My comments on other posts

Theme 1:

On Mattias Öster.

As you mention in question 4, many coherent opinions have a greater possibility of being true than a single opinion. I believe that we have to be careful in believing this. Especially for us studying media. In today's media (papers, tv, internet, etc) information spreads very fast and we have to be careful with what we believe and be critical of sources. Especially on Internet, false information can spread fast and be shared by a lot of people not knowing were the information came from. I believe that we have to be sure that information comes from credible source before we think that many coherent opinions form a possible truth.

On Simon Roth.

Visualizing energy consumption is a popular subject at the moment, with more and more global issues regarding our use of fossil fuels. You mention that the authors selected specific data from what they collected. I think that it is important to at least, in some way, show or describe what type of data that they left out in the paper, to make it clear that they are not biased in any sense. As you mention, it's not possible to show all the data, but if they only show some data, you might wonder what they left out and how that data would have affected the discussion and conclusions.

On Tien Tien.

You write “Finally, when facing different theories people should not deny them totally but find the correct part”. I believe this is a good way to think and a way that encourage diverse or similar interpretations instead of denying them. Depending on the field of study (philosophy, science, etc) you have different beliefs and views, but many of these are related and cohere, as Russell mentions, and could benefit from understanding on another.

On Terese Nothnagel.

You refer to Russell and write “the greater part of what would commonly pass as knowledge is more or less probable opinion”. What we really say we know is instead just things that "should" be true or that we almost certainly believe is true. I believe it is interesting that we generally then, according to Russell, use the word knowledge in a different way than we should. It would be good to know if these "definitions" of knowledge were made up before or after we started using the word like we do, and have done, in modern times.

Theme 2:

On Mattias Öster.

I agree with that design & action theory is a good way to get a fundamental understanding of the theory. Gregor mentions that it is hard to say that some types of theory is better than others, but I would say that explanation & prediction and design & action is much more descriptive, and therefore better, than analysis and explanation. That is at least my understanding of it. Those two touches more information and description about the theory and presents where it has come from and how it is conducted.

On Simon Roth.

Like you mention in question 3 it may be difficult to know how much to rely on theory and how much on results or your own ideas. I think you cannot be too close minded and only follow the theory. You have to take theory, research results, etc. into account when drawing conclusions and deciding what is the best solution. The best thing would be to find connections between the theory and your results and to find solutions based on that.

On Niklas Fyrvald.

I would believe that explanation & prediction theory is always better and more descriptive than just explanation theory. Like you mention, the explanation theory in your paper might have missed some predictions in the form of hypotheses. I would, in most cases, encourage hypotheses as it is easier to get a concrete understanding of what the theory says and what to expect. Explanation & prediction theory is, according to me, always to prefer before explanation or prediction it separately, unless there is a limitation of the length of the text.

On Victor Bleichner.

Gregor mentions in his text that theory should be general, at least in some way. In your paper, it seems like they might have been too general and not concrete enough to draw conclusions regarding online communities. I believe this is something to have in mind; that you use the theory to strengthen your research and as a foundation to it, not as the main part of the research. It should go hand in hand with the other parts of the paper. In your text it seems to have dominated, leaving little room for the more concrete research to come forward.

Theme 3:

On Mattias Öster.

I feel the same way as you do about the paper not being as abstract as expected. I was surprised that the authors used such a quantitative method and analysis. Since the data they collected is very abstract and subjective, I believe it is better to use a more qualitative research. It is hard to classify and categorize qualitative data the way they do in the paper, and I felt the paper got very confusing and complicated by using such unexpected quantitative method and analysis.

On Simon Roth.

I felt like you did regarding the analysis. I did not really understand it, even though I read it a couple of times. And it also seemed that they drew very simple conclusions from the analysis, by just saying that they were right and emotion exist in online learning. I would have liked to have more discussion, but I think it might be hard because of that it is hard to do quantitative analysis with qualitative data (like I believe they did in the paper).

On Victor Bleichner.

I think the open-ended questions should be seen more as qualitative data, and that is what, in my opinion, makes this paper so hard to grasp. I have not previously heard about factor analysis, and do not know how it works and if it is relevant in this case, but I think they should be clearer explaining that. It might be a good tool for analysis, but in this paper, it did not, in my opinion, seem to fit the research and the analysis of the qualitative data.

