Research Methods in Human-Computer Interaction

by Jonathan Lazar, Jinjuan Heidi Feng, Harry Hochheiser

Research Methods in Human-Computer Interaction is a comprehensive guide to performing research and is essential reading for both quantitative and qualitative methods. Since the first edition was published in 2009, the book has been adopted for use at leading universities around the world, including Harvard University, Carnegie-Mellon University, the University of Washington, the University of Toronto, HiOA (Norway), KTH (Sweden), Tel Aviv University (Israel), and many others. Chapters cover a broad range of topics relevant to the collection and analysis of HCI data, going beyond experimental design and surveys, to cover ethnography, diaries, physiological measurements, case studies, crowdsourcing, and other essential elements in the well-informed HCI researcher's toolkit. Continual technological evolution has led to an explosion of new techniques and a need for this updated 2nd edition, to reflect the most recent research in the field and newer trends in research methodology.

This Research Methods in HCI revision contains updates throughout, including more detail on statistical tests, coding qualitative data, and data collection via mobile devices and sensors. Other new material covers performing research with children, older adults, and people with cognitive impairments.

Comprehensive and updated guide to the latest research methodologies and approaches, and now available in EPUB3 format (choose any of the ePub or Mobi formats after purchase of the eBook) Expanded discussions of online datasets, crowdsourcing, statistical tests, coding qualitative data, laws and regulations relating to the use of human participants, and data collection via mobile devices and sensors New material on performing research with children, older adults, and people with cognitive impairments, two new case studies from Google and Yahoo!, and techniques for expanding the influence of your research to reach non-researcher audiences, including software developers and policymakers

Genres: Science, Design, Research, Nonfiction

536 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 2, 2009

Reviews

[Chris Branch · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although the coverage of the material seemed adequate, the style was less polished than I'd expect. The writing seemed uneven to me - in fact, I could be wrong, but I got the impression of different sections having been written by different authors. Subjects were not always presented clearly and some sections were wordy and repetitive. I also thought there was excessive reliance on tables of data without sufficient explanation of that data. Most importantly, the book didn't make me excited about the subject matter. And as someone who's clearly interested in HCI, since I'm taking masters level courses in the subject, I should be an example of the easiest target audience to excite.

I've been out of academics for a while so haven't read many textbooks recently, but I have read a substantial amount of non-fiction, especially science writing for the general public (Steven Pinker, Brian Greene, Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, etc.) Sure, those guys are big name writers, but I think it's fair to judge this book in comparison with theirs, especially given that textbook prices far exceed the prices of those types of books. Bottom line: this book doesn't measure up. I'd recommend that any prospective textbook authors read some popular books by any of those writers mentioned or others like them to see the standard that textbooks should be aiming for as far as being clear, informative, and engaging.

[Sunu Wibirama · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have chance to buy the paperback version, you will find this book useful to understand research papers and to design good research in human-computer interaction (HCI). You maybe need more practical statistical book, but this book is self-contained in explaining each research method (e.g. interview, diary, controlled experiment, etc.) as well as choosing appropriate statistical analysis. In the first chapter, the authors explained about a brief history of HCI, shifting of research topics in HCI, and multi-disciplinary background of HCI research. This book also explains how to design an informed consent, how to take care participants with disability for experiment, and how to get insight of data taken from eye tracking and ECG. Overall, I recommend this book for researchers working in HCI field.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid introduction to user research. Written at a low-ish reading level, so it's a quick way to get the high-level overview of the subject. My only complaint is that the authors' clear skill for clear explanations seemed to fail them when it came to the chapter on statistical analysis -- but there are plenty of better resources for that, if you really need the info.