skip to main content
10.1145/1952222.1952266acmotherconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesozchiConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Using diaries for evaluating interactive products: the relevance of form and context

Published:22 November 2010Publication History

ABSTRACT

In this paper we discuss two studies, in which we used incident diaries to evaluate different aspects of a web-based tool and a wearable display. For the web-based tool we used a diary in form of a table distributed in digital form, which resulted in a very low number of responses. Results from follow-up interviews revealed that one of the reasons for this low response rate was a mismatch between diary form and study context. For the wearable display we designed booklets, which featured predefined sections and questions as well as space for open comments. Although previous research has identified disadvantages of paper-based diaries, this method proved to be valuable for collecting feedback in a mobile context. Based on our experiences and the results from the studies, we provide a qualitative discussion of design issues for diaries used in mobile and desktop-based contexts.

References

  1. Adler, A., Gujar, A., Harrison, B.L., O'Hara, K and Sellen, A. A diary study of work-related reading: design implications for digital reading devices. In Proc. CHI '98, ACM Press (1998), 241--248 Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  2. Baxter, I. and Oatley, K. Measuring the learnability of spreadsheets in inexperienced users and those with previous spreadsheet experience. In Behaviour & Information Technology, 10, 6 (1991), 475--490.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  3. Beilharz, K., Vande Moere, A., Stiel, B., Calvo, C., Tomitsch, M. and Lombard, A. Expressive Wearable Sonification and Visualisation: Design and Evaluation of a Flexible Display. In Proc. NIME 2010, 323--326.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  4. Carter, S. and Mankoff, J. When participants do the capturing: the role of media in diary Studies. In Proc. CHI '05, ACM Press (2005), 899--908. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  5. Czerwinski, M., Horvitz, E. and Wilhite, S. A diary study of task switching and interruptions. In Proc. CHI '04, ACM Press (2004), 175--182. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  6. Rieman, J. The diary study: A workplace-oriented research tool to guide laboratory efforts. In Proc. INTERACT and CHI '93, ACM Press (1993), 321--326. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  7. Lichtner, V., Kounkou, A. P., Dotan, A., Kooken, J. P. and Maiden, N. M. A. An online forum as a user diary for remote workplace evaluation of a work-integrated learning system. In Proc. CHI '09, ACM Press (2009), 2955--2970. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  8. Palen, L. and Salzman, M. Voice-mail diary studies for naturalistic data capture under mobile conditions. In Proc. CSCW '02, ACM Press (2002), 87--95. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  9. Schacter, D. L. The seven sins of memory: Insights from psychology and cognitive neuroscience. American Psychology, 54 (1999), 182--203.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  10. Sellen, A. and Harper, R. Paper as an analytic Resource for the design of new technologies. In Proc. CHI '97, ACM Press (1997), 319--326. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  11. Sohn, T., Li, K. A., Griswold, W. G. and Hollan, J. D. A diary study of mobile information needs. In Proc. CHI '08, ACM Press (2008), 433--442. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library

Index Terms

  1. Using diaries for evaluating interactive products: the relevance of form and context

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Login options

    Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

    Sign in
    • Published in

      cover image ACM Other conferences
      OZCHI '10: Proceedings of the 22nd Conference of the Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group of Australia on Computer-Human Interaction
      November 2010
      462 pages
      ISBN:9781450305020
      DOI:10.1145/1952222

      Copyright © 2010 ACM

      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

      Publisher

      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      • Published: 22 November 2010

      Permissions

      Request permissions about this article.

      Request Permissions

      Check for updates

      Qualifiers

      • research-article

      Acceptance Rates

      Overall Acceptance Rate362of729submissions,50%

    PDF Format

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader