T3 Effective field studies for gathering user needs and requirements

The tutorial gives an introduction how to carry out successful user studies in the field so that they bring maximum benefits for the development team. The focus is particularly on how to make those studies effective with restricted resources and schedules and how to utilize the results.

Tutorial outline

Tutorial consists of lectures and group discussions. The attendees will learn how to perform simple field studies based on ethnographic interviews and observations, and analyze the results. In addition, an example is given to show how the results can be transformed to user requirements and made usable for technical developers. The tutorial lecture shares practical experiences from field studies implemented for projects of different sizes, and for products with existing user base as well as for totally new concepts:

• Introduction to field studies – Goals, benefits and principles
• Identifying and selecting users for field studies
• Visiting users
• Analyzing field study results – Transforming to user requirements
• Hints and examples of effective field studies

Organizers

Sari Kujala is a professor of psychology in the Institute of Human-Centered Technology, Tampere University of Technology, Finland.

Her background is in psychology and cognitive science. In addition, she has received Ph.D. in human-computer interaction. Her research work has focused on field studies, user involvement and requirements elicitation for the last ten years. She has practical experience of performing field studies with nine different industrial partner companies.
Homepage: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~kujala/

Mia Lähteenmäki is a senior researcher in Nokia Research Center in Finland. Her background is in computer science and she has been working in industry over ten years developing various kinds of information systems and working in all phases of the system development. Last five years she has been working as a researcher in the early phases of the development life cycle practicing user research and related activities for product innovation, concept development, prototype evaluation and technology studies.