Into the wild: challenges and opportunities for field trial methods
Field trials of experimental systems `in the wild' have developed into a standard method within HCI - testing new systems with groups of users in relatively unconstrained settings outside of the laboratory. In this paper we discuss methodological challenges in running user trials. Using a `tria...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Conference or Workshop Item |
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ACM Press
2011
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/1823/ |
| _version_ | 1848790673725063168 |
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| author | Brown, Barry Reeves, Stuart Sherwood, Scott |
| author_facet | Brown, Barry Reeves, Stuart Sherwood, Scott |
| author_sort | Brown, Barry |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Field trials of experimental systems `in the wild' have developed into a standard method within HCI - testing new systems with groups of users in relatively unconstrained settings outside of the laboratory. In this paper we discuss methodological challenges in running user trials. Using a `trial of trials' we examined the practices of investigators and participants - documenting `demand characteristics', where users adjust their behaviour to fit the expectations of those running the trial, the interdependence of how trials are run and the result they produce, and how trial results can be dependent on the insights of a subset of trial participants. We develop three strategies that researchers can use to leverage these challenges to run better trials. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:16:21Z |
| format | Conference or Workshop Item |
| id | nottingham-1823 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:16:21Z |
| publishDate | 2011 |
| publisher | ACM Press |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-18232020-05-04T20:23:17Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/1823/ Into the wild: challenges and opportunities for field trial methods Brown, Barry Reeves, Stuart Sherwood, Scott Field trials of experimental systems `in the wild' have developed into a standard method within HCI - testing new systems with groups of users in relatively unconstrained settings outside of the laboratory. In this paper we discuss methodological challenges in running user trials. Using a `trial of trials' we examined the practices of investigators and participants - documenting `demand characteristics', where users adjust their behaviour to fit the expectations of those running the trial, the interdependence of how trials are run and the result they produce, and how trial results can be dependent on the insights of a subset of trial participants. We develop three strategies that researchers can use to leverage these challenges to run better trials. ACM Press 2011-05 Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed Brown, Barry, Reeves, Stuart and Sherwood, Scott (2011) Into the wild: challenges and opportunities for field trial methods. In: CHI'11 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 7-12 May 2011, Vancouver, B.C., Canada. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1978942.1979185 |
| spellingShingle | Brown, Barry Reeves, Stuart Sherwood, Scott Into the wild: challenges and opportunities for field trial methods |
| title | Into the wild: challenges and opportunities for field trial methods |
| title_full | Into the wild: challenges and opportunities for field trial methods |
| title_fullStr | Into the wild: challenges and opportunities for field trial methods |
| title_full_unstemmed | Into the wild: challenges and opportunities for field trial methods |
| title_short | Into the wild: challenges and opportunities for field trial methods |
| title_sort | into the wild: challenges and opportunities for field trial methods |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/1823/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/1823/ |