Types of ethnography diverse and cultural questions to ask?

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What is ethnography?Simply put, ethnography can be understood as studying, recording, and documenting human behavior in the field over a period of time. It's a powerful method of collecting rich, qualitative data, in the actual environment where human interactions are occurring. Unlike lab usability testing and focus groups, ethnographic research is both less structured and manipulating. Similarly, there are proper ways of conducting this kind of research which will allow for valid and reliable results. If possible, using multiple of these methods throughout your research will develop the richest data. A brief, sampled historyMany people offer varying opinions on who is the father of ethnographic research. But I will assign that title to Frank Hamilton Cushing (1857-1900) for his study of the Zuni tribe in New Mexico.

In 1879, Cushing was commissioned by the Smithsonian Institute to study the Zuni for approximately three months. The months became five years, ending in 1884. During that time, Cushing became what is known today as a participant observer to this culture. His intense ethnographic methods of observation, interaction, and recordings can be read in his writing My Adventures in Zuni.

Cushing's methods of qualitative research have influenced the roles of many anthropologists today. But ethnography is now being incorporated beyond academia. It is becoming a viral method that is used today in design to understand customer's needs in ways that statistical marketing trends and Demographics cannot offer. These firms are looking to answer not just who uses their products and services but why and how.

Henry Dreyfuss (1904-1972) used ethnographic methods throughout his important and storied career as an industrial designer. Dreyfuss believed in making products usable to the end users - a belief not held generally by industrial designers at that time. His desire to study the human form and determine human factors limits changed the way designers built products and systems. His publications on human factors and ergonomics are still used today.

In 1970 the Xerox Corporation wanted to create the "Office of the Future" and established the Palo Alto Research Center . In 1979, PARC created a team of scientists, anthropologists, engineers, and psychologists to use ethnography for human-centered technology design.

Proctor & Gamble, the fourth most profitable company in the world, uses ethnographic methods to advance their understanding of their user needs. During struggling times, P&G hired Claudia Kotchka as a vice president for design innovation and strategy. She introduced ethnographic ideas that involved studying users in the actual environment rather than labs. She was determined to understand how these users experience these products.

Types of ethnography: participant and nonparticipant observerParticipant observerA participant observer collects data by engaging directly with the subjects in the natural environment in order to collect rich qualitative, sociographic data. As a participant designer, the goal is to discover how users experience products or services. This is done by observing them in the environment in which they use the product. Nonparticipant observerA nonparticipant observer does not engage directly with the subjects, but seeks to gain an understanding of how users experience the product or service. He may collect qualitative data by observing but not engaging. This can be done by video or audio recordings, writing, Photography and other sensor logs (e.g. location data). Combining the twoDuring the process of the study, it may be necessary to follow both types of ethnography. A mixed approach can yield the richest data; it is important to use each method during the appropriate times with the appropriate tools and subjects. Getting started with ethnographydetermine your goals, objectives, and constraintsLike any design process, you must determine the purpose of your study. Having goals (values) determined will allow you to objectify the tasks that need to be carried out. As your ethnographic study begins and develops, you may discover opportunities to further refine your initial objectives and guide your study. This grounded, bottom-up approach is iterative. Further, constraints that will affect your study and need to be considered include: budget, time, resources, cultural knowledge, technology, etc. Identify the contextThe context of an ethnographic study includes subjects and the environment. You must be able to answer, initially, the questions:

• Who am I going to study?
• Where is the environment that I will begin this study?

An initial brainstorm will help identify primary and secondary subjects, their roles, attitudes, goals, and motivations. Use this information to create personas. These personas will guide your subject research and the types of questions you may initially ask.

Determine your roleIf you are going to be a participant observer, you may have to gain prior knowledge of the environment or service being studied. If you are observing how individuals get help at the local museum, it may be beneficial to gain permission to train and then become a docent at that museum for a brief period of time. This can provide rich data in understanding how these subjects ask for help and the type of questions they are concerned with, especially if they interact with you. Determine your methods, tools and resourcesEthnography uses many tools to collect and analyze data. Each method is specific to the ethnographic context. Below, I have shared a list of these for reference.

• Videotaping.
• Photography.
• Collect and research cultural artifacts.
• Oral histories.
• Individual Interviews.
• Group Interviews.
• Non-structured, semi-stuctured, structured Interviews.
• Participant observation.
• NonParticipant Observation.
• Statistical data collection.
• Meta-research.
• Literature reviews.
• Field notes.
• Participant journaling.
• Participatory design.

Get permissionIf your study involves following users in their protected environments - i.e., work, home, hospital care, church - try to get permission from those subjects. Make the details of your study clear to them, including the number of people who will be involved, the technology used to record, and how the data will be used and shared. If possible, use paper forms of consent and offer them the confidentiality agreement to take with them. If recording on audio or video, getting the consent on tape is almost as good as a signature on paper. Limit intrusionWhen observing people in their natural environment where the interactions occur, it's important to not influence and change their behavior due to your presence. Some people may act differently knowing their behaviors are being recorded and as a result may shy away from how they typically act. Record, record, recordCollect as much information, using multiple methods and tools. People will share valuable information differently, and you might miss something. Elizabeth Sanders explains that people communicate their experiences differently, and these experiences can be revealed using various participatory and observable methods.

Don't filter your ideas while observing and recording. You never know what's important at the time, so gather it all. You will have time once you get out of the field to analyze and code your notes and results. More data is always better than too little.

AnalyzeThe key here is to identify behavior patterns and categorize them and prepare yourself for more organized data collection. After collecting the data, categorize or tag, filter, organize, and prioritize the information. Act on discoveriesAfter analyzing the data and discovering patterns, validate them with further field research. It may be beneficial to re-interview subjects to clarify or further discover latent information. When possible, you've gathered contact information about them back when getting permission. If you plan on this, be sure to tell them you might contact them for follow-ups. Share and show offAll of this data can then be used to create validated personas, experience maps - see the Starbucks Experience Map that I have created before - and user-based scenarios. This sociographic information together with demographics provide a valid and reliable source of user information.

If you don't create visualizations or other easy-to-understand depictions of the information, the others working on the project (or even just approving it to get funding to go forward) will not understand and will be making decisions without this information. Get help from others to create diagrams, write more clearly, photograph, edit video, polish your presentation, or whatever is needed. Like any presentation of information, pay attention to your audience, and present the right way for them. You might need to take your wonderful "final" persona document and make posters so the developers remember them all the time, and a five-minute stand up presentation about it for the executives.

SummaryEthnography is a powerful method of qualitative research. The role of ethnographers has evolved from solely being used by academic anthropologists studying unknown cultures, to today where business, who are keen on staying ahead of their competitors, must understand the experiences and needs of their users. Because people communicate these experiences in many ways, designers and researchers should use ethnographic methods and tools to effectively collect and analyze this rich data. This collection and analysis of sociographic information along with demographics can provide reliable and valid findings. These findings can be represented with user personas, experience maps, diagrams, and scenarios in which team members and executives can easily understand and use to move forward with the design process.