Video Diary Study Capturing Consumer Electronic Device Usage Inside the Home
The purpose of this generative field study was to observe how people interact with consumer electronic devices inside of their household.
A more thorough description of this study can be found at this link for the TVX2019 Conference Proceedings.
Background and Research Goal: A significant role of the Samsung Visual Display Innovation Lab is to conceive and develop new devices or features for the home Visual Display ecosystem based around user-centered needs. In order to asses new areas of opportunity for how Samsung devices could work in tandem with one another, design and product teams began questioning how consumer electronic devices are being used inside of the home. The goal of this research was to identify frequency of device usage inside the home, common rooms where devices are used and and common activities that take place while devices are being used.
My Contributions: A strong team effort led the first phase of this project. I co-drafted the study plan, and co-designed the camera methodology and user training manual for study participation along with my Manager. I primarily led the second second phase of the project, where I independently moderated sessions, created a systematic method for cleaning and organizing the data and finally co-synthesized data, and co-presented insights to all stakeholders.
Method: A novel camera diary method was employed, where ten participants across the San Francisco Bay Area wore body cameras over specified hours of the day (mix of week and weekend days), across four-photo logging days. The cameras were placed in a “3rd” eye position of participant foreheads, using headbands or hats, in order to capture activities inside their home from their own perspective. Retrospective interviews were conducted in alternation with each photo-logging day in order to gain rich qualitative insight on devices used, if any, and participant activities or intentions for usage.
Outcomes: In total, more than 20,000 photos covering more than 80 hours were logged across all ten participants. People move between rooms in their homes every 5 minutes, on average. People multitasked 66% of the time; they spent 86% of their time using electronic devices; TV was the most-used device; watching TV was, uniquely, a background activity for twice as much time as it was a primary activity.
Impact: Prior to this research, it was unclear how frequently the TV plays a “backseat” role. Several product concepts around new IoT and in-home displays came from this research, including increasing our focus on far-field voice capability for Samsung Smart TVs. Following this research, Samsung’s voice assistant tool, called Bixby, was directly embedded into Smart TVs to help facilitate quicker, hands-free interaction with the TV while moving about the home and multitasking. This research was also presented at the 2019 TVX Conference Proceedings.
Example of “3rd Eye” position of body cameras (left) and photo outputs (right) in the perspective of the participant:
