[Sigia-l] Ethnographic research?

[Stew Dean]

At 18:51 10/02/2004, Listera wrote:
>"Arthur Fink" wrote:
>
> > It was, indeed, a hard sell, to convince the client that this would be a
> > sensible (really a vital) investment in their product.
>
>It all depends on how you frame it for the client. I don't think "We want to
>do an ethnographic study of interruption patterns of ..." would go very far.
>But the client is already engaged in a similar activity, they just call it
>the salesforce in the field.:-) I see plain old salespeople doing field
>observation/low-key interview work in malls and supermarkets all the time,
>for example.
>
>Ziya
>Nullius in Verba

Ziya,

I have to agree with you on this one - front line sales people often have a 
great insight into how things work (and how they don't) and also know the 
customer incredibly well - after all it's their job.  I am a great believer 
in using the expertise of those in the environment rather than going in and 
using a pure ethnographical approach. I question if even a fully trained 
and objective person can learn as much about a task or environment by 
observation in even a month as can be gleened from involving those who have 
worked in the role for several years and have their views on how things 
should work.

The Japanese have an approach called quality circles' that encourages those 
who do a job to find ways of making it smoother, this I have seen first 
hand being used at Campbell soups, for example.  Too often consultants with 
no domain expertise try to solve the problem for those who may already know 
what the problem is.

My view is all activities constantly have to serve two purposes.  One is to 
uncover more about the target audiences to allow profiles, tasks 
descriptions and other user requirements to be built up (plus hopefully 
feeding the tech lead with info about exisiting technical solutions). The 
other is to involve people with the project and ensure the result is the 
product of all views - not just my personal view. After all it's not about 
designing for myself.



Stew Dean
:: www.stewdean.com ::  music :: user experience :: alife ::