Picture source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/erwyn/3796948587/sizes/l/
This is a 4 part series. Check out the other entires below:
1. Setting Up the Plan
2. Lessons from the Field
3. Organizing and Analyzing Data
4. Communicating Your Results
[tweetmeme]Any time you communicate your findings, you have to think about your audience and your message. International field research is the same. However, one challenge I’ve experienced is that it can be hard for the audience to understand a foreign environment and this can affect their understanding of the findings. As a result, I spend a lot of time setting context so my audience feels connected to the environment and therefore feels more connected to the insights. Here’s an example from one of my past projects.
Example: Chinese gamers
I was on a project where we were investigating Chinese gamers who game in internet cafes. We had a lot of quantitative data around things like average amount of time spent in the cafes, average money spent, age, gender, etc. These data points were powerful in that they communicated the scale of gaming and the opportunity potential- this was my primary message. We also had deep qualitative data from ethnographies with select gamers.
I knew my audience weren’t heavy gamers and predicted that they would have a hard time understanding the motivation of intense and collaborative gaming. This would hinder their ability to internalize my main message.
I decided to first set the context of internet cafes. I used photos of interiors and exteriors to give a sense of being there and quantitative data to reveal the prevalence of these cafes. I walked through, with photos and narration, the experience of walking into the café, getting a computer, paying, sitting down, etc. Then I introduced 3 main ‘characters’ or participants which I used throughout the rest of the presentation, especially when I wanted to connect opportunities to insights. I told a story about these participants by showing pictures, video, and audio clips about their homes, friends, when they started gaming, their favorite games, why they do it, etc.
I focused on data that would augment the quantitative data later on. For example, one point was that X percentage of gamers go to the internet café even though they have a pc at home because they want to hang out with their friends. I included video of the gamers talking about the feeling they have when they go to the café: the familiarity of everyone knowing who you are and the pride experienced when everyone knows you took the high score last night.
Setting the context and introducing the participants took up about 40% of my presentation, but it was well worth it. The audience felt connected to these participants, and through pictures and voice, understood the importance of gaming in their lives. They were memorable people, which meant the key message was also memorable, as they were always tied to these participants.
It’s such a privilege to be allowed into someone’s life to do research. So much is learned and a connection is formed. International field research is really hard work, but so gratifying when you can tell someone’s story thousands of miles away and be their voice. Even more gratifying is the impact of this research. The opportunities founded by the insights. The design inspired by your participants’ lives. The emotion evoked from this design.
I hope this series of posts have proved useful, will help your quest to tell someone’s story and inspire design in the near future!