skip to main content
research-article

ADQDA: A Cross-device Affinity Diagramming Tool for Fluid and Holistic Qualitative Data Analysis

Authors Info & Claims
Published:05 November 2021Publication History
Skip Abstract Section

Abstract

Affinity diagramming is widely applied to analyze qualitative data such as interview transcripts. It involves multiple analytic processes and is often performed collaboratively. Drawing on interviews with three practitioners and upon our own experience, we show how practitioners combine multiple analytic processes and adopt different artifacts to help them analyze their data. Current tools, however, fail to adequately support mixing analytic processes, devices, and collaboration styles. We present a vision and prototype ADQDA, a cross-device, collaborative affinity diagramming tool for qualitative data analysis, implemented using distributed web technologies. We show how this approach enables analysts to appropriate available pertinent digital devices as they fluidly migrate between analytic phases or adopt different methods and representations, all while preserving consistent analysis artifacts. We validate this approach through a set of application scenarios that explore how it enables new ways of analyzing qualitative data that better align with identified analytic practices.

References

  1. Robert Amar, James Eagan, and John Stasko. 2005. Low-level components of analytic activity in information visualization. In IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization, 2005. INFOVIS 2005. IEEE, 111--117.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  2. Christopher Andrews, Alex Endert, and Chris North. 2010. Space to think: large high-resolution displays for sensemaking. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems. ACM, 55--64.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  3. Sriram Karthik Badam, Andreas Mathisen, Roman Rädle, Clemens N Klokmose, and Niklas Elmqvist. 2018. Vistrates: A component model for ubiquitous analytics. IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics 25, 1 (2018), 586--596.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  4. Tehmina Basit. 2003. Manual or electronic? The role of coding in qualitative data analysis. Educational research 45, 2 (2003), 143--154.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  5. Michel Beaudouin-Lafon, Stephane Huot, Mathieu Nancel, Wendy Mackay, Emmanuel Pietriga, Romain Primet, Julie Wagner, Olivier Chapuis, Clement Pillias, James Eagan, et al. 2012. Multisurface interaction in the wild room. Computer 45, 4 (2012), 48--56.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  6. Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt. 1998. Contextual design: defining customer-centered systems. Vol. 1. Morgan kaufmann.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  7. Anastasia Bezerianos and Ravin Balakrishnan. 2005. View and space management on large displays. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 25, 4 (2005), 34--43.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  8. Erik Blair. 2015. A reflexive exploration of two qualitative data coding techniques. Journal of Methods and Measurement in the Social Sciences 6, 1 (2015), 14--29.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  9. Susanne Bødker and Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose. 2012. Dynamics in artifact ecologies. In Proceedings of the 7th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Making Sense Through Design. ACM, 448--457.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  10. Nadia Boukhelifa, Marc-Emmanuel Perrin, Samuel Huron, and James Eagan. 2017. How data workers cope with uncertainty: A task characterisation study. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 3645--3656.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  11. Frederik Brudy, Christian Holz, Roman Rädle, Chi-JuiWu, Steven Houben, Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose, and Nicolai Marquardt. 2019. Cross-Device Taxonomy: Survey, Opportunities and Challenges of Interactions Spanning Across Multiple Devices. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 562.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  12. Frederik Brudy, Steven Houben, Nicolai Marquardt, and Yvonne Rogers. 2016. CurationSpace: Cross-Device Content Curation Using Instrumental Interaction. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Conference on Interactive Surfaces and Spaces. ACM, 159--168.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  13. Antony Bryant and Kathy Charmaz. 2007. The Sage handbook of grounded theory. Sage.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  14. Edwin R Burtner, Richard A May, Randall E Scarberry, Ryan R LaMothe, and Alexander Endert. 2013. Affinity+: Semi-structured brainstorming on large displays. In Powerwall international workshop on ultra-high-resolution displays, CHI '13 Extended Abstracts. ACM, 6.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  15. Susanne Bødker and Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose. 2011. The human--artifact model: An activity theoretical approach to artifact ecologies. Human--Computer Interaction 26, 4 (2011), 315--371.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  16. Sheelagh Carpendale, Søren Knudsen, Alice Thudt, and Uta Hinrichs. 2017. Analyzing qualitative data. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM International Conference on Interactive Surfaces and Spaces. ACM, 477--481.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  17. Senthil Chandrasegaran, Sriram Karthik Badam, Lorraine Kisselburgh, Karthik Ramani, and Niklas Elmqvist. 2017. Integrating visual analytics support for grounded theory practice in qualitative text analysis. In Computer Graphics Forum, Vol. 36. Wiley Online Library, 201--212.