« Mobility Touch / Magic Touch | Main | Recycle »

Finding Rhythm

Running a user study in JiLin City. The plan is to meet the team at Beijing Terminal 1, though the red eye from Helsinki means a 3 hour stopover before the connecting flight. The only beds in the airport come with a massage, so book back to back sessions and doze. Take the opportunity to recharge various gadgets whilst she pummels my back.

Eventually the other team members arrive. We've traveled from 3 different research sites - Helsinki, Beijing and Tokyo. Inauspicious start to the study - the connecting flight is canceled so everyone shifts to alternatives.

Intensive research studies are a unique opportunity: 10 days for the team to gather, descend on a city to collect and synthesize as much data on our research topic as possible. The plan is to run 1 qualitative study and 2 quantitative studies simultaneously. Mission control is a hotel suite which over which is already looking like, um, mission control. We need all available wall space for hanging incoming data, so photo-frames with fetching floral scenes are removed and in one case replaced by a white board. The rest of the space is controlled chaos - cameras charging, laptops buzzing, the printer churning out photos.

Understanding the city helps us put the study participant data into perspective. Every city has some kind of rhythm, and the first challenge for the team is to simultaneously synchronise time-zone challenged selves with the rhythm of the city. Anyone traveling long distance is encouraged to arrive in the timezone a few days early and take a couple of days vacation - everybody wins with this arrangement.

Three tips for getting to know a city quickly: buy a bicycle and use it to cover as much ground as possible; dismount and interact with as many research-topic relevant people as possible; go clubbing; find time to wake up when the city wakes up (typically not after a night's clubbing).

Writing from Ji Lin | June 7, 2005 | Permalink