Research methods moving from the lab out ‘into the wild’

Guest lecture for COMP2213. Moira McGregor has worked on various projects at the Mobile Life Research Centre including: everyday use of digital maps; the sharing economy; mobile battery maintenance; and speech technology in workplace meetings. What these projects have have in common is a desire to look at the use of mobile technology as it happens in order to understand how users make sense of the technology, and also how users interweave this use with other interactions going on around them at the same time. The above coincides with a general move from studying mobile phone technology in the controlled setting of the lab, to the challenge of devising methods to allow the study of mobile phone use in situ, out ‘in the wild’. This focus on use in situ calls for a focus on working with distributed research methods, including video analysis, interactional and conversational analysis, interviews, and technical probes – all of which have been deployed in Moira’s work in order to give access to moment by moment interaction with mobile technology. The resulting small scale and detailed perspective may be combined to complement the more pervasive approaches of recording mobile phone use by instrumenting technology with sensors and logging use over longer periods, with large cohorts of users. Moira is currently a PhD student at the MobileLife Research Centre in Stockholm. Her work looks at how technology is used in everyday life – from mobile phone use in co-present interaction with others, to how an app like Uber is changing the work practices of taxi drivers. In this seminar, Moira will present some of the research methods used in her studies and some of her preliminary findings

Social Order of the Co-Located Mobile Phone : Practices of collaborative mobile phone use

This thesis examines mundane practices of everyday phone use to make conceptual, empirical and methodological contributions to ongoing research on mobile technology. It argues that we do not yet have a clear understanding of how the mobile phone is used–who does what, when and why. Yet these details are important if we are to judge the impact of mobile technology, understand the possibilities and dangers it offers, or evaluate claims about its broader impact on our sociality. The participation of both the phone user and those co-located is examined–to understand how we actively create and maintain a new ‘social order’ with mobile phones. Across five separate studies, a mix of methods is used to look closely at phone use. Drawing extensively on in situ video recording of device use, as well as interviews and ethnographic observations, the empirical chapters cover three different types of device use: search, messaging, and way-finding. The chapters look at the specifics of how the applications manifest themselves in practice (such as message notifications, or the ‘blue dot’ in map apps), as well as the practices adopted to use, manage and balance those applications within ongoing co-located, face-to-face interactions. Empirically, the studies document how co-located phone use is dependent upon the technology, but is also reliant upon new practices of collaboration and co-operation. I discuss how participation is managed (who is involved), the temporal organisation of action (when use occurs), and the recurrent actions and materiality of those practices (what happens). Moment-by-moment analysis of the practices highlights the importance and value of making phone use publicly accountable to avoid disturbing the ‘local order’, but also for sharing knowledge and making sense of the world together, as well as having fun and maintaining friendships. The methodological contribution is found in the hybridity of methods adopted to meet the challenge of collecting and analysing data relevant to studying what is happening when we use our phones. A combination of ethnography with video and conversation analysis, and the creative use of probes to support interviews is proposed, to gain access to a broader perspective on phone use. Through reliance upon empirical observation, we can avoid abstract and reductive generalisations about phone use, discussing instead the observable action and resources that do occur recurrently around mobile phone use–how things get done with mobiles. Conceptually, the thesis draws on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis for a perspective on how we make sense of the day-to-day interactions we have with one another–how we bring about and sustain the ‘local’ social order. I argue that practices of mobile phone use are constituent parts of local order in everyday life, and that their examination is key to understanding what social order is now like. A conceptual ‘diamond’ of mobile phone practice, broken down into elements of time, body, materiality, and repair is proposed. In conclusion, the thesis highlights the prevalence of phone practices beyond individual, task-oriented pursuits and I finish by reflecting on possible future research to enhance the collaborative, social aspects of mobile technology

EINS PRIME - perception and realisation of information privacy using measurements and ethnography

EINS PRIME is a multidisciplinary research project that seeks to investigate how information privacy is perceived and enforced by users. Existing studies indicate the existence of a disconnect between users view of privacy and their behaviours, e.g. often, their actions do not reflect their intentions of preserving privacy. This project intends to measure such disconnect, studying it quantitatively and qualitatively, in order to identify areas of improvement and inform policy

Spatial learning based on the shape of the environment is influenced by properties of the objects forming the shape

In 3 experiments rats had to find a submerged platform that was located in a corner of a kite-shaped pool. The color of the walls creating this corner provided an additional cue for finding the platform in the shape + color condition but not the shape-only condition. During tests in a pool with walls of a uniform color but no platform, more time was spent in the corner where the platform was originally located after training in the shape + color than in the shape-only condition. The results challenge theories that assume either that learning about the shape of the environment takes place in a dedicated module or that cues compete for the control they acquire over behavior

Vliv přídavku česnekového extraktu do krmné dávky drůbeže na senzorické vlastnosti masa

This thesis investigated the effect of addition of garlic oil extract to the diet 72 brojlerovým Ross 308 taps on their live weight This thesis investigated the effect of additions of garlic oil extract to the diet 72 broilers Ross 308 on their live weight, the proportion of the carcase, yields of breast and thigh muscle content of selected components of the meat, which was dry matter, crude protein and fat, and in particular sensory properties of breast and thigh muscles. Cockerels were divided into 3 groups (one control and two experimental), the compound feed containing 0 g; 5 g and 10 g of garlic oil extract per 1 kg of compound feed. The main objective was to determine carcass yield of breast and thigh muscle and especially the sensory evaluation of breast and thigh muscle from control and experimental groups. The addition of garlic oil extract had a positive statistically significant effect (P > 0.05) on the yield of breast and thigh muscle. Within the sensory evaluation of breast muscles was statistically significant positive effect demonstrated only for the addition of 10 g of garlic extract oil per 1 kg of the mixture and its chewiness (P 0.05) in the context of nitrogen in both muscle, dry matter content of breast muscle and thigh muscle yield percentages . The addition of garlic oil extract did not cause a negative sensory evaluation of breast and thigh muscle suggests that a dose of 10 g garlic oil extract per 1 kg of compound feed achieve better results in comparison with a lower addition of this extract