On Terese Nothnagel.

I think that mixed research is used quite a lot today. That is at least the feeling I get after having taken some HCI courses, where it is frequently mentioned that both quantitative and qualitative methods should be used. Regardless of the field of study, mixed research should help gather more data and widen conclusion, because of a more complete study. It might be hard to know how many different quantitative or qualitative methods or analysis you need, but I think that is something that could be different from time to time depending on the research subject and time limits. Some researches, like the one we read about emotions in online learning, I believe is more suited for a mixed research leaning more towards a qualitative one. That is because of that emotions are very subjective and hard to generalize and, in my opinion, fits better for qualitative analysis.

Theme 4:

On Mattias Öster.

I think your question is interesting. I would say that you should combine the most complementary methods for your research, but I am not sure if these are different depending on the field of study. For example, a survey that collects hundreds of answers might be best complemented with deep qualitative individual interview to get more detailed data. But a survey with smaller sample size might be better paired with a focus group discussion to get some more people to gather data from, compared to individual interviews.

On Victor Bleichner.

One positive side of using qualitative methods is that it might be easier, due to a smaller sampling size, to conduct the test in a natural environment, which could be important. I also believe that it is simpler to use qualitative methods in the beginning of a project, since you don't often test on a lot of people in the beginning. Then it might be smarter to do what they did in your paper, by using a smaller amount and gather data thoroughly from them. I also have a question: was it the diaries that were the qualitative data or where was the qualitative data mostly gathered from?

On Simon Roth.

In my paper, homogeneous focus groups were used. I believe it is hard to know if these should be used or not. On the one hand, if you do homogeneous group, everybody will be able to speak and relate to the discussion. But on the other hand, you probably will not get as many disagreements and argument, which I think might be valuable and reflect the real situation. There are pros and cons regarding using homogeneous groups and I think that the best solution is just to think about what fits the focus group, and the field of study, the best and then make a decision.

On Niklas Fyrvald.

I believe that the paper by Fernaeus is supposed to be more of a design research for the next week in the course. I also had a hard time to grasp what type of research it was, as it seemed like they only presented this field of study and how to design it. It seems like a lot of students have chosen papers with the focus group as the main method. And these focus groups have been focus group discussion. From previous courses I have learned that focus groups can be used for testing models etc. and not only for discussion. But discussion seems to be the most popular and most used way to conduct focus group, because I can't remember when i saw them i a paper being used for testing prototypes or other things than group discussions.

Theme 5:

On Mattias Öster.

I believe that it could be hard to know when and how to take the step to create a prototype. To create a prototype i think that you have to be certain that the idea you have is the right one. If you prematurely create prototypes it might lead to a loss of time and money, if it turns out that the specific prototype wasn't the way to go. But I totally agree that prototypes are beneficial, but you have to do a lot of thinking before deciding to move forward with prototypes.

On Victor Bleichner.

Like you mention, it could be hard to know how much to work on a prototype before evaluating it. I believe that you can do different prototypes during the design process. In the beginning the prototype should be simpler and focus on the "big" things, while later in the process the prototype should be more complicated and focus more on details and fine adjustments. It can also depend on what type of research you are doing. Sometimes it might be enough to do a single and final prototype to evaluate. Other times you might need many prototypes at different stages or just a basic one in the beginning of a design process.

On Simon Roth.

You mention that users should be involved in some way when making evaluations. This is often recommended and an alternative could be doing expert evaluations, but the users are the target group and the ones you aim your product at. By doing prototypes it is much easier to make evaluations of a product, since the users have something to experience and comments about. This information is a lot harder to get without creating a prototype, since the users don't have the same knowledge and can't evaluate concepts, theory and ideas as easy as evaluating a prototype.

On Niklas Fyrvald.

Collaborative design is interesting. Like Simon mentioned, collaborative design is often used in some way or another during a design research. But in the case of this museum you might need people with knowledge in many different areas, like historians, HCI-researchers, computer scientists etc. This is important in most design processes, but can depend on the area and the product that is being created. But unlike what seems to be the case in the text, I don't think that the different designers should create individual design. They should instead work together and during the design discuss and work on a design and a prototype together throughout every stage in the design.