Slow Change Context Research

1. SLOW CHANGE CONTEXT
RESEARCH
SLOW CHANGE INTERACTION DESIGN (SCID)
Submitted by
Denique Ferguson
Anusha Radhakrishnan
Sourjya Sinha Roy

2. SLOW CHANGE CONTEXT RESEARCH
WHAT IT DOES
• A research method to help designers identify the context in which
SCID is to be used.
• This research method is to help designers identify culture, beliefs,
attitudes, knowledge and practices within the target user group.
• This method helps identify how the context changes over time for an
individual or group.
• The ultimate goal is to be able to identify realistic goals within the
context.
• This is a proposal. The details have not been fleshed out
deliberately due to time constraint. The details are open ended to
allow for further discussion and tweaking. The examples we provide
gives you an overview of what can be gained from such a method.
WHAT IT DOES NOT
• This is not a complete design process. It only addresses a part of the
research phase.
• It is not a new research method. It appropriates workshops and
journaling to get a holistic understanding of the context.
• This method does not tell designers how to solve these issues.
• It does not suggest realistic goals. It points out issues and
considerations that may make a goal unattainable.
CONSTRAINTS
We used an example scenario to help us contextualize the method. We
envision that the method can be re-appropriated for other long-term
change scenarios (drug abuse, alcoholism, etc). However, we also
recognize the special sensitivity and subject knowledge that is required
to be able to design for those scenarios.
Example scenario: We are creating a new device for nurses to help
them achieve their weight loss goals. The proposed method is for the
research phase of the project, where we want to identify realistic goals for
weight loss, and how those goals change over time.
A method to help the researcher understand the context in which SCID will be used
BENEFITS
• Reveals goals, bright spots and
opportunities over time.
• Flexible and adaptable process.
INPUT
• Knowledge, Attitudes,
Practices and Beliefs
• Environments
• Routines
WHEN TO USEOUTPUT
• Realistic goals for various
stages of change effort.

3. HOW IT WORKS
In this section we give you a step by step overview for what the research
method can look like. At this point, we are not going into the details of
each step. Some of them for the time being are out of scope; some will
be discussed later.
• Recruiting Participants: Define the criteria to select the target
audience to be selected as participants in the research study. Our
assumption is that these are people that are either trying or have tried
to lose weight.
• Time: We envision this research to take place for a few months. This is
specifically needed to be able to capture different attitudes and
practices during different phases of their slow change. During this
phase however, researchers can try design interventions based on
existing knowledge. We are not discussing that in this document,
although that is a possibility.
• Journaling: We want to be able to capture a participants context. This
requires the participants to make journal entries of different types.
1. Environment. This could be photo or video. Example, pictures
of pantry, fridge etc. Special consideration needs to be taken
on what the user is willing to show and what the user is not
showing. (future consideration)
2. Routine. This can be audio, blogs, calanders etc. This is to
identify their lifestyle. Where they go, what they do. How much
work they do etc. (future consideration)
3. KAPB: Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices and Beliefs. This is to
identify what a user knows, what they believe they can
achieve, what their practices are. (future consideration)
• Workshops: The designers help the participants create journey maps
to qualify their journals to understand what goals are realistic. These
journey maps will be in the KAPB format as mentioned above. (Our
focus)
• Analysis: Since the data is emergent, we will not impose any analysis
technique at this time.
A method to help the researcher understand the context in which SCID will be used
SLOW CHANGE CONTEXT RESEARCH

4. RATIONALE
Technology should be a support, but not a crutch to slow change, where
it becomes a trigger so compelling people are reliant on it to maintain
new/newly developing habits. Because of this, we believe our methods
should be participatory, looking at the knowledge, practices, attitudes
and beliefs (KAPB) of a person with agency in the change process. We
also want to identify what bright spots might look like, and how (and if)
they are perceived by participants. What people gain (new features in
their lives), what is stopping them (restraints), what people lose (what’s
no longer a part of their lives), and how these are perceived can help
understand the how the cost/benefit of the change effort evolves over
time. Understanding the KAPB, cost/benefit and the bright spots can
help us understand how goal setting (shrinking the change) may best be
done over time and across various needs.
FUTURE STRATEGIES
In the following section we discuss what is missing from our method and
how we would like to proceed next. Given that our method proposal was
created in a short time, we have generated golden questions and tried to
answer a few of them. We believe these are questions that need to be
answered in order to proceed.
A method to help the researcher understand the context in which SCID will be used
SLOW CHANGE CONTEXT RESEARCH

5. GOLDEN QUESTIONS
1. What is the nature of the participant journaling?*
2. When you say they'd be logging their daily lives, do you mean they'd
be logging every aspect of them? Or would they just be going after
certain details? If so, which details? And why those details instead of
others?*
We want to be able to understand the context as well as possible.
For example, someone may not be able to give up junk foods not
because they are purchasing junk foods, but because they go to
parties 5 days a week (where they eat said junk food). For them, a
starting goal may be to go out 4 days instead. Without this
recognition, it may be hard to create realistic goals.
3. Would you be asking them to identify competitors to change
throughout the journaling activity? Or would the design team
participate in this stage, too?*
We expect the designers to participate in the journey mapping to
help the participant dig deeper. For example, a participant's goal
may be to lose 50 pounds. The designer can help the participant
qualify that idea into actionable, concrete goals such as : I want to
hike a 1 mile hill, I want to play hide and seek with my nephew, I
want to go rock climbing with my daughter etc.
4. Can we research slow change rapidly?
5. How much is too much? Can we over “understand” a change effort?
Sometimes the biggest innovations happen while trying things you
don’t know are “wrong”.
6. How can we get rich journaling without overwhelming the
participants? Which details are important to capture? How do we
know we’re not accidentally excluding things that we should be
paying attention to?
7. Can we capture the observations/data from this method in a way that
is true to the nature of the “problem”? Can the templates/steps we
create accidentally introduce/reinforce assumptions where it should
capture information that challenges them?
8. What level of participation is appropriate? Will this research involve
concepting and research through design, or prototyping and
feedback?
9. Does the research process take into account the dynamic nature of
the research goal?
10.How often is the research goal modified/altered based on findings?
11.Will presumptions like “shrinking the change” work all the time? Are
there some groups of people who respond, instead, to “adverse”
change conditions? How do we capture that?
12.Should the designers/researchers be solely responsible for
interpreting what the competitors to the change effort are? Or should
the participants also be asked to identify these as well?
*These questions courtesy of Jordan Beck
A method to help the researcher understand the context in which SCID will be used
SLOW CHANGE CONTEXT RESEARCH