From Theme to Implication

In this tutorial, we will bring together and extend our understanding of qualitative and quantitative analysis using multimedia analysis, inter-rater reliability rating, and triangulation techniques.

Pre-Class Tasks

1. Watch this video on applying Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis, focusing on how themes are developed; and read (Braun & Clarke, 2006), pp. 94–97 (Potential pitfalls and What makes good thematic analysis?) to strengthen your understanding.

2. Use the ACM CCS Topics Tool to guide your selection of an HCI subtopic. Start with the top-level category Human-centred computing. Drill down into a more specific area that interests you (e.g., Accessibility systems and tools, Interaction Design). Paste this area into the ACM Digital Library. Using the search term, choose two papers published in one of the SIGCHI conferences. Both papers must include a user study such as interviews, workshops, field studies, etc. Read the sections where the authors present and interpret their study outcomes. These may be titled Findings, Results, Analysis, Reflections, or Discussion (not all papers use the same labels). Treat these sections as your ‘raw data’. Worked Example:

   • 2.1. Selected CCS concept: Human-centered computing → Accessibility → Accessibility systems and tools
     
   • 2.2. Search Accessibility systems and tools in ACM DL, filter by ACM SIG Sponsors to select SIGCHI conferences. Additionally you may filter by Proceedings series to select a conference of your choice.
     
   • 2.3. Find relevant papers from this pool, depending upon alignment with the task and your interest.

3. Analyse: From the two papers, identify a theme that cuts across both. Based on this theme, write your own implication to the theme in two or three sentences.

   • Tip: A theme is the organising idea, while an implication to a theme is the interpreted insight you want readers to take away. One good way to internalise the difference is by looking at examples from various conference venues within the wider HCI field. Here are some papers demonstrate the use of themes and implications: (Deng et al., 2022) pages 11-16, (Tahmidul Karim et al., 2025) pages 3-5, (Choi et al., 2024) pages 221-224, (Adiwangsa et al., 2024) pages 5-8.

4. Post on Ed: Your submission must include:

   • CCS Concept (see 2.1 in the Worked Example under sub-task 2)
   • Citations of the two papers you analysed
   • Your theme and implication(s) in your own words.

This pre-class task offers a first step in triangulation, combining results from different papers to practise how mixed methods approaches build stronger, more credible design implications.

Plan for the Class

0. Review the pre-class tasks together (15 mins)
1. Further Qualitative Analysis (30 mins)
2. Inter-rater reliability (15 mins)
3. Triangulation (15 mins)
4. Research Cluster Meeting (15 mins)

In-Class Tasks

Task 0: Themes and Their Implications (15 mins)

This exercise will teach you how to build insights from themes, do this as part of the reflection exercise from the pre-class task. Read (Maguire & Delahunt, 2017) for an elaborated example.

Group up with 3-4 classmates. Complete the table below together using your own theme-implications pairs as examples.

Discuss together and write in the “notes/reflection” column:

• How are your implications different from simply restating the theme?
• How do your implications interpret the data or highlight significance?

As a group, share your thoughts on any of the following questions with the class:

• What makes a strong implication?
• How can you redefine implications so they go beyond the theme?
• How does thinking about themes first help you generate insightful implications?

Task 1: Coding and Theming (50 mins)

You and your group of 3-5 members will work with a set of images from Peter Bennetts’ Tuvalu series (1998 - 2001) to practise deeper qualitative analysis including coding, theme-building, reliability scoring, and generating implications.

Prompt

Visit the Tuvalu project by Peter Bennetts here. Think about the context: Tuvalu is a low-lying island country vulnerable to sea level rise. The images show people, places, environmental context, and changes over time.

As a group, define a focus for your analysis. Some examples:

• Human experience of environmental change
• How landscapes and/ or community infrastructure respond to rising water
• Daily life and resilience
• Visibility of climate change impacts

Data Collection

1. From the Tuvalu photo set, select 6-8 images that are especially evocative for your chosen focus. You will need to scroll right to access all the images.
2. Download them or note their IDs on your sticky notes.
3. Make sure to include a range showing people, environment, infrastructure, etc.

Multimedia Analysis

1. Individual Coding: Each person in the group codes all selected images on their own first. Coding procedure from Lecture 6 on Thematic Analysis still applies here. Your codes should be short descriptive labels tied to something you can see or infer (e.g., happy children, community gathering)
2. Shared Codes and Theme Building: Bring all the sticky notes for individual codes together and cluster the codes into themes. Try to settle on 2-3 themes that you feel capture meaningful patterns across the images.
3. Record: Record implications from your themes in the shared spreadsheet.

We adapt the research context of co-designing with the Global South, and multimedia analysis method applied by the following authors in this task: Bidwell et al. (2010)

Task 2: Share implications (10 mins)

As a class, discuss your themes and implications:

1. Broaden your view by looking at what other groups have reported. What themes overlap with yours? What is different?
2. Create a short synthesis (3-4 sentences) of how your group’s implications sit alongside others. Consider whether combining perspectives creates a richer picture.

Task 3: Research cluster meeting (15 mins)

The last 20 minutes of this workshop is dedicated to re-forming your research clusters (or forming new ones if you want) and sharing some plans for your final projects¹. It’s ok if you haven’t completely decided on your final projects yet, this meeting is to understand and discuss ideas.

As a group you should:

• Discuss the final project specification and requirements. What parts of the project do you think will be interesting or fun?
• Discuss your research questions, or which aspects of the theme jump out to you as particulatly interesting.
• Discuss your plans for prototyping. What prototyping methods will you choose? This is a good chance to ask your tutor about prototyping techniques or write a forum question if you are confused.
• Discuss your evaluation plans. What kinds of data will you collect? Remember that you don’t have to do both quantitative and qualitative analysis but can choose the types or combinations that make most sense for this assessment.
• Discuss the time and place that you might meet for further meetings or to complete evaluations.

Remember that every tutorial in the course is followed by a 30 minute drop-in — this means the room is booked and free to use for this course! In week 12, the whole tutorial class is just drop-in consultation so you have the complete session to do your final project.

Resources

• Tuvalu project by Peter Bennetts link
• Designing with mobile digital storytelling in rural Africa (Bidwell et al., 2010)
• Quantifying Collaboration with a Co-Creative Drawing Agent. (Davis et al., 2017)
• https://www.nngroup.com/articles/triangulation-better-research-results-using-multiple-ux-methods/

References