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  18. Kathy Charmaz. 2014. Constructing grounded theory. sage.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  19. Juliet Corbin and Anselm Strauss. 2014. Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Sage publications.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  20. Juliet M Corbin and Anselm Strauss. 1990. Grounded theory research: Procedures, canons, and evaluative criteria. Qualitative sociology 13, 1 (1990), 3--21.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  21. Benjamin F Crabtree and William F Miller. 1992. A template approach to text analysis: developing and using codebooks. (1992).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  22. Ian Dey. 2003. Qualitative data analysis: A user friendly guide for social scientists. Routledge.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  23. Paul Dourish and Victoria Bellotti. 1992. Awareness and coordination in shared workspaces. In Proceedings of the 1992 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative work. 107--114.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  24. VF Elliott. 2018. Thinking about the coding process in qualitative data analysis. Qualitative Report 23, 11 (2018).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  25. Katherine M. Everitt, Scott R. Klemmer, Robert Lee, and James A. Landay. 2003. Two Worlds Apart: Bridging the Gap between Physical and Virtual Media for Distributed Design Collaboration. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '03). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 553--560. https://doi.org/10.1145/642611.642707Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  26. Florian Geyer, Ulrike Pfeil, Jochen Budzinski, Anita Höchtl, and Harald Reiterer. 2011. Affinitytable-a hybrid surface for supporting affinity diagramming. In IFIP Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Springer, 477--484.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  27. Florian Geyer, Ulrike Pfeil, Anita Höchtl, Jochen Budzinski, and Harald Reiterer. 2011. Designing reality-based interfaces for creative group work. In Proceedings of the 8th ACM conference on Creativity and cognition. ACM, 165--174.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  28. Saul Greenberg and Bill Buxton. 2008. Usability evaluation considered harmful (some of the time). In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems. ACM, 111--120.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  29. Jens Grubert, Matthias Kranz, and Aaron Quigley. 2016. Challenges in mobile multi-device ecosystems. mUX: The Journal of Mobile User Experience 5, 1 (2016), 5.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  30. Gunnar Harboe. 2017. PapperlappApp: augmenting paper-based affinity diagrams. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Zurich.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  31. Gunnar Harboe, Gelek Doksam, Lukas Keller, and Elaine M Huang. 2013. Two thousand points of interaction: augmenting paper notes for a distributed user experience. In Distributed User Interfaces: Usability and Collaboration. Springer, 141--149.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  32. Gunnar Harboe and Elaine M Huang. 2015. Real-world affinity diagramming practices: Bridging the paper-digital gap. In Proceedings of the 33rd annual ACM conference on human factors in computing systems. ACM, 95--104.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  33. Tom Horak, Sriram Karthik Badam, Niklas Elmqvist, and Raimund Dachselt. 2018. When David meets Goliath: Combining smartwatches with a large vertical display for visual data exploration. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 19.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  34. Tero Jokela and Andrés Lucero. 2014. Mixednotes: A digital tool to prepare physical notes for affinity diagramming. In Proceedings of the 18th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Media Business, Management, Content & Services. 3--6.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  35. Tejinder K Judge, Pardha S Pyla, D Scott McCrickard, Steve Harrison, and H Rex Hartson. 2008. Studying group decision making in affinity diagramming. Technical Report. Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  36. Jiro Kawakita. 1991. The original KJ method. Tokyo: Kawakita Research Institute 5 (1991).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  37. Nigel King. 1998. Template analysis. (1998).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  38. Scott Klemmer, Mark Newman, Ryan Farrell, Raecine Meza, and James A Landay. 2000. A Tangible Evolution: System Architecture and Participatory Design Studies of the Designers Outpost. NCSTRL. UCB/CSD-00 1117 (2000).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  39. Scott R. Klemmer, Mark W. Newman, Ryan Farrell, Mark Bilezikjian, and James A. Landay. 2001. The Designers' Outpost: A Tangible Interface for Collaborative Web Site. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST '01). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1--10. https://doi.org/10.1145/502348.502350Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  40. Clemens N Klokmose, James R Eagan, Siemen Baader, Wendy Mackay, and Michel Beaudouin-Lafon. 2015. Webstrates: shareable dynamic media. In Proceedings of the 28th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology. ACM, 280--290.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  41. Ida Larsen-Ledet, Henrik Korsgaard, and Susanne Bødker. 2020. Collaborative Writing Across Multiple Artifact Ecologies. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1--14.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  42. Jiali Liu, Nadia Boukhelifa, and James R Eagan. 