Comments for The Voice of Experience

Comment on Finding your element by Kate Saunderson

Kate Saunderson — Thu, 03 May 2012 11:52:45 +0000

Thanks Steve, indeed. When you learn that you can’t separate your self from your work, it makes it a little easier. For a long time I have been trying to untangle the discussion around the role of observer in participant observations, making myself as neutral as possible. But life is surely what feeds into the work, your experiences, understanding or lack there of and ability to explore and push boundaries.

Comment on Challenges: Gaining First-hand information in Second Language by Li-Chuan Chiang

Li-Chuan Chiang — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 21:56:20 +0000

Hi Junying,

I can resonate with your post, as English is also my second language. I really like the point you made – although language can be a barrier for us to fully understand a group and/or a culture, it also provides us the chance to be an outsider. Being an outsider gives us the opportunity to see things in a different/fresh way than being an insider. Echoing Cat’s words, “assume nothing and question anything”, we are actually beneficial from being an outsider when conducting ethnographic research. On the other hand, as you mentioned, it is somehow less comfortable to conduct the research in our own language. Perhaps it is our task to learn.

Thanks for a post in the aspect of language. I enjoy reading it.

Comment on Presenting Design Ethnography Project Outcomes by Storytelling « Strange Sparks

Storytelling « Strange Sparks — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 21:59:28 +0000

[...] Thanks to Boris for enlightening me in his blog post about presenting project outcomes. It has some other interesting links too: http://designethnography.dundee.ac.uk/voe/2012/02/21/presenting-design-ethnography-project-outcomes/ [...]

Comment on Finding your element by Steve Portigal

Steve Portigal — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:47:37 +0000

A powerful and passionate sentiment. I’m inspired; and of course honoured by the mention. It’s so true, isn’t it, that often a discussion of how-to reveals a deeper truth that drives not only that activity but also so many others that we are faced with. Some might call that a Forced Connection, but it’s also what we look for in ethnography anyway; those seemingly throwaway comments that illustrate a larger, more universal truth!

Comment on Challenges in documenting ethnographic research for design ethnographers by Wang Junying

Wang Junying — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:29:30 +0000

This post made me think about the way we do docummenting in the project. I haven’t try much of doing this within one kind of protocol, but from what you just said, I thought I may try to do this next time within team, for the reason that we sometimes found it was hard to intergrate the findings from different team members. Besides, I think, based on some tools, we may save some efforts on digesting other peoples’ materiels, it usually takes time for us to share and thoroughly understand each other’s documents.

Similiar with Lena, another concern of mine about documenting is, how to keep the ‘thickness’ of one piece of ethnographic research until the very end, that’s both about documenting and communicating with others. Perhaps telling a whole story as final deliverable is a good way? I am very impressed with the ‘communication’ role documents plays brought by you, would like to discuss further on this topic.

Comment on Learning by Design by Li-Chuan Chiang

Li-Chuan Chiang — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 21:38:12 +0000

Hi Fiona, it is indeed a very interesting topic. It is kind of like the reverse side of the post I wrote, which emphasizes on certain framworks. Having background in design and traveling constantly allow me to relate to your post and see the importance of ‘being intuitive’. Frameworks offer us a guideline that prepares our minds before and during the fieldwork. Howvever, our intuition, formed partly by our past experiences, will also signify us what to pay attention to and help us understand the context. It fills in the parts frameworks don’t cover. For me, the challenge is how to balance using frameworks and trusting our own intuition and how to translate that to the team members.

Thanks for raising this topic and it will be a nice reminder for my future fieldwork.

Comment on Challenges in documenting ethnographic research for design ethnographers by Li-Chuan Chiang

Li-Chuan Chiang — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 20:53:31 +0000

Dear Cat, Lena, Fiona,

Thanks for the comments and glad to listen to your point of views. The word, ‘communication’ seems to stand out from the comments. I agree that communication is the basic and yet the most important element during (ethnographic)team work. In Experience Research I, Cat showed us a triangular diagram where ‘communication’ is the basis, followed by management, balance and insight. I think no matter if it is documenting ethnographic research or transfering our documentation to other researcher/team members and the client, the basic core is ‘communication.’ So, tracing back to the beginning, if each individual researcher is documenting the research as in detail as possible, the communication with others later on will be more effective.

Comment on Learning by Design by Kate Saunderson

Kate Saunderson — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:14:08 +0000

Building on what Cat talks about above, my understanding is that intuition is the ability to draw lessons unconsciously from similar experiences. So even if you have not been in that specific position before, you are able to draw together your past happenings to guide you forward. To allow this to happen, you have to take time to process your own experiences, reflect on what happened and move on, whether that be a week, month or years after the even. Just because you are working in a new field, does not mean you should leave everything at the front door and start completely afresh.

What else can we bring to the field? We can bring our past experiences, fresh perspective and energy to learn, from those already doing it and those taking the first steps beside us.

Comment on Learning by Design by Kate Saunderson

Kate Saunderson — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:49:40 +0000

I am deeply attached to the term ‘naivety’. I think it can take you many places with an open viewpoint and provide lots of opportunity because you are willing to take anything on board. The interesting part happens when you begin reflecting on that period of time and you realise how much you have grown.

Comment on An Apparent Acceptance of Discomfort OR The Foreign Voyager by Kate Saunderson

Kate Saunderson — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:42:25 +0000

“In order to understand a specific culture, you have to be able to understand the culturally accepted norms and the boundaries”
Your post raises some interesting questions. In this global culture that we live in how do you trap and communicate (to yourself and others) the ‘culturally accepted norms and behaviours’. If you are working in your own country, would you draft in another to help you spot home grown behaviours? Could you act as a professional ‘foreign voyager’ for pre fieldwork stages of other global research projects? And how would this manifest in a project proposal – x hours/days needed to get to baseline cultural understanding.

Also it highlights that you never stop questioning, even on holiday, but those breaks can provide us with space to bring in new lines of thought. Here is to getting away from the desk and questioning that which surrounds us!