Bachler Birgit – Design & Research Lesson
This week, I had a lesson about what it means to do research for my master thesis. We talked about new knowledge for our research, problem-solving, and something called “ontology”, questions about what is real. To be honest, it was not easy. I learned that there are different ways to see reality in research: positivist, interpretivist and a combination named pragmatist.
The positivist believes that true facts exist, like numbers and statistics. For example “how many minutes does it take to charge a car?” or “how many users get an error on a charging app?” These are real facts, they do not change if you ask different people.
The interpretivist thinks that reality is different for each person. It is about their feelings, stories, and culture. So, if someone says, “i hate waiting at this place this place is scary at night” that is also a real experience even if another person feels fine in the same place.
Pragmatists, we learned from Mrs. Bachler, try to use the best tool for the job. They take a bit of numbers/facts and a bit of stories/feelings of users to get the best answer. I like this idea, but if I am honest, I think it is easy to use this as an excuse to never choose a clear way or goal for my research. I need to be careful, because “doing a little of everything” often means doing nothing well.
For my master thesis, about the user experience of electric vehicle charging, this is a real problem. What am I really trying to find out? Do I want to know the hard numbers (like what percent of people fail to start charging, or if I want to learn what the experience feels like, like, why some people feel anxious or annoyed when using a charger. If I just do a survey online and some interviews, is this really enough? Am I just following the easy path?
If I want my research to matter, I need a purpose. Should I track what happens in real time at a charging station with observations and video? Should I build a prototype for a new app and test it with users to see actual mistakes and pain points? Should I dive deep and follow drivers for a day to understand their journey? Only then can I give something new to my field.
I notice now: if I am not clear with my method, I will waste a lot of time collecting weak data. I need to ask if my research question strong enough for both methods or am I just being lazy? Do I really have access to enough drivers or good locations, or am I lying to myself?
For next steps, I will read “Observing the User Experience” (Goodman et al., 2012) which I borrowed from Mr Baumann, to see which qualitative methods really show user pain and mistakes. I must choose honest, difficult methods, not only the easy ones. In the next blog I will probaply reflect if I have the courage to do research that is uncomfortable, but new.
References:
Goodman, Elizabeth, Mike Kuniavsky, and Andrea Moed. Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research. 2nd ed. Waltham, MA: Morgan Kaufmann, 2012.
Knowledge from Birgit Bachlers Lesson with many notes
Disclaimer: AI was used to help brainstorm and structure this post.
