[Sigia-l] Ethnographic research?

[Anne Miller]

Alexandre Castro e Silva - Usability said:
I think interviewing is fundamental.

Contextual inquiry and ethnographic or phenomenological approaches are
really more then interviewing. First the attitude that the interviewer
adopts is important. As Karen Holtzblatt describes it, interviewers adopt
the attitude of 'apprentice' to expert users as 'masters'. Because the
'apprentice' is new to the work naive questions can be asked. Naive in the
sense that obvious questions can expose deep cultural assumptions,
conventions and practices. Contextual inquiry is also interested in the
artefacts of work place culture, these can be material artefacts (post-its
on computer screens - i always ask if an interviewee will show me what they
have in the top draw of their desk - this is the most likely place for
keeping work around aids and can provide great insights about how the work
really gets done - there are also behavioural artefacts - e.g. why do you go
to that person for a signature before you send a fax and so on.
Understanding work as a socially contextualised activity also means that you
can make inferences about the effects of implementating particularly
software but any tecnology on work. In terms of value adding to a project
this type of information can be extremely useful if a process re-engineering
effort is also underway, it is also useful in designing communications to
staff in relation to change menagement. By understanding and adopting the
language of the work culture - communication can be more effective.

Anne Miller
Coordinator
Human Factors Online
Key Centre for Human Factors
University of Queensland
http://www.humanfactors.uq.edu.au

-----Original Message-----
From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org]On Behalf Of
Alexandre Castro e Silva - Usability
Sent: Tuesday, 10 February 2004 11:14 PM
To: SIGIA-L
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Ethnographic research?


I think interviewing is fundamental.