User Research: Exploring the capture of memories

A survey is being designed to help me understand memories, how people keep records of their experiences, what type of experiences they are of and which memories are most treasured or vivid.

I am using some survey research techniques taught by Kate Devlin in her lecture series in 2011 as part of my UID module.

QUESTIONNAIRES

Closed/open. Email (easy analysis) & Paper

Style varies: Checkboxes, likert rating scales, semantic scaled, open ended responses

Positive/negative phrasing.

Pilot questions

Plan questions

Decide how to analyse data

I am going to use the DECIDE research framework which involves:

1. Determine goals: Understand the capture, storage and sharing of memories
2. Explore questions to be answered: Two iterations validated by pilot study
3. Choose evaluation paradigm: 'Quick and Dirty'
4. Identify practical issues: Distribution (solved by on-line distribution which is free and easy) & Feedback capture (comment box)
5. Decide how to deal with ethical issues: Disclaimer stating right to anonymity and right to stop at any time
6. Evaluate, interpret and present the data: Refer to 'Survey Research' for analytical methods.

The survey was designed and tested on two test subjects. What i learn from this was the difficulty with identifying 'vivid memories', the fact that most people write with some kind of emotional connection in a diary so the question is a little awkward and people don't want to say 'emotional', and the fact that neither used sound or video. What i can do is make it more open-ended so people can write as much or as little as desired. I restructured the questions and simplified some to make them easier to read and understand.

I timed the survey which took an average of 5 minutes (3 and 7 minutes each) so I will give a predictive time of 5 minutes in the survey description.

Below are planning shots from my sketchbook.

The survey will be conducted using surveymonkey with a minimum sample size of 10 people to enable triangulation.

I have decided at the last moment to add a question about tranisent memory to the survey: do you think people could benefit from 'letting' go of their mementos of experiences, and instead 'live in the moment' instead of trying to capture it?

This is the link to the survey LINK

I will leave it to run for 24 hours, and then collect and analyse the responses.

1. A bit about you...
Your age? Your Sex?
2. Do you keep a regular record of your activities i.e. a diary or a blog
What kind of record? What is mainly in the diary? Do you add any media? Is it public or private?
Yes
No 
If youd like to expand, please do so here
3. Do you use media to capture events, people or places i.e. photographs, videos etc
Why? How often to you review this media? How do you prefer to capture this type of moment?
For: Events, People & Places
Other (please specify)
4. What is your favourite type of medium to capture events?
Photographs
Sketches
Audio
Video
Other (please specify)
5. How and why do you share your media?
6. What is your strongest childhood memory?
7. Who are your most treasured memories about?
Extended relatives
Friends
Strangers
Acquaintances
Other (please specify)
8. Do you think people could benefit from 'letting' go of their mementos of experiences, and instead 'live in the moment' instead of trying to capture it?
Yes
No
Sometimes
Other (please specify)