Sugar in all its glorious forms

Happy Valentine's Day! Yes, as the title states, I received lots of sugar in many forms today. Hooray for sweeties!

It is getting late in the day but as I promised myself, I will keep up the newly formed tradition of blogging as my daily writing routine. Today was very busy and I actually managed to make a great step forward on the dissertation front. I conducted the first pilot study observation and it went remarkably well. It took about an hour and a half and was entirely fascinating for several reasons. The first of these is that the participant was so forthcoming with nuanced information about how she was searching for images. A number of people shut down when they are in the process of performing some task (even when prompted to use the think-aloud method) but this particpant was wonderful at indicating why she chose specific images and why certain ones were not useful. From just this single observation, I can see some coding patterns evolving. Quality (size, clarity, color, angle, etc.), availablity, representativeness (of concept), complexity (of searching multiple places and tasks involved in creating the presentation), cataloging/indexing, and trustworthiness come to mind at the moment. I will transcribe the observation and insert my notes alongside her commentary. My feeling from having sat through the observation is that the data is incredibly rich! Even with my knowledge of the processes and the topic she was preparing for, the experience was eye-opening and intriguing. Yes, there are days when I absolutely LOVE what I do!

So after I performed the observation and administered the questionnaire, I went to visit with some people in an attempt to recruit more participants. I have a lead on an architect and perhaps an artist... I need to send a few emails in the morning for these. This afternoon I heard back from one of the archaeologist participants about her ability to take part in the study. She is an adjunct and only teaches one course a year, although her daily work requires images. I am not sure what I should do in her case. I think I will investigate a bit more with her to see when she is teaching. It might be that she will be teaching during the study and so then I think she would be perfectly suited to the study. Recruitment is tiring! I ran into someone I know socially yesterday at my local CVS and asked about participation. It is certainly a bit wacky to be doing this all the time. Thankfully, I believe in the research and its possible outcome so it keeps me going.

I need to get back to the reading. Grrrr. I have an appointment downtown in the early afternoon tomorrow, so I think I will have at least an hour of train time to read. If I am super good in the morning I should have another hour or two. I need to get through this material! Ack! My plan of action for tomorrow is to:

1. send emails off to prospectives.
2. read the rest of VISOR I and add annotations for VISOR I & II.
3. find R. Bradley's paper!
4. send an email to SIG-AH re: web site.
5. call Dr. Judy.
6. make some decisions regarding summer camp for the Meemster.

Ok, I have my list. I am going to climb into bed and do some reading before I sleep.