Workshops
Comparative Structured Observation (CHI'25)
What happens when your design concept is already well established and you want to see whether or not your design is on the right track, or which of several design variants makes most sense to users? This course presents the Comparative Structured Observation (CSO) method (Mackay & McGrenere, 2025) which takes advantage of the structure of controlled experiments to generate comparable, ecologically relevant experiences with two or more design variants.
About
Course participants will first learn the basic principles that comprise a Comparative Structured Observation study, with examples and a discussion of what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate study designs.
Participants will then work in small groups and, with help from the instructors, to design concrete CSO study protocols. Participants are encouraged to bring examples of current design concepts that they are struggling to assess, but participants may also work with examples that we provide. The course will conclude with a discussion of relevant analysis methods.
This website contains handouts, slides, exercises and related course materials that are available for registered course participants.
Schedule
Date: Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Time: 9:00 - 10:30 am
Schedule:
09:00 Introduction
09:05 What is Comparative Structured Observation?
09:15 Walkthrough an example
09:25 Create a CSO protocol (Group activity)
10:00 Protocol critiques
10:25 Final discussion
Places & directions
This course will be presented at the CHI'25 Conference
at the Pacifico Yokohama Conference center
in room G218.
Course Handouts
The following course handouts are intended for participants in the CHI'25 course on the
Comparative Structured Observation method, taught by Joanna McGrenere and Wendy Mackay.
The Comparative Structured Observation paper
(Mackay & McGrenere, 2025, Comparative Structured Observation, ACM/TOCHI, January, 2025).
CSO Course Slides
Guide to Designing a Successful CSO Study
Useful tables from the above paper:
CSO Characteristics
CSO Criteria
Comparing CSO to other research methods