Interactive matrix for ‘Explorations’ responses

Going through the responses of 18 participants who completed ‘Explorations’ entails over 1080 unique pieces of information (in textual, illustrative, photographic and audio forms). Although I do not aim to analyse this information using any quantitative methods, I still need to make that large amount of information manageable to be able to draw qualitative conclusions and profiles on the individuals involved. As a result, I designed an interactive matrix that transcribes and groups all the responses at once.

This is the matrix. I included some explanations at the end of the post about the useful features that facilitate analysis of ‘Explorations’ responses:

– Organisation: The columns display the different participants (along with their demographic details) and the rows show the different probe tasks. This allows for both vertical and horizontal analysis of responses.

– Language: All responses are translated to English. However, the original language that a participant chose to express his/her response reveals valuable information about personal identities. Consequently, the matrix was colour-coded: Green for responses in Arabic, pink for English, blue for French, and white for visual or void responses.

– Interactivity: Every cell on the matrix is clickable to display in a new window the original form of the response, such as a drawing, handwritten text, photograph or voice recording. This allow me to continuously navigate back and forth between the organised transcribed form and the original tangible form of the information. The latter portrays individualistic aspects such as handwriting, vocabulary, sketched people networks and regional maps, in addition to speaking accents. The following are a few examples of some files that would open if the relevant Participant/Probe cell is clicked on in the matrix:

Participant 11/Glimpse probe

Participant 17/Journal probe

Participant 07/Photos probe

Participant 01/The World probe

Participant 14/Lebanon probe

Participant 05/Friends probe

Participant 09/Opinion probe

Participant 10/Incident probe

N.B: For ethical considerations it is not possible to post the audio recording of the Incident probe online, as the voice may identify the participant involved. Alternatively, his/her story is transcribed below.

“Today a friend I haven’t spoken to in 3 years visited my office and we went out for lunch together.”

The Story of Co-design… Made Simple

Think Public, a public service and communication design company in London, created a simple video demonstrating the process of co-design. This is a forthcoming tool using participatory methods to tackle a research problem.

My methodology will also be adopting participatory methods where my target audience and different stakeholders such as mayors, community workers, etc. can contribute to the research (probably more than I could myself).  I will not explain how co-design works because I think this video definitely does a better job at it!