In addition to a lot of fascinating discussion today about avatars, social presence in the interview situation, deception in online and offline communications modes, voice recognition, and "video mediated communications" I collected some interesting observations. Well, interesting to me. In no particular order:
- When it comes to all of these new and complex technological innovations the single most important question to ask is: does it help and if so how?
- A standard theme in the current Web survey literature is that most gadgets that designers think are cool (slider bars, sorting with a mouse, etc.) are not well received by all respondents and there is no evidence that they help get us better data. Are avatars any different?
- Why would anyone think that surveying people in Second Life makes any sense?
- Our understanding of what makes a good interviewer is still very incomplete. I now know this because even this group of experts is baffled about how to build one from the ground up. When you have to make decisions about when to smile, how to structure a conversation, when to press the respondent and when to back off, when to smile, when to move your head, and so on you see just how tough it is and how little we know.
- No one is quite sure to whom respondents think they are actually responding to? The interviewer? The computer (in the case of a Web survey)? The survey designer? The client? Someone made the point that using the client’s logo in a Web survey reinforces the point that the answers are being delivered to the client.
- Much of the fascination with avatars is based in the widely held belief among methodologists that face-to-face interviews get the best data. But I’m not sure that we dug deep enough to understand why and then let that guide us to a new paradigm we can deploy online.
And finally, the best quote of the conference from Justine Cassell of Northwestern University: "Every design choice has an effect and if you don’t know the effect don’t use the design."