Process: Before going to the field

In this chapter, you will learn to plan your field study. A good preparation is the key to a successful field study. You can be sure that the time you spend in preparations will be worth it.

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Activities that take place before going to the field, and documents that need to be produced to help you getting there.

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Preparing a field study boils down to exploring how the field study can best benefit the ongoing design process that triggered the decision to go to the field in the first place. This requires to build a preliminary understanding of the needs of the design process the field study will inform, who and what you will interact with in the field, and how you might make the best of your interaction with users in their work context.

The field study is built upon the following activities that need to take place before going to the field:

Define the study objectives: define what the field study will focus on and how it will be executed at a high level.
Perform background research: find information that helps to build a preliminary understanding of the users and the context you will meet in the field.
Develop templates: find or make templates that will help you to collect your observations and reflections in the field.
Create a study plan: create an observation plan and determine how to analyse and communicate your field observations.
Organise field access: find the person that can grant you access to the field and give you authority to observe and interact with informants in the field.
Prepare documentation: produce a preliminary field study report (layout and content) that shows how the field data will be analysed and communicated.
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Making sure there is a good rationale for the field study

Because the field study is time and resource demanding, hence expensive, it is important to connect it with the needs of a project. It can be an ongoing design process, or a new design process. The reason for going to the field needs to be crystal clear to all the participants to the project, because everyone will spend time and resources to make it happen. This includes you and the rest of the team going to the field, representatives from the organisation that will welcome you in the field, and representatives from the company that sponsors the field study. Usually they are also the owners of the design process that the field study will inform.

The following questions can guide you in this discussion, and you will achieve the best results if you involve the representatives of the company sponsoring the field study in constructing the answers to these questions:

What are you trying to find out by going to the field? Are there other ways than a field study to gain insight on the questions you are dealing with?
What field data will help you document your findings and how do you plan to obtain this data?
What will you do with this data? How will you communicate it and visualise it?

In the discussion with your team and the sponsoring company, remember that there are more reasons to go to the field than pure data collection. Going to the field will give you an unparalleled experience to understand users in their context, which will trigger better design ideas and design judgement. On this topic, read the chapter about the Design-driven field research model.

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Specifying the field study rationale and objectives

If the rationale for going to the field is not initially clear, start by creating a list of requirements for the field study based upon the needs of the ongoing design process. You may use the following guiding questions to build these requirements:

Study object: Is the project dealing with the design of an artefact, an interface, a process?

Study breadth: Does the field study need to have a narrow focus, and look at for example the use of a specific artefact (or interface, or process)? Or should the field study have a broad focus, and look for example at exploring improvement opportunities in a given context?

Study context: What specific locations, contexts of use, environments should be included in the study?

Field data: What type of data would benefit the ongoing design process? Is this photos of the context, list of work tasks, or rich descriptions of given scenarios?

Again, working with these questions should take place as a team to make sure that the field study will cover all the important aspects of the ongoing project (and not more than that). In large projects the field study will need to be approved at some level in the organisation of the sponsor, so you might want to involve a representant in these discussions as well.

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Getting ready to go on the field

Once you have built a good understanding of why you need to go to the field and what you want to look at, the process becomes quite systematic. Here is the step-by-step approach we are using. The approach is based on Sigrun Lurås´s guide to field studies onboard ships, which Sigrun developed as a result of her research at OICL.

Familiarisation
Familiarise yourself as much as possible with the context or environment you will be visiting. Identify its technical outfitting and equipment. This can often be found online. In the case of ships you can search for the ship’s name at www.marinetraffic.com and in Google.

Identify what kinds of operations take place in your context or environment. Consult written documentation, such as training material, guidelines, books and online material. Check Linkedin, Facebook and Instagram for posts related to the company hosting the field study. For ships, the Nautical Institute publishes a range of specialist maritime books. gCaptain.com is a valuable online resource. Some mariners also keeping online blogs or instagram feeds.

Decide what to do
Decide which methods and techniques to use to achieve your objectives. Different methods will be needed for different aspects of the field study. It can be helpful to consult literature on design and human factors methods to identify approaches, for example task analysis. You might need to adapt the methods to suit for your specific needs. More on this in the Method chapters Observation, Mapping and Interviews.

Plan the observation sessions
Although it is useful to have a clear idea about what to observe, once in the field you should have an open mind and also consider that which is not planned for. It is useful to prepare some questions that can be used during interviews and as a starting point for discussions with users. Some type of questions, and ways of phrasing questions, are better than others. More on this in the Methods chapter Interviews.

Design reflection during planning
Design reflection is a central part to the design-driven field research model. It is important because it triggers idea generation and improves the focus of the study, while at the same time making space for new questions that might prove important later.

Design reflection should start before you enter the field, and you should consider making some design proposals that can be presented to the people you will meet on the field as a starting point for discussions. Presenting design ideas is a great way to involve the users in the design process as many find it easier to comment on concrete design proposals than to come up with design ideas themselves.

In our experience, many people do not question why things are as they are and how things could be improved and, therefore, find it difficult to give concrete input on what could be different. Providing them with some suggestions may spark their imagination. Even if there are several flaws in the proposed designs, our experience indicates that concrete design ideas are good starting points for discussions with users.

Decide on the format of reporting
It is a good idea to plan how to document and communicate regarding the field study even in the planning stage as this will help you to capture the data you need in the field. If you plan to make a written report, make an outline for it before entering the field. If you plan to use video, consider what to record and which views may provide useful information. If you plan to develop personas or make other types of maps or models, identify what kind of data you will need. If you plan to map operations by mapping different scenarios, it is useful to identify the scenario to map out before going to the field.

Starting with the report before leaving will save you valuable time later on. When you come back there is often a lot of other tasks waiting so it is important to move as much as possible of the work to before leaving.
Having a structure in place before leaving helps focusing the observation and reflection during the field study.

