Data

Setting goals

Why are we gathering data?

• Conduct two rounds of user research
  • First: goal will be to understand a problem space and to determine what issues your users are facing
  • Second: evaluating how well the new design works or would work to solve the issues discovered earlier

Identifying participants

Who are we gathering data from?

• Everyone to whom your question applies belongs to your population
• Which members of your population will you study?
  • All (saturation sampling)
  • A random subset (random sampling)
  • A random subset in multiple categories (stratified sampling)
  • Whoever you can get your hands on (convenience sampling)

Ethics

Are we doing any harm by gathering data?

• Respect for participants
• Do no harm
• Informed consent
  • Typically only adults 18+ are able to give consent
  • Elements:
    • Disclosure: experimenter explains the purposes of the study and the procedure truthfully
    • Capacity: the participant should be able to understand the study and form a reasonable judgment with the information provided
    • Voluntariness: free of coercion, manipulation, or bias, non-conditional compensation
  • Voluntary participation and right to withdraw
  • Right to privacy

Triangulation

It is the act of employing different techniques to answer the same question. That way, false data can be identified and discarded. If an incentive was provided for answering questions, bad faith actors might pick out random responses in order to complete the process as quickly as possible.

Pilot testing

Trial runs of the main study

• Thoroughly test instruments before deploying the study on actual users
• Participant time is valuable to them, and their data is valuable to you

Sample

Our research has been narrowed down. Initially, it was financial literacy aimed at the entire province of Ontario (due to provincial financial laws, taxation, and debt control). We also did not target a specific group. Now, we will be targeting people aged between 20-25, preferably recent graduates, due to various similarities such as educational level, OSAP versioning, and familiarity with pre-existing technologies. Further, instead of targeting all of Ontario, we will now be looking into the Greater Toronto Area. This is due to the difference in daily expenses in a low population village or town versus a dense city or town with more options and higher expenses.