Thursday 23 April 2020

On Surveys and Questionnaires as research methods - UCD access to the Qualtrics tool

Designing surveys and questionnaires is hard but we have good tools... The UCD College of Business has a site licence for the online research survey package, Qualtrics. The licence is for both staff and students (use your @ucdconnect.ie email address as username to register).  Qualtrics is a leading online resource which enables users to engage in many kinds of online data collection and analysis.

Why do we recommend Qualtrics over other tools? Because it offers fantastic in-app advice and tips on good questionnaire construction.

  • We have unlimited users access for ALL staff and students across the College of Business for own projects and assignments.

More information at

https://iltg.ucd.ie/kb/qualtrics-surveys/

Wednesday 8 April 2020

What is design thinking?

What is design thinking? For me design thinking is two simple things. Design thinking is an attitude to the world and it is a way of organising design action in the world. 

First, design thinking is simply an attitude to the world. I think of it as a way of seeing the world, an openness to seeing things differently from time to time. This mode of design thinking needs us to be awake to the ways we encounter the world, things, and interactions because most of the time most of these happenings are kind of invisible, subliminal.

The second way of thinking about design thinking is that it is simply a way of organising design action in the world. This is the public version of design thinking that we see in the IDEO videos or presented as design sprints. And design action in this sense is the process of finding challenges, problems, envisaging and idea generation, solution proposal and creation, testing and feedback, and again and again.

This post by Kristen Seversky also offers a short but thoughtful take on design thinking in the realm of software development. Kirsten describes herself as a "product-owning, design-thinking, code-writing, people person striving to make tech more meaningful and inclusive." In Design thinking and my journey from software developer to product owner she reflects that:
``Design thinking isn’t a set of laws; it’s a shift in focus that re-centers humans at the core of our work. We’re a bunch of humans building solutions that humans will use. Maintaining exposure to their realities is our only means of actually solving problems instead of indirectly creating new ones. It’s an ethical agenda.''

Tuesday 7 April 2020

The view from here...

(https://iwa.ie/information/dvd-section)

The Irish Wheelchair Association produced the 'View From Here' video as a learning resource for starting discussions about disability awareness.

 

Take special care to notice the power gap that our wheelchair user experiences simply by being lower than everyone else. A similar problem experienced by both small and tall people to different degrees. Not so much the power of deliberate exclusion but rather the power of omission. The spatial zones delineated by where and at what height our gaze is directed.

Thursday 2 April 2020

NDA training module - introduction to...

From http://nda.ie/resources/eLearning
``
The National Disability Authority has produced this short online training module to help staff to deal with customers with disabilities. The module is aimed at public sector staff in Ireland.
Anybody can do the training module. All you’ll need is a computer with web access, sound output and on average it takes one hour to complete. The module works best with the Internet Explorer browser. It does not work with the latest versions of Chrome or Firefox.
You can also watch this video introduction to the module, and proposals as to how to make it work within your organisation.
''

   

Wednesday 1 April 2020

Murderball - wheelchair rugby

From Wikipedia:
"Wheelchair rugby is a team sport for athletes with a disability. It is practised in over twenty-five countries around the world and is a summer Paralympic sport. Wikipedia"