What has changed? Last night we had a frank and open talk by Steve Portigal and what happens in a typical project in their consultancy. One thing he said that inspired me was ” I’ll show you our framework, so you have something to push against”. He wasn’t saying that his was the right way, rather here is something that you can build on – take forward in your own way. I now realise, we can’t standardise Design Ethnography, Experience Research, User research…what ever you want to call it – and thats okay. But we can talk about what WE do and allow others to talk about that. (A root of this thought lies in the wall of terminology activity that the DE students undertook this week, more on that later).

So talking about what we do is the first step. If we and clients understand, document and communicate what we do, as a field of practitioners and buyers we can benefit from the work of others. Instead of building walls around ourselves for protection, we should open the gates and let people wander in and have a nosy. Therefor building a community not a minefield. Can we replace competition with collaboration, instead of being overworked and exhausted can we connect individuals and companies who are well suited? I am not naive enough to think that it will all become rosy, but I hope that if we can accept and understand our differences, we can also see what we have in common, especially the values that underly our work. Though this can only happen if we are able to talk honestly about what we do, without fear and ridicule dictating our interactions.

So what can I (we) do?

Can we learn to ‘pay it forward’ in Design Ethnography?

We need to understand and define what we do, so we can tell others.
We need to understand and define what we do, so we can tell clients.
We need to understand and define what we do, so we can do our job properly.
We need to understand and define what we do, so we can say no to jobs we can’t complete.

Others need to understand and define what they do, so they can tell us.
Others need to understand and define what they do, so they can tell clients.
Others need to understand and define what they do, so they can do their job properly.
Others need to understand and define what they do, so they can say no to jobs they can’t complete.

Pause before you say yes to that next job. Question yourself, why are you taking it, is someone more suited? Can you connect that potential client with a researcher/company that will deliver what they need? Cat Macaulay said recently, ” in our business a successful project is one where you get hired again”, that gives me ‘something to push against’. I think a successful project is finding that client that you would like to work with again, because the values, project process and outcomes and steps after came together in a way that allowed everyone involved to find their element.

I liken this balance to historical fiction; the commonly accepted facts of history exist in the story and are the foundation unto which a particular plot line hangs. As the ethnographer, you set your characters (your findings) in the given context (the historical backdrop). It’s the accepted facts that are universally true or true enough for the purposes of the product or service and the plot line that really drives it home to the “storyphiles” in us all.

It’s natural to present this way because our brains work this way. We think in melodrama understand by creating cultural narrative structures. George Lakoff has made a career out of studying these ideas (mainly in the political realm) and how the language we use physically shapes our minds. His work is built on the work of Erving Goffman (who described how we use frames to understand institutions) and Charles Fillmore (who described how words are defined relative to frames). Because words and frames are activated unconsciously in our brains the way and order in which they are used fires off certain neurons. When this is done repeatedly (that is if you get lots of client meetings) it creates neural pathways and circuits, which changes brains. So by repeating certain language in our stories, we can actually create what is normal and convince people of certain truths.

It’s important to note that this is not manipulation. While it can be used manipulatively, the key is to understand that this is how we reason and that there is no such thing as neutral language. Instead, language that has a history, a history that automatically activates certain understandings. Sometimes, it may be part of an ethnographer’s job to break down those presupposed metaphors and introduce other, equally relevant ones to convey an insight.

If the complications of language were not enough, there’s another complication that’s emerged in our digital age. As David Weinberger describes in Too Big to Know, we live in a new era of knowledge. Whereas facts used to take great effort and time to expose (Darwin took seven years and seven volumes to determine if barnacles are mollusks or crustaceans), right now facts do not stand out as clearly as Darwin’s definitive stand. Right now, knowledge includes more than just facts, but also the disagreements and debates around those facts. This makes decisions quite a bit harder, yet at the same time it makes for a fuller plot as you can navigate the twists and turns of a debate before arriving at the answer.

All of this speaks to placing yourself in your client’s shoes and having your client place themselves in the shoes you’ve made for them. Knowing all this, it’s important that you are confident with these findings in the first place. Bear in mind now, confidence is not absolute certainty. Some amount of doubt is inescapable, but absent designing a product and launching it based on ethnographic insights, you have to be comfortable that you informed your client of the relevant socio-cultural issues at play. So how can you be confident? Intuition? A hunch? A client-Turing test where if it makes sense to the client then it is true enough? I think if the story is both rationally and emotionally logical while being true to your participants, then it is worth standing by.

I also think the Q & A is really the answer. That’s where meaning cuts through the fog of written and “presentation” language. That’s where your client can really parse the details and decide if they can really see themselves in this story or not.

For more on the art of storytelling, I suggest this Current TV interview of Ira Glass. Glass has made a career of appealing to the “storyphiles” in us and he shares his techniques here.

As a bilingual or multilingual speaker, have you ever conducted an interview in another language other than your primary one?

When conducting an interview in another language, it is more challenging, since the language itself adds an extra layer of understanding and interpreting to the whole work.

As a Mandarin speaker studying in an English-speaking country, most of time I conduct interviews in my second language as most of the participants are native English speakers. Sometimes I find myself is quite comfortable with this, though often I am less confident about doing this than in my first language. The familiarity with participant, participants’ willingness to talk, accent, and my nervousness all affect such feeling. Undoubtedly, the mastering of language is the first challenge.

