Hack for
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This document discusses developing a product to gather information from users to present to hackathon attendees. It tested several methods for gathering data, including freeform interviews, structured question lists, and paper forms. It determined that structured notes assigned to questions may be the best format. Creating an effective digital tool for self-service data gathering poses challenges. Interviews can provide more useful data but are labor intensive. Information for event planners often comes from representatives of community groups rather than directly from users. Highlighting archetypal users may help effectively summarize bulk research.
Hack for
- 2. As well as being an idea for an approach to hackathons this is: A product to gather information from a group of users & present the collected data to hackathon attendees
- 3. NYCHack For: Hackathon Organizers Eating my own dog food:
- 4. Methods for gathering data: Free Form Interview Email List of Questions Give out form with paper and pen Structured list of interview questions + notes Tested with: Saha & Noelle Tested with: Ian Tested with: Noel Tested with: Noel & Jeremy Pros: -Natural & Conversational -Interviewer needs Pros: -Structured -Digital Data -Flexible time demands Pros: -Structured -Flexible time demands -No technology needed for user Pros: -Structured -Can be flexible with follow up / new questions if needed Cons: -Interviewer needs to be well enough versed to ask the right questions -No Structure Cons: -Burden of need to be concise -Can be put off indefinitely -No interaction between interviewer / interviewee Cons: -Burden of need to be concise -Analog data -Can be put off indefinitely Cons: -Taking notes on the computer is tricky and seems like you are distracted Result: Good but labour intensive and unstructured ;/ Result: Still awaiting response :( Result: Refused by test subject! Result: Good but labour intensive ;/ Some hastily A->B tested methods done on site at NYC Big Apps
- 5. Resulted in: Notes.. I think the end form for this data is most likely to be a series of notes that could be assigned to a central list of questions. Cases where I tried to get people to write answers in their own words failed & transcribed conversations probably would have too much data. Notes are good because they are in summary form, but bad because not in persons voice. I kinda wanted to create a sense of the people being hacked for so there would be a connection between hacker and personality of user.
- 6. Initial Conclusions: Further exploration is probably warranted, but it could be hard to make an effective ‘self service’ digital tool for gathering the data from people Would need to be quite compelling interface, or people clearly incentivized to participate. Still good if possible because can achieve more scale. So maybe coming up with a good digital interface for gathering the info is the main product challenge. Interviews are going to gather more useful data but its going to be quite labour intensive and dependent on a central organizer.
- 7. Other Observations: Subject Matter Experts / Reps from Community Organisations From talking to Noelle from the EDC, Noel for Big Apps, and Jeremy for Code for America it became clear that information about people & their needs rarely comes directly from the people to the planners / organisers. Conclusions are typically presented by reps from organizations who work closely with the groups in question, or subject matter experts. Practically speaking it seems important for this product to allow room for input from experts / reps as a way to summarise problems for user groups that have already been identified. Archetypal Users Jeremy mentioned the idea of ‘Archetypal Users’ - identifying people from the research group (or fabricating them by generalizing some observed trends) who are a good representation of the likely product user. Highlighting users like this in detail as a way to summarize bulk research might be a good practical way to present information.