Field Research
To gain an informed understanding of human planning, we utilized a variety Contextual Design methodologies to explore and interpret existing behaviors and tools around plan making and execution. At the crux of the user-centered design process is the in-context observation of current workflow procedures, cultural influences, and relevant supporting artifacts. The following describes our user research methods in detail.
Contextual Inquiry
In order to fully understand and internalize the complex processes and possible problems involved in planning and execution, user research must be conducted in the naturally occurring context of work. As such, we conducted six Contextual Inquiries (CIs) across three domains: with an Assignment Editor at a Pittsburgh News Broadcasting Station, a Charge Nurse at a Pittsburgh Hospital, a Week-Long Planner (WLP) and Short-Term Planner (STP) at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC), a Real-time Planning Engineer (RPE) at JSC, and a Flight Controller working at the Telemetry, Information Transfer and Attitude Navigation (TITAN) console at JSC.
In addition to the six CIs, we were also able to briefly talk to people with roles that directly interacted with our main CI participant. Though we were unable to use audio or video recording during any of our CIs, we documented the investigations with photographs and copious notes in all cases, from which we were able to extract and process data. Through these CIs, we were able to gain insight into the workflow, cultures, and artifacts relevant to the respective planning and execution tasks.
Contextual Observation
Due to the nature of the work that we wanted to understand, Contextual Inquiry, which requires interrupting participants in their work flow to ask questions, was occasionally not appropriate. For example, it was not possible to interrupt the TITAN during his shift handoff, nor the Producer during the news broadcast. Under these constraints, however, we were able to observe work in-context as a ‘fly on the wall.’ This technique allowed us to observe the execution of plans, and observe how execution teams react to unforeseen circumstances and dynamically re-plan in the high-stress execution environment.
Retrospective Interviews
Because dynamic re-planning necessitated by unforeseen circumstances is somewhat capricious in nature, it was not possible to predict an appropriate time to observe it. In these cases, we relied on Retrospective Interviews to collect valuable data. While the main goal of this method was to reveal anecdotes about unforeseen circumstances and dynamic re-planning, it was often a valuable method to elicit sensitive information, such as authority tension.
