First of all, the observations ended up being a little harder than I initially expected. I typically consider myself an observant person, so I was excited at the idea of using one of my strengths to benefit the project. However, I quickly realized that observing for research purposes is much different than being observant and noticing things in everyday life. While I noted both unexpected and expected things during my observation session, I realized that I should also be paying close attention to behaviors that would refine our research questions and bring about insightful interview questions.
For our chosen demographic, I found that observing individuals in the late afternoon/evening was the best time of day to get them truly interacting in their living situation. One aspect of the observation process that I found difficult was getting people comfortable with “acting natural” even though I was in the room. And even when they seemed a little bit more comfortable interacting as they normally would, I was still unsure if the behaviors I was observing would be the same if I wasn’t in the room. Thus, I was not confident that my observations were completely accurate.
Another part I did not expect to make the process difficult was trying to keep my own bias out of my observations. I sometimes found myself taking note of a behaviors because I found them unexpected or unique, but then upon reviewing my notes I wondered if it may have just been unusual because it didn’t match my own personal behaviors.
However, I did find one technique that worked for what behaviors I was noting: I focused less on what they were doing and more on how they were interacting with their living space and the people around them. By observing less of the obvious actions and more of the unexpected ways in which they used their surroundings, I was able to get better quality observations. In the end though, while I was happy with the observations I made, I do think it would have been better if a partner had been with me. I have no doubt that there were important details or behaviors that I missed that a partner would have captured. Having two sets of observation notes would have made the session more accurate.