Scott McLeod of Dangerously Irrelevant offered up an interesting idea for visualizing technology usage as a simple venn diagram. The context was specifically aimed at opening dialogue amongst educators about technology training in schools, but the idea of expressing what amounts to simple survey questions as diagrammed answers is appealing from a usability perspective, too.
McLeod’s simple rubric for assessing technology usage concentrates on two dimensions. First, the level of technology usage can be visualized as a circle, where larger circles equate to greater use. This is determined for two key domains, home and work. Second, the use of technology in different domains sometimes overlaps to varying degrees. The differently sized circles can be arranged to reflect a self-assessed pattern of use.
Some examples of how the two dimensions of size and overlap can paint a picture of individual use of technology.
Use of diagrams in surveys has potential barriers and enticements. One likely problem might include people being unsure about how to express themselves in a non-traditional manner. Surveys usually look like a page of checkboxes. Asking for a drawn or assembled diagram may be intimidating. One the plus side, though, there is more information to gain from watching how a person assembles such a diagram. In the above case, there would be an early decision made to assess either home or work domains first. The order may contain important information that would not be captured in a Likert scale. Also, turning the data into diagrams is a designerly way to communicate the results anyway, so having the participant compose the data visually might save a step.
I have a user study for Kosmix planned for Saturday at Bloomington Bagel Company, as I try to buy about 10-15 minutes of paper prototype assessment from 15 non-techie patrons (each participant gets a $5 gift certificate to BBC). As I make final preparations, I have decided to try and incorporate this diagramming technique into the simple demographic survey each person will complete.