to structured data which consists of observations (short text, 1–2 sentences), reflections (short text, 1–2 sentences), selection of photos and videos that illustrate observation and reflections. We see each one of these is a data point. In the post-field study phase, coding and tagging each data points will help highlighting the content of the data and its relevance to the design process, for example design requirement, problem, concept.

Signing off

You need to conclude your field study by signing off properly. This consists of agreeing with your contact point and your informants on how they need and want to be informed about how your project evolves. This is important if you plan on involving them further down in your project, for example by inviting some of them to a collaborative data analysis workshop. Make sure to record their contact information. You may also consider offering your contact point and the host organisation a report of the field study.

Further reading

We recommend published work by Lurås and Nordby:

And by Gernez and Nordby:

For more information about ZIP analysis, we recommend the resources from https://www.systemsorienteddesign.net

Credits

This chapter was written with contributions from Sigrun Lurås, Kjetil Nordby and Etienne Gernez.