[Sigia-l] RE: making the case for field research for innovation

[Laura Scheirer Quinn]

I've been working recently in a very technologically conservative environment lately (web-based IT systems for Pfizer) and I've found that simply calling contextual inquiry "user interviews" can do wonders for people's buy in here.  I think this is primarily because user interviews are a traditional way to gather requirements, while field study, ethnography, contextual inquiry all sound really new and scary.
 
I find that it's the schedule time and the user involvement that's hard to sell-- once you get this sold in I find that my decision makers tend to not care very much what I actually do with the users.  And going to the user, to talk to them in their space is the traditional way to do user interviews.  My decision makers tend not to see any difference between me sitting down and asking the user what they want from a new system (the "traditional" technique) and me asking the user to describe in detail what they do, and ideally watching them do it.  So I end up doing contextual inquiry and calling it user interviews (or even "requirements definition" if I need to).
 
In addition, Jason Bonander said:  <I would argue that field research is a bit more complex, involving a set of
tools and methods, than simply stepping outside the office. >  
 
I certainly don't disagree that there's tools and techniques, expertise, best practices, and all of that involved with field research.  However, I do think that in the real world there is often a huge benefit to simply "stepping outside the office" to talk to *anyone* doing *anything* with any method that you can buy in for.  I've found the lack of any user context at all to be stunning on many projects, and I've seen a lot of cases in which trying to get approval to do research the "right way" --generally a big, systematic study-- has hindered or prohibited the ability to do any research at all.  Of course we should fight to do it right, but I feel strongly that if it can't be done right, doing *anything* is generally a whole lot better than nothing.
 
Laura
 
 
> I'm having trouble making the case for field research (contexual
> inquiry) as a basis innovation and discovery. Management is
> very clear in its use for validation, but doesn't see value
> in going into an ethnographic methodology without any
> substantive vision to present to the user. I explained that
> presentation is actually contradictory to field research, but
> they don't see how observation & interview leads to invention.
>
> If you have any sources for articles or information that
> would be great. I've looked at incent.com, cooper.com and
> forUse.com already. Thanx!
>
> -- Dave
>
> David Heller
> Sr. User Interface Designer
> Documentum: The Leader in Enterprise Content Management