Core77

Last month, we posted an item from Steve Portigal's blog where he takes design instructors to task for bad survey design. (Actually, we were a little less polite about it.) Well, this is a story that ends well...exceptionally so. In his follow-up post, Class Acts, Steve brings us nice closure: The students contact him, thank him for his input, set up time to talk, and ultimately invited him to come speak to their class. Here's a taste:

We couldn't cover all that and get really deep into research, the philosophy, the tools, the approaches, and so on (and of course, that's more than a phone call) - but they are working hard to understand how the different tools (say, an open-ended interview, and a closed-ended survey) can address different design questions at different phases of a project. One gently amusing moment was a discussion of leading questions - one student had assumed this meant a question that led naturally to the next one (and of course, that's a good thing) rather than, as I explained, a question that presumes a certain point of view and ultimately makes it harder for the person to give a true answer (i.e., Aren't you disappointed that Jon Stewart didn't host the Academy Awards?).