Tools can be a very, very distracting thing.
At the moment I am using HyperResearch to analyse my data, Freemind to organize my thinking and Omnigraffle (which was my friend Joahanna's recommendation) to put shape on things. I just wish that there was a way of doing them all together.
I wish HyperResearch had a graphic way of representing the connections of concepts. Couldn't they have just made a way to connect codes from different cases? Another big BIG frustration is that it doesn't like "cosmetics highlighting", meaning that you can't just highlight a quote or a passage of a text: you are obliged to code it if you want to retrieve it later. That forced me to create a code that is actually "highlights", which is ridiculous -- but a quite nice workaround. Now I can see why all those heated posts from those irritated researchers make sense: the software can indeed influence the shape of your analysis!
Now Omnigraffle is, for sure, the biggest distraction I had so far, with its little furniture shapes, and its cute colours and arrows.
This is why today was not be most productive of days. On the other hand, it was a nice day because I met Carly Stevens, a UCL MSc student like me and a very interesting person. She is doing research in electronic publishing, more specifically, she is investigating personalization and why it didn't really catch on.
2 comments:
Hi, Sarah. Regarding HyperResearch, have you checked out the Code Map yet? It's a little-known feature, but it might have some of what you're looking for - you can draw a mindmap of codes, add memos, link the items, etc. in the code map window.
You can also do things like select code references to work with by choosing a code in the map and selecting how many links out you want - for example, "show references to this selected code plus all codes that are within 3 links of this one".
(Sorry to jump in here but it sounded like this might be of interest. I'm not trying to shill, honest. ;-)
- Jeanne DeVoto (HyperResearch tech support)
Hi Jeanne,
Thank you so much for posting your comment: I had no idea about the code maps!!! I have been struggling -- and wondering why such a cool tool like HR didn't have such a basic function. Well, it does, I am the misinformed one. Congratulations for your work and thank you for your attention. I wish more people did their jobs like you.
:)
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