Qualitative Data Analysis – exercise

In class, we’re going to practice doing some analysis of your interview data — from your assignment and/or your project.  You’ll work with people who did interviews related to yours, so most likely people in your project group.  If your interviews have nothing to do with anyone else’s interviews, bring the following anyway.

1. Bring transcriptions or detailed notes, if you have them.

2. Spend some time reviewing your interview notes (and your memory) and list major topics or themes.  These can be at varying levels of specificity, but, as with the observation exercise, be careful of getting too general, too far from your data.  Go for as long a list as makes sense, given your data.

3. Write these topic areas on large post-its  (3×3 is good) or index cards or pieces of paper cut to 3×3 or 3×5 and bring to class.

Card Sorting

Updated 10/15/10

Not a fancy method but used a lot — some say that the post-it is the primary tool of UX research.

Kuniavsky p. 192-201

Mostly a list of tools from Tom Tullis

Card Sorting from Usability Body of Knowledge: good overview, extensive references

Affinity Diagramming – short and simple