Office environment research
Process
The whole planning and writing of the dissertation took over a year in time, with a few months of intensive writing and research. The inspiration for the research was an episode of Freakonomics about the effects of sounds and noises can have on bathroom users or shop buyers. A linked research also noted that ambient background noise can have positive effects on creativity, thus, to make the research related to Human Resources, I was interested how different elements of a working environment can impact the creative process. In order to do so, I conducted an ample literature review, interviewed designers and observed them at their workplace and reviewed and analysed the results.
METHODOLOGY
How the research was conducted
The research was following an inductive approach, to facilitate the broad range of focus of the study and help generalise the findings. The research strategy was qualitative, in order to learn new insights and further explore the area of the study. To collect the qualitative data, semi-structured interviews were used, and an ethnographic research was conducted. The collected data was analysed using grounded theory facilitating the exploration of new insights without using existing preconceptions. Ethical considerations were also used to make sure participants’ data is used correctly.
RESEARCH
Literature review
Numerous journals in the field of Human Resources, Architecture, Psychology and Ergonomics were searched and read during the review process. Some of the key insights were implemented in the interview questions and were used to focus the observation, but a balance was kept enabling the exploration of new findings.
Interviews
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with various design professions, including photographers, architects, graphic designers and ux designers. They lasted from 30 minutes to an hour and provided great insights about the designers’ vision on how the office affects them.
Ethnographic research
A small design firm was observed during a typical day to see how they interact with their workplace and interviews were conducted at the workplace to enable visual representation of several factors. Also, different factors that might affect them unconsciously were searched for.
FINDINGS
Data analysis
To discover further influences of the workplace, the interviews were transcribed, and patterns and keywords were searched for. Additionally, the findings were compared to different studies to put them in perspective. After the initial analysis, the findings were categorically presented in the dissertation.
Further comments
The dissertation, and other assignments throughout the 4 years taught me a lot about qualitative and quantitative research and how to critically analyse the received information. For this particular project, I was planning to use more UX research methods, including user diaries and mapping their workflow to see how they use their working environment, but the scope of the study and the limited time I could put into it and receive from the fantastic people that helped me with their interviews did not enable it this time. Overall, academic research is a really useful tool, but I am interested to build on it to become an amazing UX researcher/designer.