The Usography team coded a number of dimensions for the Millennials Multichannel Apparel Shopping ethnography. Here’s the highlight video for personality of clothing:
Retail Ethnography by Usography: Personality of Apparel from Paul Bryan on Vimeo.
Usography conducted shopalongs with millennial females to determine possible access mobile commerce access drivers in common shopping experiences. As I mentioned in previous posts, we discovered interesting dimensions of decision-making. The clip below highlights one area of findings: the personality of clothing.
Retail Ethnography by Usography
After capturing all the data for the Millennials Apparel Ethnography, we needed to determine the strongest emerging concepts, to evaluate parameters that could drive the design strategy. First we reduced the transcipts to verbatims and observations that correspond directly to the codes, index terms, tags, etc. that we created from reviewing the complete data set. Then we placed the key sections of the transcript into an Excel table and assigned codes that represent their concepts. We then sorted by the codes and evaluated the strength of the concept for operationalizing as a variable to bring into quantitative research. An example coded transcript from the millennials apparel shopping project is shown below.
My talk on Ethnography 101 at the Usability Professionals Association in Munich went well. The audience was very receptive and about 50% of them participated in the group exercise.
The feedback on my session was very good. It was about a 4.5 on a 5 point scale, including one person who seemed to not like me or the presentation at all.
The most relevant and informative presentation that I attended was by Andreas Hauser and Daniel Markwig of SAP. I took a lot of notes in that one. They discussed how they adapted a major UX initiative to fit within a Lean process, which is very similar to Agile. The solution was thousands of screens in a complex ERP suite called Business By Design. They didn’t do the typical whining about how hard it is to be UX in an Agile world where documentation is antithetical to efficiency (?huh?). They explained how they used a pattern library combined with use cases and wireframes, to produce a recipe for UX that developers followed.
The overall atmosphere of the conference was very positive. People seemed very smart and focused, and spoke a common UX language, which was interesting to experience.
I really liked the shop windows in Munich. I posted a Flickr photostream:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43883838@N02/sets/72157624030593401/show/with/4647416633/
In the initial review of the millennials apparel shop along data, we’re seeing the following decision-making variables surface to the top:
We’re going to do a more in-depth analysis to formulate the primary segmentation dimensions. We will also overlay mobile technology.
Copyright 2010, Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (http://www.usography.com)
Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/uxexperts
Some of the more common data capture techniques in ethnographic research include:
Participant observation is the method that set ethnography apart. But this method has given way in market research to observation, i.e. the researcher does not actively participate in the behavior being observed. Informant debriefs refer to conversations that the researcher has with insiders who understand the behavior being observed, and who can explain phenomena that the researcher finds puzzling. In retail ethnography, this is typically a salesperson.
We use context mapping for nearly every project. We draw a map of the area being observed, include stations at which people pause or interact, and develop codes that allow us to quickly note behaviors and timeframes. Overlaying context maps helps us understand frequently observed patterns.
I enjoy the diary and collage methodologies. They provide a lot of insight into the mindset of participants, although that insight is sometimes difficult to translate into design recommendations.
Copyright 2010, Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (http://www.usography.com)
Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/uxexperts
Ethnographic research is broad in scope, so the questions it answers are equally as broad. Ethnography is often used in the discovery phase of a project. Some examples of questions that ethnographic research can answer include:
Ethnography is the best research method to use when you need to discover the fundamental factors that influence the customer experience. Not the attributes of a given design, but the underlying framework that determines the quality of the customer or employee experience. Ethnography takes you to the source of the experience, and gives you tools to discover the most impactful factors.
Another situation that Ethnography deals with especially well are when you are seeking innovative design solutions for daily life situations. Ethnography is a structured approach for leaving behind current solutions and going back to the life context that the design serves.
Another situation in which ethnography is uniquely capable to provide answers is when the key concepts involved in an activity are not yet well defined or operational. For example, suppose we are trying to design a mobile app and one of the key success factors is convenience. Convenience is not a simple concept. It involves location and time and fulfillment. Until we can break this concept down into operational or observable components, we are stuck with a vague notion of what we need to do to succeed. Ethnography helps discover and operationalize concepts like convenience.
Of course, the bottom line is, that the value of the research has to outweigh the expense.
Copyright 2009, Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (http://www.usography.com)
Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/uxexperts
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)
Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/uxexperts
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)
Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/uxexperts