23/01/19 - OBSERVATION in Langenau

In the observation phase, the behavior of real people in real situations and in relation to specific tasks is to be analyzed. Hereby it is very important to put oneself into the perspective of the certain persona and to encounter the persona openly and with empathy. Active listening is of utmost importance as well as paying attention to facial expressions, gestures or non-verbal communication. In order to gather as much information as possible, it is always a good idea to rather ask open questions than “yes-or-no” questions. As a guideline what to watch out for during the observation, the AEIOU table on the left side can give some hints.

With our questionnaire sets in the hand and with the aim to reach as many citizens as possible in the given period of time, my group met together in Langenau after lunch this afternoon. We then spread the group and were going from the central “Marktplatz” into different directions. Already the first attempts to interview somebody showed me that this is not as easy as I thought it would be. Many people were annoyed very quickly when you asked them for two minutes of their time to participate in our survey, because they “don’t have time at the moment” or “are in a real hurry”. Contrarily, there were also some people who were open and willing to share their impressions and experiences. One man for example discussed with us for a long time why he thinks that eMobility is mostly a political affair but in in real-life not really feasible. At the end of the day, we still collected round about 50-60 filled-in questionnaires, which we will have to evaluate the upcoming days. We also left some questionnaires at the Community center, at Café Auszeit, at Gesundheitszentrum and at Cardio Fitness, which we will pick up some time next week. I had the impression that we mostly interviewed retirees or students, given the time slot that we have been walking around in Langenau, but we will see what turns out when we have a closer look on the questionnaires.

Besides the interviews we also gathered some own impressions from the infrastructure in Langenau and found that there are many places of information e.g. train and bus schedules at every station or many signs (for cars, bikers, visitors). There were also many possibilities to park your car (limited to 90 mins) and bikes. However, there were very few bike lanes and we also saw students riding their bikes on the sidewalks instead of on the streets. Besides the many limited speed and low traffic areas, there are also many crosswalks and traffic lights. While one bus driver showed me that his “NauBus” has an access for wheelchairs, the elevator for reaching to the opposite tracks at the train station was broken.

All in all I think we did a good teamwork today and all I wanted to do at the end was getting into my car because it was freezing cold outside.