Virtual Floorspace

7. Field notes are coded and analyzed for themes and key variables, and are edited to communicate a perspective.

Ethnography typically results in a massive set of rich data, from which researchers extract meaning, and hopefully, a well-founded direction. They develop a coding schema to summarize what was learned across the entire dataset and draw connections, corroborations, and conclusions. In the business of design, ethnographic research findings should include not only design recommendations, but conceptual designs that can be supported by and traced to specific data.

Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (www.usography.com)

6. Researchers add data collection methods as appropriate.

Ethnography is very flexible in terms of data collection. Some ethnographers develop their methodology in the field as events unfold. The primary data collection methods, observation and interviews, may be supplemented by a wide variety of field research techniques. Some additional data collection techniques commonly deployed by design agencies include passive video capture, video participant shadowing, photo elicitation, visual diaries, and concept collages. Research in archives as well as social media web sites can yield supplemental findings that are difficult to capture or observe in the field.

Results from ethnographic studies are often triangulated with quantitative methods, such as surveys or analytics, for corroboration, extension, or quantification purposes.

Copyright 2009, Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (http://www.usography.com)

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5. Maps depict the activity domain, with representation of key actors, sites, artifacts, and behaviors.

When conducting ethnographic studies, Usography researchers sketch out a map or diagram of the observed space, whether it is a store, an airport, or an area of a home. The most significant elements of the environment are represented either literally or conceptually. Flows that represent activities or processes are designated by arrows or other directional visual elements. The map can be a snapshot in time, but more typically interactions and physical paths are timed and represented as a holistic view over time. We usually include a few codes at the bottom of the interaction maps that indicate common types of behaviors or expressed emotions, such as consulting a salesperson (S) or acting frustrated (F).

Copyright 2009, Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (http://www.usography.com)

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4. Special attention is paid to environmental factors and artifacts that have an impact on the participant’s behavior, beiiefs or attitudes within the domain of activity under study.

Whether in the home, an office, a retail store, or a public meeting space, the aspects of the environment such as other people with whom the participant interacts, or supporting tools within that environment, may have a substantial impact on behaviors and decisions, which in turn could impact the solution space that designers need to address.

Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (www.usography.com) e-commerce design strategy, ethnography, methodology, qualitative research

3. Interviews are used to clarify what is observed and to gain a deeper understanding of behavior.

After  period of observation in the field, we use intercept or in-depth interviews to elicit explanations of terminology, decision factors, perception of what’s most important, motivations and beliefs behind behaviors, and other variables of interest. The interviews may be with participants that we have observed, or may be with “informants” who understand behaviors from an insider perspective, and who collaborate with us in a structured way. The informant may be a salesperson who has just finished interacting with a customer, or may be a manager or gatekeeper in other business settings. Interviews may be unstructured or semi-structured. A snowball or chain sampling method may deployed if the interviews are unstructured, but in commercial settings it is more common to screen participants on the basis of a set of pre-defined criteria.

Copyright 2009, Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (http://www.usography.com)

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Yesterday I started listing 7 characteristics of ethnography to distinguish it from other forms of research, for people unfamiliar with ethnography.

2. Observation is a primary data collection method, resulting in “thick” descriptions.

Ethnography is important as a research method when there are key factors that participants either can’t or prefer not to verbalize for one reason or another. For this reason, observation is an essential ingredient for ethnographic research. Observation is either unstrucure or semi-structured. If the variables are understood to a degree that a structured approach can be formulated, then ethnography is not the best method to use. Field notes provide a rich, or “thick,” description of behaviors and events.

Copyright 2009, Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (http://www.usography.com)

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Over the next few posts I will list some characteristics of ethnographic research as practiced by Usography.

1. The location of research is where the activity under study takes place, i.e. it’s native context.
With research intended to guide the design of a web site, the context of the activity may be where people use the web site, or where they conduct other activities related to the topic of the web site. For example, if the ethnographic study intends to guide design of a vacation resort web site, the context could be the participant’s home, where they use the web site and engage in planning and reminiscing activities. Or, alternatively, the context could be on site at the resort. If the problem we are trying to solve is well-defined, then the location context should be very easy to identify.

