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With fast changing technologies and related human interaction issues, there is an increased need for timely evaluation of systems with distributed users in varying contexts (Pace, 2004). This has led to the increased use of questionnaires, in-depth interviews and focus groups in commercial usability and academic research contexts. Questionnaires are usually paper based or delivered online and consist of a set of questions which all participants are asked to complete. Once the questionnaire has been created, it can be delivered to a large number of participants with little effort. However, a large number of participants also means a large amount of data needing to be coded and analysed. Interviews, on the other hand, are usually conducted on a one-to-one basis. They require a large amount of the investigator’s time during the interviews and also for transcribing and coding the data. Focus groups usually consist of one investigator and a number of participants in any one session. Although the views of any one participant cannot be probed to same degree as in an interview, the discussions that are facilitated within the groups often result in useful data in a shorter space of time than that required by one-to-one interviews. \ud All too often, however, researchers eager to identify usability problems quickly throw together a questionnaire, interview or focus group that, when analysed, produces very little of interest. What is often lacking is an understanding of how the research method design fits with the research questions (Creswell, 2003) and how to appropriately utilise these different approaches for specific HCI needs. The methods described in this chapter can be useful when used alone but are most useful when used together with other methods. Creswell (2003) provides a comprehensive analysis of the different quantitative and qualitative methods and howthey can be mixed and matched for overall better quality research. Depending on what we are investigating, sometimes it is useful to start with a questionnaire and then, for example, follow up some specific points with an experiment, or a series of interviews, in order to fully explore some aspect of the phenomenon under study. \ud This chapter describes how to choose between and design questionnaires, interviews and focus group studies and using two examples illustrates the advantages of combining a number of approaches when conducting HCI research.

Human-Computer Interaction draws on the fields of computer science, psychology, cognitive science, and organisational and social sciences in order to understand how people use and experience interactive technology. Until now, researchers have been forced to return to the individual subjects to learn about research methods and how to adapt them to the particular challenges of HCI. This book provides a single resource through which a range of commonly used research methods in HCI are introduced. Chapters are authored by internationally leading HCI researchers who use examples from their own work to illustrate how the methods apply in an HCI context. Each chapter also contains key references to help researchers find out more about each method as it has been used in HCI. Topics covered include experimental design, use of eyetracking, qualitative research methods, cognitive modelling, how to develop new methodologies and writing up your research.

Overview Over the last 30 years or so, computers have evolved rapidly into powerful and complex systems that underlie virtually every aspect of modern life and, if current trends continue, it is likely that they will be even more pervasive in the future. With the increased embeddedness of computer technology into our society, the characteristics of users have diversified rapidly from a situation where the average user was often a white, middle-aged male with a particular educational and socio-economic background to one in which users of all ages, sexes, social and ethnic backgrounds, levels of education and computer knowledge are interacting with complex interfaces to computer systems. The range and complexity of people's interactions with computers have also grown rapidly over recent years, so that we now do many things via a computer (e.g., managing a bank account, paying household bills, shopping, organising a holiday) that would have been done in the high street just a few years ago. These rapid developments present significant challenges to interface designers. As the range and sophistication of computer-based tasks have increased so have the interfaces that people are required to use, and so the issue of how people perceive and process complex displays of information when carrying out tasks becomes ever more important. In order to understand these processes more closely, analysts have utilised the theories and methods of cognitive psychology – the study of human perception and information processing – to construct cognitive models : specifications of the mental representations, operations and problem-solving strategies that occur during the execution of computer-based tasks.