Design of experiments with users: lessons learned

One of the most common methods in research is the observation of subjects in a laboratory. The discipline known as HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) studies the form in which we people interact with technology, its purpose being to adapt the interfaces of the devices to the way we naturally relate to them. HCI researchers have very different backgrounds: some come from Computer Science, others from Information Science, others from Journalism. Experimentation as a work method is quite unusual in those disciplines, which means they have had to learn it and overcome some setbacks. This article provides with some guidelines regarding how to conceive an experiment, and some case examples are shared wherein some planning or preparing mistakes were made.