Enhance Your Qualitative Research Through Engaging Videography And Non-Linear Editing

Original broadcast date: June 18, 2019

Presenters: Dr. Carie Cunningham, Nuance Communications; Adam Enfield, Nuance Automotive

In user experience (UX) research, the participant is often as much of the focus as the techniques and tools themselves.  Their feelings and actions provide insight to our research questions. When findings are shared outside of research teams, participants often get underutilized through a lack of advanced shooting and video editing. This workshop will show researchers how to set up and record videos of participants in challenging environments. It will also show innovative editing techniques to create more engaging video clips, resulting in better information dissemination. 

Too often, UX researchers record participants in a room with no specific framing, and then present a roughly edited video of a simple clip that demonstrates a trend or theme among participants. Although this practice greatly compliments other qualitative and quantitative measures, the video collection methods can be improved to demonstrate more compelling arguments from the participants' statements or behaviors (Saldaña, 2015). Learning and applying visual aesthetic rules and advanced editing techniques can accomplish this. 

In addition to these rules, this workshop will teach techniques for working in challenging environments where perfect framing is not an option. For example, when filming an 8 person focus group, filming in a driving simulator, or using a webcam or cellphone, it may be difficult to properly frame. Unideal framing can lead to confusion on who (or what) is the subject of a video clip. Low quality audio or video can give the perception that a project is of low quality, too. Obviously, these should be avoided to showcase good research and not highlight study limitations.  When simply nothing more can be done while recording, there are some enhancements that can be made in post-production editing. 

Everyone with an interest in understanding these methods is welcome to learn and discuss the UX data collection and editing situations. We will cover editing and shooting techniques in detail through demonstrations.  No meaningful experience is required, though some familiarity with the topic would help.