Hello in this lecture I would like to make an overview of
different ways of capturing data in the course of field study sessions,
discuss the pros and cons and also give a couple of
advices on how to combine these ways to capture data in your practical task.
For a start let's see what you can possibly capture.
Depending on your research goals you can capture different kinds of data.
For example if you are interested in measuring the engagement level
of users of some game you will have to gather psychological data.
If you want to compare task completion times with
some benchmarks or with task completion times of an alternative design,
you may use a stopwatch to measure it.
But take into account that we are talking about
field research where you just don't have equipment to gather
eye-tracking or psychological data opposite to
a lab environments plus the fact that we're talking about formative evaluation,
you will most likely want to capture only these data.
As you know and additional data on participants' behavior
you can gather these subjective responses through the use of questionnaires.
In this lecture I would like to start on tips and
techniques that will help you to capture data in the form of recordings and notes.
Lets start from recording.
It's clear that first of all you're interested in capturing
the screen of a mobile device apps screens participant's visit,
where they tap et cetera.
but also for mobile devices it's just as important to
capture what participants hands and fingers are doing.
How they hold a device,
what are the parts of these screens they cover et cetera.
This information may later,
during the analysis phase,
help you to identify additional causal factors
of problems that you missed during the starter session.
It's also a nice idea to capture
participants' facial expressions but it is a luxury for field studies.
It requires additional effort to set up and for in-person studies it doesn't give
much additional information because during these kinds of
studies you will capture all such behavioral manifestations in your notes.
It's much more convenient to set up study environments so
that you will be able to observe the interaction on the screen of your laptop.
How to do that in fact the topic of the following slides.
Always remember about lighting,
reflections and glares on the device screen,
the difference in the lightness between the screen
and background can present issues for recording.
There are no universal treat for that.
You just need to take into account and allow time for
the fine tuning of your recording equipment before study sessions.
And the last thing from this list,
sometimes it's better not to record anything.
There can be ethical considerations for this.
For example Tania Lang in her article on lessons learned about
mobile usability testing gave an example
of evaluating a quit smoking app for pregnant women.
Because of such a tough topic
recording sessions can potentially affect the behavior of participants.
So it's better not to record video at all. All right.
I see four options that you can use to capture videos of sessions on a mobile device.
The first option is to mount a camera above the space where the device will be used.
On the bright side,
this option allows to capture a participants hands and
finger movements and does not require to install anything on the device.
Moreover the option doesn't impose any restrictions on how participants hold device.
On the dark side,
the view of the screen is unstable plus users
have to keep the device within a certain area all the time.
There are several ways to make these a reality.
The cheapest one is shown to the left,
you can just ask participants to hug your laptop.
It isn't the most comfortable way to hold a device but people get used to it.
The problem of this way is that you have to
look over the participant's shoulder to see what's going on.
The second way is to use a tripod and
dedicated camera as shown on those pictures to the right.
You can use BVAP camera with off the focus for that.
This way is more comfortable for participants and for you because you can observe
the interaction on the screen of your laptop
but it requires you to carry all the equipment.
To capture video from embedded and external cameras you can use
pre-installed quick time on Mac and camera app on Windows.
The use of the second dedicated camera gives you
an opportunity to capture a participant's face too but
to do that you need to buy and install
an additional software like TechSmith's SnagIt or Camtasia.
Another option is to use two video recording software simultaneously.
The second option is to attach a camera to the device itself as the previous one,
this option does not require to install anything on
the device so you can use it to conduct studies employing participants' devices.
In addition to this the option captures the participants' hands and finger movements
and provides a stable view of the screen because the camera moves along with the device.
But of course there are disadvantages.
At the beginning of a test session a participant has to
get used to the device with a mounted camera.
Plus the mount will undoubtedly affect how the participant holds the device.
The screen of the device has a little perspective tilt due to the camera angle.
Also you can not use
super high resolution cameras because they are usually bigger and heavier.
There are a couple of ways to arrange that.
Simply put you can buy a mount or make one on your own.
An example of a ready made mount is Mr. Tappy,
which is shown on this slide to the left.
It can be delivered to you anywhere in the world.
The do-it-yourself approach is limited only your imagination.
Here are several examples on the slide for inspiration.
To capture video this way you can use all software options mentioned all there.
The third option is to mirror the screen of
the mobile device to your laptop screen using specialized software.
This option is comfortable for both a moderator and the participant
plus the quality of screen capture is higher than with two previous options.
But you have to pay for that by the absence of
visibility of the participants hands and finger movements.
The mirroring is possible via wi-fi or a device cord.
The wireless connection especially in the fields is
unstable so I do not recommend to use it while performing your practical task.
Connection via a device cord is stable but works only for sitting participants.
Software for screen mirroring also can present problems
because there is no universal solution that works across platforms.
You need to take into account platforms of your laptop and mobile device.
Some of these options require screen mirroring software to be run on the mobile device.
For instance the screen recording and mirror app for Android.
Other iOS options like Reflector,
LonelyScreen and pre-installed on windows 10 connect app turn your laptop to
Google cast or airplay receiver so you don't need to install anything on the device.
The use of Vysor which is a chrome app
requires to enable the debug mode on Android device.
The use of QuickTime only to press trust on
the alert that appears when it connect an iOS device to unlock.
But still I cannot recommend to use
these cord options for participants' devices because of the privacy issues.
The participant may think that you are trying to install
malicious software on their phones or steal some information.
To sum up, despite the presence of the wide range of screen mirroring
software it makes sense to use these options only for your device.
Connect the device with a laptop by a cord.
There are situations when you cannot use external cameras and a laptop at all.
Recall the example of observations of
shop assistants at the time of their communication with customers.
As such situations it's possible to use
software installed on the device to capture its screen.
The cost of this auction includes the absence of any limitations of how to hold
the device and the highest quality of screen
capture among all options we've discussed earlier.
The major disadvantages of course are that this option
doesn't allow to capture a participant's hands and finger movements.
Plus you have to look over the participant's shoulder to be able to read the study.
As is the previous option this one suffers from the problems with software.
This situation on Android is better.
You can find apps listed on this slide in play store.
They allow to capture the device screen as well as
all participants' actions such as tabs and gestures.
Record external sounds using the microphone of the device and record a video from
a phone camera capturing and visualizing the taps and gestures is a necessary feature.
Because when you watch videos of static sessions in case of
the absence of UI feedback it's not always clear what the participant did.
Apple policies don't allow an app available at
AppStore to capture anything outside these app.
All apps presented on the left except
UX recorder are installed from third party sources and distribution channels.
Another issue that may stop you from using this option is corporate policies.
Some companies do not allow to install apps on corporate devices.
Take this into account. All right.
We are done with video recording.
I have to stop here.
We will continue discussing the topic in
the next part of this lecture. Thank you for watching.