Media Reviews
This book is an outstanding contribution to HCI's pedagogical and reference literature, reviewing and explaining the numerous research methods in common use. It motivates with numerous examples the methods in terms of posing questions and designing research to answer those questions. It covers well both quantitative and qualitative methods. The treatment is accessible and lively. The book should be considered for adoption by all HCI instructors. --Ron Baecker, Member of the CHI Academy, Founder and Co-Director, Technologies for Aging Gracefully lab (TAGlab), and Emeritus Professor of Computer Science, University of Toronto This is the research methods book I recommend to my students and colleagues. And it's a time-saver: my students make fewer methodological mistakes and we can now engage in deeper and more insightful discussions about specific challenges of their research work. With this improved and updated edition, the bar is even higher! With increasing traces of our lives online and availability of Big Data in many research projects, the new chapter on online and ubiquitous HCI research was a welcome addition to the already comprehensive, multi-method research book. Every HCI student, researcher, and practitioner must read it! --Simone Barbosa, Professor, PUC-Rio, Brazil, and co-Editor-in-Chief of ACM Interactions Research Methods in HCI is an excellent resource for newcomers and seasoned HCI professionals alike. Covering all the basic methods for conducting research in HCI, concepts are explained clearly and brought alive through case studies and examples. In addition to offering how-to details, the text offers detailed rationale for why and when to use different methods. Some historical context and controversial viewpoints are also offered. Clear discussions around how to select participants and work with different populations are offered, as are ethical issues in conducting research. The attention to these kinds of details makes this a truly engaging, readable text. The extensive list of references offers plenty of scope for follow-up for those wishing to deepen their knowledge even further. The 2nd edition offers new and refreshed content, updated examples and case studies, and new references and resources. --Elizabeth Churchill, Member of the CHI Academy, Secretary/Treasurer of ACM, currently Director of User Experience at Google, formerly Director of Human Computer Interaction at eBay This book by Lazar, Feng, and Hochheiser is a must read for anyone in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. Their multi-discipline approach, housed in the reality of the technological world today, makes for a practical and informative guide for user interface designers, software and hardware engineers and anyone doing user research --Mary Czerwinski, Principal Research Manager, Microsoft Research, Recipient of the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Service Award, Member of the CHI Academy, and ACM Fellow This is a superb book for all researchers, practitioners, and students interested in the investigation of anything related to HCI. This new edition has much needed information on research methods in HCI that have become prevalent, including crowdsourcing as well as new creative ways to collect and analyze qualitative data, two examples of essential skills for today's HCI students! Highly recommended! --Vanessa Evers, Full Professor and Chair of Human Media Interaction, Scientific Director of the DesignLab, University of Twente, the Netherlands I recommend this book to all my PhD students. It provides excellent coverage of a range of HCI research methods, and importantly, the context for researchers to know how the methods relate to each other and how to choose a method that is appropriate for their own research question. The book is a very nice read. It is an excellent reference for HCI researchers, not only for those just starting out, but also for experienced researchers who would like to firm up their knowledge of HCI methods. --Faustina Hwang, Associate Professor of Digital Health, Biomedical Engineering, University of Reading, UK This is the book for you! Whether you are a seasoned practitioner, a student starting out, an established professor, or someone just curious about how HCI finds answers to research questions. Clear, coherent and comprehensive, it covers the classical - like surveys and ethnography - and the highly contemporary, including online and automated methods. Written in an accessible, engaging style and illustrated with examples and case studies from Google, Yahoo and the authors' own extensive experiences, this book should be on the desk of everyone doing HCI and UX design, development and research. --Matt Jones, Author of Mobile Interaction Design (Wiley) & There's Not an App for that: Mobile UX Design for Life (Morgan Kaufmann). Professor of Computer Science, Future Interaction Technology Lab, Swansea University, UK This book is a must-read for those who seek a broad view and in-depth understanding of HCI research methodologies. I have had the privilege of using the earlier version of this book for my HCI research method classes for both academic and professional programs -- it was extraordinarily useful for students and researchers in the HCI field. Now, this 2nd edition becomes even more valuable as it not only includes more content regarding quantitative methods, such as statistical analysis, but also totally revamped qualitative data analysis. This updated version will be an indispensable reference for both students and practitioners who want to enhance their research skills in HCI. --Jinwoo Kim, Professor of HCI at Yonsei University, Korea, Founder and CEO at HAII As an educator and a researcher who frequently makes use of methods for gathering data from users, I was excited to see the variety and range of techniques for working with people presented in this book. It is also refreshing to see the book's emphasis on issues such as bias and ethics in research. The chapter that explicitly discusses best practices for working with participants with disabilities truly makes this book stand out. First, there is no equivalent resource that I know of on this topic. Second, I believe the lessons presented in this chapter can help to illustrate the importance of understanding and working with any population that is significantly different from the average undergraduate research participant featured in so many studies! Since HCI is expanding its domain more and more, this is a very timely lesson. --Jen Mankoff, Professor, Human Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Chair of the SIGCHI Accessibility Community If you care about HCI research, then this book is a must-read. The book contains a broad coverage of methods and techniques for HCI research. This edition contains major additions to the previous version that are extremely timely, dealing with evolutions of interactive technologies and evolutions of knowledge in the area of HCI research. It is clear that the authors have applied the methods described in the book to understand their audience, building a book that is very pedagogic, blending a lot of knowledge in the field of HCI but still remaining easy to read, to understand and to apply for practitioners, students and lecturers in HCI. -- Philippe Palanque, Professor of computer science at Universite Toulouse III, France, Chair of the CHI Conference Steering Committee, member of the CHI Academy, and co-editor of The Handbook of Formal Methods in Human-Computer Interaction This is the book that every researcher will want to read. Comprehensive and at the same time 'hand-holding', this book guides researchers through designing and running their own studies using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Even seasoned researchers will want to dip in to checkout details, while students will find this book particularly inspiring. There's something in the book for everyone. --Jenny Preece, Professor, iSchool and Human-Computer Interaction Lab, University of Maryland, Member of the CHI Academy, co-author of Interaction Design (4th edition) Over the last 20 years research and practice in Human-Computer-Interaction have matured. An in-depth understanding of methods in this field is essential and the key to success in research as well as in industry. The big question is how we teach and learn about these methods? Is a book in the digital age, in times when people are excited about MOOCs, and when video tutorials are everywhere still an appropriate medium? Absolutely! This book is at the same time an accessible text book as well as a comprehensive reference. The topics are well selected and are highly relevant for students, researchers, and practitioners. Each chapter has a focus, communicates the basics, and teaches how to practically apply it. The new edition includes all the basics I would teach, and additionally provides a profound introduction to new topics, including Human-computer Interaction in the context of online systems and ubiquitous computing. --Albrecht Schmidt, Professor of Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction Group - VIS, University of Stuttgart, Germany, and ACM SIGCHI 2014 Program Co-Chair Aspiring accessibility researchers will find the final chapter packed with invaluable tips for avoiding common pitfalls when working with populations with disabilities. The authors' passion and deep experience shine through. --Shari Trewin, IBM Research, Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing As a fan of the first edition who used it extensively in my research methods courses, I am thrilled to see the second edition expanded in exciting ways, especially around quantitative and qualitative data analysis. Also, the industrial case studies add real-world relevance to an already essential book. I highly recommend this new edition, whether you are conducting academic HCI research or user research in a startup or large company. It is an invaluable resource. --Jacob O. Wobbrock, Professor at the Information School, University of Washington, Recipient of the 2017 ACM SIGCHI Social Impact Award