The task I was set for this seminar session was to attempt to acquire information from a brief set of questions. These questions were then answered with a yes or no response and with this information, I was suppose to acquire what the person was thinking of. This process was similar to the game 20 questions. However this process required myself to write down questions first before I asked someone the set of questions. This made calculating the answer much harder as I couldn't change my course of thinking while I asked the questions.
Here are the set of questions I asked.
Is it something you eat? NO
Is it a person? NO
Is it someone famous? NO
Is it something you use? YES
Is it something that requires power? YES
Can you communicate with it? YES
Do you use it often? YES
Do you have it with you now? YES
Is it expensive? YES
Is it well known? YES
With these set of questions I tried to best fill all potential outcomes by asking a range of varied questions. Unfortunately even with multipul answers suggesting that the item in question was a mobile phone, the item they was thinking of was a computer. This had shown me that even the most obvious answer can have endless possibilities.
We then started the activity again but this time we were able to think on the spot of questions, with this restriction lifted I felt much more confident about guessing the final outcome.
Is it an inanimate object? YES
Can you eat it? NO
Is it decorative? NO
Can you play with it? YES
Does it require power? YES
Is it expensive? YES
Can you play games on it? YES
Is it made by Microsoft? NO
Is it made by Sony? YES
Is It the latest model? YES
This time I was much more successful in achieving my goal, I managed to guess that the answer was a Playstation 4. The point of this was to solidify the idea of understanding my research approach, becoming much more flexible in the way I work but also not be afraid of changing research patterns if the current one isn't gathering the right kind of information I am after.
