Behavioral Observation Exercise For this exercise you will conduct formal observations of human behavior in a natural (i.e., nonlaboratory) context. There will be two major components to this clinical assignment. Conduct an unstructured observation of behavior. Part 1 – Unstructured Observations You will do an unstructured observation for 30-40 minutes. In this first part, your task is to train yourself to see as many concrete behaviors as you can without filtering them through any interpretive process. You will discover that this is a very difficult to do, and an important part of the exercise is to learn, first hand, what some of the challenges are in trying to formally document the things that people do in their everyday lives. 1. Break into pairs. Without sharing your results with each other, save it for post conference. With your partner, select a place where you can observe people for about 30 minutes. If, as you observe, it becomes clear that people move through this place too quickly or too slowly, look around for another place. 2. Your task is to force yourself to see the concrete details of people's actual behavior, not your interpretations of them. Watch what people actually do; suppress the instinct to evaluate people or to infer what people are doing based on assumed motives. Look at behavioral details like patterns of movement through space, hand gestures, posture, positions of legs or arms, ways of eating or drinking, eye or head movements, amount or volume of talking. "Friendly smile," "in a hurry," "flirting," and "nervous" are interpretations, not actions. As you observe, take brief notes of specific behaviors worth observing. 3. Make a diagram of the space you are occupying. On a 8.5 x 11 in. sheet of paper sketch as much detail as you can about the spot: where are things, what obstacles exist, how large are stores and other objects, what is on display, where are the major signs, where do people cluster, etc. Get as much as you can (readably) on your diagram. Use hand sketching only. Do not do this on the computer. 4. When the time is up, stop and write down what you can recall of the behaviors you saw. Your jotted notes may remind you of things, and there may be others that did not make it into your notes. Make a special note of details you saw that seem worth remembering for your structured research. YOU WILL TURN this in. It is fine if this is in your normal illegible handwriting with spelling and grammar errors. I just want to know that you did this step, before the specified date. It is NOT worth recopying or typing it. DO NOT DISCUSS YOUR RESULTS. Part 2 For this task you will investigate the impact of the environment on the shopping experience. Plan to spend 2-3 hours observing and jotting notes on a notepad. Walk around the mall. With a critical eye, make note of what is going on in the space around you and the stores you go into. I'd like you to adopt three different perspectives throughout your observation time. First, study the patterns of activity between people and objects in the store. Think about how people arrive at places, how people and goods flow, and what are natural stopping points, thinking points, talking points, etc. What are the transition points? You can consider any or all places in a store (e.g. near the register, outside the entrance). Next observe the area around and in the store. Look for patterns between people and objects and how the place is impacting behavior. Tips Look for the non-obvious. How are people are making decisions? What are the subtle cues or interactions that are impacting their behavior? Where are people looking? What do they touch/not touch? What do they pickup or shake? What catches their attention and what does not? As you do all this you should be jotting down field notes. They are to be handwritten. Use no recording devices such as tape recorders or video cameras. Do not skimp on the observation time. You need to give yourself enough time to get comfortable with observation and see patterns. Analysis Think about what you wrote and ask yourself why you attended to those specific items and not to others. What did you not attend to that you might have? How did your assumptions influence your observed data? Now try to structure your observations in some way. Organize concepts into categories and then look for relationships between the categories. Try to use this structure to help clarify the persuasive influences created by the environment and the people in it. On a single page summary sheet that could include diagrams and/or text, write up your most interesting observations/insights that could relate to creating a behavior change intervention. Presentation Be prepared to discuss your outcomes with classmates Hand-in Hand in all your unedited original notes and your summary sheet. Reference N.A. (2004). Individual assignment: Observation. EDP 260-03, Designing Persuasive Environments and Technologies. Retrieved: http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/intille/teaching/fall04/assignment-observation1.htm