Remember to ask the sponsoring company what kind of reporting they might be interested in. They might be interested in your report, or a report in a specific format, or another form of output from the field study. In any case, you need to plan for all the outputs you will need to produce.

Develop templates
Develop the material necessary to carry out the planned activities, such as observation forms, interview guides, design proposals to discuss, a list of what to photograph.

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Practical preparations before leaving to the field

When in the field you will need to explain very often why you are here and what you intend to do. Prepare a 1 page document that presents the project the field study is connected to, the goals of the field study, examples of observational methods that you intend to use (especially if you intend to take photos and videos), the rights of your informants to refuse or cease to participate, which institution you depend upon, and the contact information to the project manager and/or yourself. We call this document an “information letter” and we share templates for it in the course we give at the Oslo school of architecture and design. Send this document in advance of your departure to the field to your contact person at the company hosting the field study. Make sure that you can present orally the content of the document when you meet new users.

Be ready to leave at any time

The company hosting the field study might not have the opportunity to welcome you and your team at a given time. If your field study brings you at sea on a ship or an offshore installation, it is usually the weather that decides when you can leave. Life at sea can be unpredictable, and the opportunity to join a vessel or an helicopter may come suddenly. Be prepared to leave on short notice and have your bag packed with all the equipment and materials needed.

What to pack

Passport.
Your insurance policy number for your private insurance, and check with your employer how you are covered through your company’s insurance.
Comfy, casual clothes.
Warm clothes if it may be cold.
Indoor shoes (sandals).
Water bottle.
Motion sickness pills if you go at sea, although in our experience they can make you dizzy and unfocused. (We find that the best remedies to sea sickness are: (1) to stop your observations and go to bed as soon as you start to feel bad and (2) to hope that the other members of the team are not feeling sick, and that the weather will get better soon.)
Equipment needed for the study, such as sketchbook, notebook, observation forms, camera and audio recorder.
Chargers and/or batteries for technical equipment.
A hard drive to make backups of digital data.

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Managing personal data

The field study will generate data that can be considered as personal data, which must be in conformity with personal information protection laws. Personal information is information and reflections that can be tied to individuals directly or indirectly. For example: the names of your informants, photos and videos where their faces or name tags on their uniforms are clearly recognisable.

We strongly recommend to avoid as much as possible the use of personal data. In most cases, the use of personal data is not necessary to reach the objectives of the field study. There are some simple guidelines to follow to avoid capturing personal data.

Write down the names of your informants next to their role (captain, chief engineer,…) in a separate file, and keep the names of the informants only in this file during the project. In observations, reflections and interview transcripts, write only the role of the informant, not the name. At the end of the project, delete the file that contains the names.
Avoid taking photos of informants where their faces are visible. You can take photos of informants when they are not facing the camera, or frame the photo so that their faces are not visible.
Offer to show the photos you took during an observation session to your informants, and let them delete the photos they do not feel comfortable with. If you feel this is a photo that is important to your study, you can sketch the observed situation in a drawing, or recreate the shot with one of your colleagues instead of an informant.

In most countries, field studies where personal information is recorded need to be notified to the competent authorities that deal with data protection. In Norway, projects driven by students and researchers need to go deal with the “Personvernombudet for forskning”. They offer a self-evaluation service that tells you if you need to notify your study or not. Ideally, the test leads to the conclusion that there is no personal data that will be recorded, hence there is no need to notify your study. Should the test indicate that personal data will be involved, then you should consider why that is the case, what are your reasons for using personal data, and what alternatives you could use.

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Last, but not least: ethics and safety

This is actually where we start our lectures with our students. We use slides with the words “ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES”, “RUINING LIVES”, “ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS” blown up in very large size and written in red font. This is extremely important to consider before going to the field.

Field studies open the doors to the life of people. The end goal of any field study is usually to improve in a direct or indirect way the life of these people met on the field. This starts by understanding how to treat these people during the field study, and what consequences your study might have on these people. You obviously need to treat your informants with the outmost respect. Be courteous, always ask for permission before taking photos and videos, and respect their anonymity.

Your observations may have real economic consequences for the companies involved. All the operations carried out on ships, offshore platforms or ashore are strictly regulated. But it is not always the case that the rules are followed exactly. This means that one day you might document an operation that violates procedures, without being aware of the violation. If you then communicate it out in the open, you are exposing the company hosting the field study to serious economic troubles. Someone might lose their job.

There is a hierarchy of importance here. First, you need to protect your informant from the company employing the informant. Second, you need to protect the company from other companies. Let´ s be clear: if an individual, or a company performs illegal operations in the first place, it is the responsibility of regulatory authorities to expose these illegal operations, not yours.

The challenge is that when working on the field we cannot always understand the consequences or the impact of what we observe. So it is important to treat information captured on the field properly. In the planning phase, think very carefully about what you might be exposed to on the field, so that when you arrive in the field, you can be very attentive and aware to any situation that might be sensitive. As a rule, you actually should treat all field information as sensitive. Have a good and open discussion with the host company about what information they might consider to be sensitive. Have a clear understanding of what you want to capture, how you plan to capture it, and how you will report it: the clearer it is, the easier it is to inform your informants when you are in the field.

Finally, remember that your field study might take you to safety-critical work areas. These are dangerous environments that you are most likely unfamiliar with. Make sure you understand the risk in the areas you will visit, and always follow the safety instructions you are given. In some cases you will need specific safety certificates to access the field. In all cases you will need to have your own insurance to cover your work, and you might be asked to sign papers that discharge the company hosting the field study of any liability if something happens to you.

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Credits

This chapter was written with contributions from Sigrun Lurås, Kjetil Nordby and Etienne Gernez.

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Course

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