200 CHAPTER 9

depends mainly on how much detailed information the problem demands and
how much the observer already knows about the behaviors to be observed.

Notation

Recording behavior in verbal and diagrammatic notes demands that observers
decide what to describe and what to overlook on the spot. For example, in
describing how people use a hotel lounge, the observer must decide whether to
record how people meet each other and move around, how people sit and
watch others, how they hold their newspapers and shift their weight, or how
they move their eyes and twitch their noses. Each level of analysis is useful to
design researchers for solving different problems. Each individual observer
decides on and then isolates the level of analysis that is particularly relevant to
his or her own study or design project. If multiple observers work on the same
research project, they must be trained and sensitized together, comparing their
observations so that each knows what types of behaviors to note. That well-
trained observers make decisions about levels of analysis can be an opportuni-
ty to see richness in a situation and catch that richness in discrete notes.

Procedures for descriptive behavioral notation are relatively simple.
Notes are recorded by researchers working alone or by one team member when
the other member is conducting an interview. As with notes of physical traces,
it is useful to crease a note page, creating a wide right-hand margin. When
observations are written in the left-hand column, the right side is open for indi—
vidual or group analysis. Table 9-1 shows a sample of field notes.

Several small tricks help avoid embarrassing mistakes in descriptive
behavior notes: always include yourself in observations to avoid finding out
that a crucial observed behavior was actually a response to your presence; when
sitting and taking notes in public, make a drawing on the top page of the
notepad so that anyone who looks over your shoulder will find an acceptable
sketch; never leave notes around. What are harmless descriptions of the obvi—
ous to a researcher can be highly insulting snooping to participants.

Table 9-1. Sample field notes from site visit to hospital emergency room. (Ob-
servations made from nurse’s station at 1:00 pm.)

 

Observation Comment
Woman waiting in wheelchair has Does watching emergency activity
been waiting in corridor between make waiting easier?

nurse and row of examining rooms
since at least 10:30. She is watch-
ing all the activity.