Case Studies: Meetings

Friday, February 14, 2003, Torgersen 3180 (1:30-3:25 pm)

• Next Meeting: Friday, February 21, Torgersen 3180 (1:30 pm)
  • Following Meeting: Friday, March 14, Torgersen 3180 (1:30 pm)
• Attendees: Mary Beth, Jack, Con, Beth, Jonathan
• A Theory of Case Studies
  • We discussed various aspects of case studies as we knew them. While there is a lot of literature describing case studies in use, we have not as yet found a lot of cognitive theory that applies.
  • Characteristics of case studies:
    • Case studies extend in time as a story or narrative
    • They concern practices in addition to objects
    • They embody tradeoffs, decisions, conflicts, etc.
  • Case studies differ across some dimensions
    • For example, case studies of design efforts are not exactly like case studies of workers and their tools
  • We should look at other cases to see how they organize and use the case material
    • Is a case used only once or does the pedagogy return to the case several times during a course
    • What is the case used for? To teach skills, concepts, or to provoke discussions?
    • Add an examples page to the web site to collect the variety of case studies [Action: Con, Completed]
  • It seems dangerous to make general claims about case studies without some parameters that define the context of use
  • Motivation for case based instruction:
    • Examples provided in the casess allow for less hand holding on part of the instructor.
    • Cases improve motivations. Students appreciate the reality of the cases and the applicability of what they are learning.
  • Some terminology will need precise rather than off-the-street definition:
    • case study
    • case
    • example
    • realistic
    • narrative
• Case Study Contributors
  • Our collection of usability engineering cases is not robust
    • We need to get some more cases
  • John
    • Doug Bowman knows of a VR project dealing with snake phobias that is using scenarios in its design
    • Doug Bowman recommends we contact the company Virtually Better
    • Tapped In is very rough. Jonathan thinks we should be able to get a lot of Tapped In material online. Jack mentioned the principles in that effort used the usability engineering model from the textbook. There likely is more information available by contacting them.
  • Jack
    • No response from Larry Hodges. Is he at Virtually Better? John to check on this angle.
  • Mary Beth
    • No reply from Wolfgang Prinz
  • Con
    • Had several e-mail exchanges with Niel Maiden. Much of the work for Eurocontrol was done under some sort of non-disclosure. Niel will check into some possiblities.
  • All of us will continue to explore these contacts.
  • Discussed the merits/problems with forcing completeness for each case in the library
    • Students need complete cases
    • Past process has been to fabricate content if the taxonomy had holes
    • Some advanced cases would be more realistic if we did not artificially add material
• Workshop
  • Participants
    • Add Judy Olsen at U Mich to the list of invitees
    • Con drafted a contact letter. Mary Beth to review.
    • Don't forget local people.
    • Con still working on server logs to see who is using the site.
  • Content
    • Need to define
  • Timing
    • Jack and Mary Beth are to merge their May/June schedules to offer up some possible dates
• CS 3724 Surveys
  • Wrote two self efficacy questions for homework #5. Need to add to survey and send link to Jack. [Action: Con, Completed]
    1. Even though I only studied interaction design issues for Garden.com, I could analyze tradeoffs for other interaction designs.
    2. I could evaluate how tradeoffs were resolved in an interaction design even when the design documentation did not discuss each tradeoff in detail.
  • Con to merge results of three homework surveys for presentation at a future meeting. [Action: Con, See 2003.03.14]