Copyright 2009, Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (http://www.usography.com)

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In case you want to check out some of the pioneers of ethnography, this entry mentions a few of their names. Lewis Henry Morgan was one of the earliest. He lived and worked with the Iroquois, studying their kinship patterns and the influence these patterns had on their society. He tried to use research and his influence as a lawyer to protect Native Americans from exploitation. Because he was such a strong advocate, he was adopted by the Seneca Indians, and was given the name Tayadaowuhkuh , “one who bridges the gap.”

German-born Franz Boas developed a more systematic approach to ethnography. Boas promoted the idea that a culture should be understood in terms of its own beliefs and history, rather than from the context of one’s own culture. This is the key point that connects ethnography as a research method and user-centered design as a professional practice.

Polish anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski developed ethnography further, codifying the practice of participant observation, spending long periods of time in the field, and recording copious field notes.

I mention these pioneers, not because I want to emulate them or study similar issues. Kinship patterns and tangential social gradients of power do not interest me at all. Rather, I’m interested in applying research techniques that help me understand and describe behavior in context, and the unseen forces that shape that behavior on a daily basis, and these researchers blazed a trail that I and my associates are picking up for a very different purpose.

Copyright 2009, Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (http://www.usography.com)

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Ethnography is a field research method developed by anthropologists to understand cultures other than their own. At one time, anthropologists theorized about other cultures from the comfort of their own life context. Ethnography was developed as a method to study the culture from within, as a participant, and at the same time as an observer. Ethnography is by definition and in practice a systematic approach for understanding cultural impacts on behaviors, attitudes, beliefs and rituals.

In recent years, ethnographic studies have gained favor across a wide range of commercial design situations. In the world of web design, the term ethnography can be used rather loosely to mean any research that is conducted on location, or in context of the activity for which a web-based system is being designed. Ethnography is most often used as a data gathering tool when the cost of research is significantly outweighed by the potential revenue of creating an innovative product. Ethnography is especially applicable to projects that are multi-cultural in nature, but is not limited to those types of projects. In design-related ethnographic research, the “culture” being studied may be a segment of a population that shares a set of common characteristics or goals.

Some of the methods associated with ethnographic research are: participant observation, in-depth interviews, participant diaries, informant debriefs, and context mapping. My presentation at UPA 2010 in Munich will focus on the application and adaptation of ethnographic research methods to the field of web design and usability, rather than a rigorous definition of anthropology research methods.

Copyright 2009, Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (http://www.usography.com)

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“Ethnography 101″  is the title of a presentation I will be giving at the International Usability Professionals Association in Munich in May of 2010. Of course, there have been more advanced papers on this topic presented at this and other conferences, in the context of web site design. But my objective with this presentation isn’t to break new ground in science, but rather to be helpful to people who are responsible for designing or managing web sites. I’ve consulted for the largest companies and agencies in the U.S., and find that ethnography is not a research method that is even on the radar of many web site owners. Their teams use processes that are many layers of abstraction apart from the reality for which they are designing. This is perhaps efficient, but I think it limits their solution spaces to the design and domain knowledge of their teams.

Ethnography, as applied to the business of design, puts designers in direct contact with the behaviors they are trying to support, impact, or augment. Going into the field and observing their target population in action can be disorienting, particularly if their design product is only one of a cacophony of voices and offerings and options. Back in the shop, or in the usability lab, their design product stands apart in shining singularity of attention, on a pedestal, a thing of beauty in its own right, viewed in isolation from the factors that truly impact its use. Sure, there are many methods available for understanding these factors, and I use a full range of qualitative and quantitative research methods in my work. But I am hard pressed to think of a design situation where structured direct observation and interaction with the population who will use the design is not an essential ingredient for design innovation. Even where the design has evolved to a formula that is fed by quantitative data which then drives each new iteration. Because even in that situation, the best you can hope for is incremental enhancement. Someone else will come along and change the game, and the numbers won’t show it until it is too late to be an innovator.

During the UPA session in Munich, I will ask for audience for design problems that we can use as cases for discussing all the steps of planning an ethnographic study. If you plan on attending the Ethnography 101 session, and you would like the other attendees to consider a design problem you are facing, you can send me an advance notice and I will make sure that it is considered for the group exercise.

Copyright 2009, Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (http://www.usography.com)

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Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (www.usography.com)