Thema 4, Qualitative methods

   I have read an article called “Studying Change Dynamics Using Qualitative Methods'' by Barbara Gray, Inger Stensaker and Karen Jansen. Qualitative changes, which are used in the study of variations, provide a rich and compelling understanding of how and why changes occur and their impact on different levels. This article explores the methods used in the qualitative analyse and ways to improve them. The authors explore the understanding of organizational technologies with the help of changes of methodologies.

   Organization and organizational areas experience transformations of the following types: less hierarchy, logical shift, innovative methods and technologies, greater use of network structures and processes of the organization. A qualitative approach is effective in the dynamics of changes and is the best way to understand them. Empirical study in both organizational and organizing areas can cope with the challenges they meet. Changes occur in one or more locations or conditions of the research. Several tasks such as the impact of the changes through learning, creativity, work, social studies and so on are solved here. There are three main areas in these studies.

  Narrative and identity changes are identification with a history of changes. Pace, rhythm and sequencing of change are recreation of identity of the agents in accordance with the current changes and shifts. Human responses of change are the sources of individual, group and institutional sustainability. The role of passion and emotions, resistance and inertness, and the negotiation of conflicts are examined here. The term “qualitative method” includes a wide range of approaches for studying of organizational phenomena. The choice of research methods depends on the questions asked. The questions themselves are dependent on the research context. The article “Comics, Robots, Fashion and Programming: outlining the cincept of actDresses” by Fernaeus, Y. & Jacobsson describes the design of programming languages ​​and the physical robot control research.

   Two types of sign systems describe the concept actDresses. This is a sign system that is used in comics and can be used for visual programming languages. Clothing and accessorizing were considered to control the behaviour of physical interactive devices. Physical decoration and labelling can be used for control, programming and impact analysis of behaviours of robotic systems. The behaviour of most consumer robots such as Pleo, Roomba or Aibo is based on the method of interaction.

   The study discusses the signs and symbols as well as semiotic which studies the use and interpretation of signs. The signs can be made in any form. They include words, images, sounds, gestures, actions, and physical objects. Clothing is used for communication functions. The physical form and the way it shapes the behaviour is the object of research. In terms of industrial design this concept has been framed as a balance between appearance and action. The concept of clothing can complement hardware capabilities of technology. The study examines three different types of robots. This is a robot dinosaur Pleo, a robot with an experimental platform GlowBots and a prototype robot vacuum cleaner.

   Pleo is a robotic dinosaur model is as an electronic pet. The robot is equipped with a large number of sensors that respond to touch and have a complex management system. Robot reacts on different clothes and models his behaviour. Models of wearing in the collection have RFID tags.GlowBots  collection is used for the second type of robots. These are robots with wheels for movement, acceleration sensors for user interaction, round LED-display on top of them. They react on people and other robots a nd consist of simple resistor block. A set of simple behaviour models for these robots can form more complicated models. The third type is robots vacuum cleaners that use Comic symbolic characters. In this case the raise of the possibility goal-oriented robots are considered.

   Specific architecture platforms are used in different sets of projects of respective platforms. In the comics and in fashion all the visual signs and symbols interact with characters, people, contexts and objects. In actDresses they have a different form of expression in the context of physical computing.