Seminarium 1 - Viktor Gustafsson

Initial thoughts

When I first started reading chapter 7 I felt a bit distressed because it seemed like the book was stating each obvious method after another. But then I realised that even though the techniques being brought up was quite intuitive, it felt good to know that this actually is the professional way to do it. 

Data analysis

I really enjoyed reading about the different ways of analysing different sets of data since I have never really thought about treating data in such a digital way. It got me thinking about how powerful this more scientific approach to interaction design could be. Also, I knew since before that analysing qualitative data is a really complex task but I didn’t know that there was so many different methods and models that one could use to help with this. However, I still believe that one should be very careful with stating conclusions from this type of data without having enough quantitative data to back it up. 

The cartoon

The cartoon in chapter 10 describes how very wrong a project can turn out if you haven't clarified a projects requirements. I think it illustrates a “spot on” common problem in many types of organisations where there might be insufficient communication between different departments responsible for developing a new service or product. I think that this might be a key role for media technology student like ourselves to fill in a missing gap in organisations. - Making sure that the message (e.g requirements) is clearly delivered to each and everyone in larger organisations or projects. 

I hope that we will have enough time for our project to really practice data gathering, analysing it and then try to solve a problem/develop a new feature for public transportation from as finely tuned requirements as possible. If it turns out as the cartoon it would be a disaster.

Questions

I am curious about what typ of situations in the industry these methods are used? And how often are they used? Are they commonly used at big companies or is this a fairly unused approach for developing products?