Systematic gathering of objectively perceptible facts at the time of their occurrence, for example, to detect usability problems.
While observing in the research study, we try to understand the context of the situation. For instance, when conducting a non-participant study, we study and annotate their movement pattern, their actions and their body language. Conducting a non-participant study over a period of time, a designer can give a tangible or visible form, to their subject and their behavior to support the research.
Similarly, after conducting a set of studies, designing for the user and going ahead with user testing, time is a crucial asset in detecting usability problems to understand user behaviour, including scanning, searching, and viewing behaviour. Eye movement data also can be used to learn which elements on a user interface are harder to recognize (Poole and Ball, 2005). Although eye movement data can help in understanding several usability issues on a specific user interface (Ehmke and Wilson, 2007), the analysis of eye movement needs to be informed by other collected data within the usability testing session, such as users’ verbalisations. This is because specific user behaviour can mean different things. For instance, long fixation durations on a specific area of a user interface can indicate difficulty in extracting information, or that a user is engaged (Just and Carpenter, 1976).
**Making interactional interfaces more intelligent is not trivial and there are multiple approaches to enhance either the intelligence of the system or that of the user. Novel interface approaches follow the idea of embodied interaction and put particular emphasis on the situated use of a system and the mental models humans develop in context.** https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/embodied-interaction
Powers of observation in creative design – Janet L Kolodner, Linda M Wills