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412 CHAPTER 14 Online and ubiquitous HCI research

14.2 ONLINE RESEARCH

Finding the right way to engage and interact with potential participants is a con-
stant struggle for HCI researchers. Offering a small cash payment and perhaps some
free food to nearby undergraduates may help to some extent, but such convenience
samples raise concerns about validity and generalizability. Finding users who may
represent a broad range of ages, skills, and backgrounds may require getting out of
the lab to engage with a broader range of participants. These challenges become even
more profound for studies requiring specialized populations, such as highly trained
domain specialists or users with particular disabilities, who might be both hard to
identify and hard to get to the lab, due to their busy schedules and other constraints.
Like many of our colleagues, we all have had the experience of struggling to find
times to meet with those hard-to-engage participants, traveling around our cities to
conduct studies in participants' homes, and otherwise worrying about our ability to
find the right folks to finish our studies.
Although certainly no panacea, the Internet can help. Beyond the obvious ap-
proach of using message boards and mailing lists to recruit participants, HCI re-
searchers have found various types of online studies to be appealing and effective.
Although not without their pitfalls, online research studies can, when designed
correctly, help HCI researchers extend their reach and complete studies with less
difficulty and expense. The unique challenges, pitfalls, and opportunities of online
research should be considered carefully before starting any studies.
Moving beyond simply conducting traditional studies online, this section also
looks at online activity as the focus of HCI research studies. These studies—which
are inherently “online research”—explore the dynamics of social interactions con-
ducted online to understand how message boards, social media, and other tools en-
able social interaction and the spread of ideas.

14.2.1 OBSERVATIONAL ONLINE STUDIES

The classic HCI investigation involves watching a participant as they use a computer.
Contextual inquiries; think-aloud and other usability studies; and empirical compari-
sons certainly differ in their design, content, and execution, but they share a common
core: a participant in the study sits at the computer using a tool to complete a task,
while one or more researchers watch, take notes, and record data. Being in the same
room provides many advantages, as researchers are able to establish rapport with
participants and build trust necessary for constructive conversations. Physical co-
location also helps observant researchers learn from watching their participants, not-
ing body language that might suggest discomfort, impatience, or other reactions to
the tool or task at hand. Despite these benefits, in-person studies are also inherently
limiting, as two (or more) people must find their way to the same location.
Noting these difficulties, HCI researchers have developed strategies for using
Internet technologies to conduct usability studies remotely. Although web-based con-
ferencing tools (also discussed in Section 12.3.3) may still seem relatively novel—and