Into the Wild:
Challenges and Opportunities for Field Trial Methods
Through reading this article on examining Field Trial methods, I came across a few helpful insights as I plan out my own field test. The article highlighted the importance of field testing – “the field trial located ‘in the wild’ has emerged to address both diverse settings of use as well as interest in the ‘unanticipated use of systems ’.”
It also identified three areas to take into consideration when testing “in the wild”. They were Demand Characteristics, Lead Participants and Methods & Results.
The two which I found of most interest with regard to my project were Demand Characteristics and Lead Participants.
Demand Characteristics meant that the participants had felt they were expected to give certain views, or used the application more than they would in real life, just so the investigators “get data”. This led to questions about how much information the participants should be given about the purpose of the test/trial minimal information is recommended however than the risk is run that participants will try to figure out the data they are supposed to be generating.
Lead Participants meant that particular social relations within a group of participants altered the results of the test, as there was a mentality that data needed to be generated, a lead participant within the group took on the role of encouraging the others to use the application. However a positive conclusion was drawn from this discovery, the idea that this lead participant could potentially be one of the investigators, so the role would be more established and that as they encouraged the group to use the system they themselves would be looking for results, perhaps this would them allow for more results on the use of the application outside of the intended use?
Indago 