[Sigia-l] Ethnographic research?

[Abbe Don]

There is a long and significant history of designers and  
anthropologists working together, and in particular, of interactive  
designers borrowing from ethnographic methodologies to influence  
product design or to see how a prototype of product might be used.

Some work that I'm familiar with, in chronological order:

Back in 1991, Tim Oren, Brenda Laurel, and I did a semester long study  
of the Guides prototype which we dropped into a 5th grade classroom to  
see how the teacher and students interacted with the system over time.  
We used a variety of research methods to collect data.

Lucy Suchman was the leader of the anthropology group at Xerox Parc for  
many years and influenced many people in the valley to use ethnography  
as part of the product development and design process. If you aren't  
familiar with her work, youcan now find her on the web at:
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/lsuchman.html

Hewlett Packard has also made use of ethnography to influence product  
development. In 1998, Allan Kuchinsky, Celine Pering, David Frolich   
and I did a really interesting study about how families share  
photographs. We interviewed families at the beginning of the study;  
documented the visible photos in their homes (refrigerators, hallway  
photos, photos on shelves, albums, etc), and then we had them keep  
journals and record conversations as they shared photographs over a 3  
month period. A full write up of the research is available at:
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:re-S5oTRqLAJ:www.hpl.hp.co.uk/ 
people/dmf/HP%2520Reports/ 
PhotoWareReport.doc+david+%2B+hewlett+packard+%2B+fototalk&hl=en&ie=UTF- 
8


Tim Plowman of Cheskin Research has an excellent chapter on product  
development and design in the new book edited by Brenda Laurel entiteld  
Design Research.
To see the table of contents, go to:
http://www.tauzero.com/Brenda_Laurel/DesignResearch/ 
DesignResearchTableOfContent.html

To order the book, go to:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0262122634/ 
qid=1065762099/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/002-6803487-3907268?v=glance&s=books









On Feb 9, 2004, at 7:33 PM, Christina Wodtke wrote:

> We do quite a bit of ethnography, and recently it shaped choices in
> shopping, photos and search.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Arthur Fink" <arthur at arthurfink.com>
> To: "SIGIA-L" <sigia-l at asis.org>
> Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 9:10 AM
> Subject: [Sigia-l] Ethnographic research?
>
>
> Most of us tend to test/refine our designs in lab settings.
>
> A friend of mine with a strong background in anthropological  
> ethnographic
> research asked me if these disciplines are ever used in interaction  
> design
> projects ... either in the US or abroad (perhaps at places like Philips
> Design).  Now she's got me interested as well.
>
> So ... any knowledge of or thoughts about this?
>
>
> Arthur Fink
>
>
>     Arthur Fink Consulting  ·  arthur at ArthurFink.com
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>
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Abbe Don
abbe at abbedon.com
http://www.abbedon.com
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