2019. Understanding the Role of Alternatives in Data Analysis Practices. IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics 26, 1 (2019), 66--76.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  43. Andrés Lucero. 2015. Using affinity diagrams to evaluate interactive prototypes. In IFIP Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Springer, 231--248.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  44. Andrés Lucero, Jaakko Keränen, and Hannu Korhonen. 2010. Collaborative use of mobile phones for brainstorming. In Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Human computer interaction with mobile devices and services. 337--340.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  45. Paul Luff, Christian Heath, Moira Norrie, Beat Signer, and Peter Herdman. 2004. Only touching the surface: creating affinities between digital content and paper. In Proceedings of the 2004 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work. 523--532.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  46. Motoki Miura, Taro Sugihara, and Susumu Kunifuji. 2011. GKJ: Group KJ method support system utilizing digital pens. IEICE transactions on information and systems 94, 3 (2011), 456--464.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  47. Tomer Moscovich, Fanny Chevalier, Nathalie Henry, Emmanuel Pietriga, and Jean-Daniel Fekete. 2009. Topology-aware navigation in large networks. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2319--2328.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  48. Brad Myers, Scott E. Hudson, and Randy Pausch. 2000. Past, present, and future of user interface software tools. Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 7, 1 (2000), 3--28. https://doi.org/10.1145/344949.344959Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  49. Dan R Olsen Jr. 2007. Evaluating user interface systems research. In Proceedings of the 20th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology. ACM, 251--258.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  50. Thomas Olsson, Else Lagerstam, Tuula Kärkkäinen, and Kaisa Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila. 2013. Expected user experience of mobile augmented reality services: a user study in the context of shopping centres. Personal and ubiquitous computing 17, 2 (2013), 287--304.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  51. Seonwook Park, Christoph Gebhardt, Roman Rädle, Anna Maria Feit, Hana Vrzakova, Niraj Ramesh Dayama, Hui- Shyong Yeo, Clemens N Klokmose, Aaron Quigley, Antti Oulasvirta, et al. 2018. AdaM: adapting multi-user interfaces for collaborative environments in real-time. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 184.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  52. Peter Pirolli and Stuart Card. 2005. The sensemaking process and leverage points for analyst technology as identified through cognitive task analysis. In Proceedings of international conference on intelligence analysis, Vol. 5. McLean, VA, USA, 2--4.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  53. Arnaud Prouzeau, Anastasia Bezerianos, and Olivier Chapuis. 2018. Awareness Techniques to Aid Transitions between Personal and SharedWorkspaces in Multi-Display Environments. In Proceedings of the 2018 ACM International Conference on Interactive Surfaces and Spaces. 291--304.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  54. Christian Remy, Gunnar Harboe, Jonas Frich, Michael Mose Biskjaer, and Peter Dalsgaard. 2021. Challenges and Opportunities in the Design of Digital Distributed Affinity Diagramming Tools. In European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics 2021. 1--5.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  55. Johnny Saldaña. 2015. The coding manual for qualitative researchers. Sage.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  56. Florian Scharf, Christian Wolters, Michael Herczeg, and Jörg Cassens. 2013. Cross-Device Interaction Definition, Taxonomy and Applications. (2013).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  57. Raymond Scupin. 1997. The KJ method: A technique for analyzing data derived from Japanese ethnology. Human organization (1997), 233--237.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  58. Hariharan Subramonyam, Steven M Drucker, and Eytan Adar. 2019. Affinity Lens: Data-Assisted Affinity Diagramming with Augmented Reality. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 398.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  59. Edward Tse, Saul Greenberg, Chia Shen, Clifton Forlines, and Ryo Kodama. 2008. Exploring True Multi-User Multimodal Interaction over a Digital Table. In Proceedings of the 7th ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS '08). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 109--118. https://doi.org/10.1145/1394445.1394457Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  60. Susan M Winchip. 2001. Affinity and interrelationship digraph: A qualitative approach to identifying organizational issues in a graduate program. College Student Journal 35, 2 (2001), 250--250.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  61. T Wynn. 1993. Layers of thinking in tool behavior. In (KR Gibson and T. Ingold Eds.) Tools and Cognition in Human Evolution.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar

Index Terms

  1. ADQDA: A Cross-device Affinity Diagramming Tool for Fluid and Holistic Qualitative Data Analysis

      Recommendations

      Comments

      Login options

      Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

      Sign in

      Full Access

      PDF Format

      View or Download as a PDF file.

      PDF

      eReader

      View online with eReader.

      eReader
      About Cookies On This Site

      We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website.

      Learn more

      Got it!