It is a challenge to behave naturally, to lead the path of the interview and at the same time have to pay much attention on the process of language. Furthermore, with the difference of conventional conversation habits across languages, the interview conducted by people speaking another language may not seem natural enough for interviewees. It also requires longer time spent on transcribing afterwards for non-native interviewer. However, beyond these challenges of basic levels, the language brings us more. Especially as we all know, language is not standing alone, it always sits with the culture behind it.

There is one of significant challenge about understanding interviewee’s contextual meaning. Highlighted by the High-Low Context concepts from anthropologist Edward T. Hall; high context messages refers to those major meanings were internalized in cultural physical context and conveyed less by verbal expression, this part of massages can be hard for people outside the context. For a person who is not using one language as first language, those boundaries of high context messages can expand, failure to understand underlying meaning of words may mislead the analysis of interview to a large extent.

The linguistic competence can affect the emotional engagement in the interview as well, for instance, the trust building between interviewee and interviewer. When the interviewees think the researcher can deeply understand and relate to the things they talk, they also regard the listener as reliable and will be more likely to talk. Conversely, the confusion or uncertainty showed by non-native speaker interviewer may increase interviewee’ suspicion and consequentially affect the quality of interview.

However, sometimes, the challenges can be seen as a chance, since the principle of ethnographic interview is to always ask why and never assume we have already known the reason behind things, a group of ethnographers believe that, the barrier of language to keep us as an outsider can be helpful^[1][2]. After all, “Could you tell me what you exactly mean by that?” is always an essential question for ethnographers.

On the other hand, being sincere and well-prepared help us to equip with some right things for those challenges. Trying to learn about the participants in advance, we can find a more effective way of communication. Whilst by showing the qualification as a good listener, we will encourage people to talk more.

Language is a tool, we get information via it but the information is not all about the words we transcribed. With all these challenges, the aim to do the ethnographic interview keeps the same, which is to understand from heeding, it is never too easy to do this, but also, we enjoy the charm of pursuing.

Reference

1. Chen, S.-H. (2011). “Power Relations Between the Researcher and the Researched: An Analysis of Native and Nonnative Ethnographic Interviews.” Field Methods 23(2): 119-135.

2. Winchatz, M. R. (2010). “Participant Observation and the Nonnative Ethnographer: Implications of Positioning on Discourse-Centered Fieldwork.” Field Methods 22(4): 340-356.

This Christmas break my husband and I went to Germany. All my family and friends live in Germany, and since I emigrated from Germany to the US in 2003, I have not been able to be home for Christmas. Being in Europe for my Master’s studies finally offered us the opportunity to go back, consume Glühwein and roasted nuts at the traditional Christmas markets and generally enjoy the comforts of nostalgia and childhood memories.

A few days into our journey, my husband made an off the cuff remark about the apparent acceptance of discomfort in the German culture. Immediately I wanted to defend “my people”…How dare he. After all, I was born and raised in Germany and to some degree, still considered myself one of “those” people. I started defending the little actions made by my friends and family that he was describing, and wrote them off as simple differences in personal preference. But after this short exchange of thoughts, the idea stuck with me. The great thing about traveling with someone who is new to your own culture is that you get another opportunity to see your own cultural norms through the lens of a foreign voyager.

Lena Blackstock
@lenacorinna
http://www.lenacorinna.com/

A few weeks ago I attended an event that focused on service design, and offered an opportunity for a small group of people to share experiences and thoughts on this growing field of design. A conversation arose around changing career paths, how experience translates into new areas of work, and what transferable skills apply to working within service design.

This made me think about the evolving field of design ethnography, and its roots in anthropology. Many of us studying and working in DE do not have this background, but what else can we bring to the field?

Speaking to the rest of our class, it is clear that we all bring a complex and diverse personality to each project. My own experience and knowledge is mainly based in design – interaction and graphic design, but like many other people I’ve had a myriad of jobs and experiences that contribute to the way I work. As we are hoping to practice DE in the near future, I think it’s important that we consider how these transferable skills could influence and shape this evolving field.

For me, being educated and working in ‘design’ has had a huge impact on my thinking and my methods, in relation to how I approach a problem. There are numerous debates and opinions on ‘thinking creatively’ or ‘design thinking’ that it’s not relevant to discuss here and now, but from my own experience, the design process in practice is an extremely valuable tool in understanding and thinking differently about any type of problem. Of course the design process is not something that can be so easily defined, and when I make this statement I’m referring to the overarching principles that exist within all areas of design, from service to product to system. Different disciplines certainly have different approaches, but the thinking and understanding involved in each of their processes is similar.

Seeing things differently

Going back to the conversation that provoked this thinking, one contributor noted that naïvety can be an advantage when it comes to approaching a problem. In the same way that we as ethnographers attempt to see the world (or a part of the world) through a different lens, it can also be true that as a newcomer to a certain field, we come with fresh eyes. Seeing a problem, or a culture, or a person in a different light often uncovers insight that is invisible to an experienced eye. I like to think about it as similar to the familiarity we might have with our own homes. When you live in a place for a long time, you stop seeing the objects around you, as they almost become part of your plane of vision. You stop noticing the details and shifts that a visitor would immediately pick up on. In the same way, when methods become familiar, we lose the precision in practicing them that once made them magical.

The flip side of this argument is that experience brings a type of sensitivity to a subject, and an understanding of what is relevant and important. In particular, when it comes to filtering data or finding opportunities from insights. Expertise in a certain field is an invaluable asset, one that provides the knowledge required to become natives in the land that we practice. Those finding their feet and exploring this land could be compared to tourists; if they find the right local to ask for directions, they’ll discover the hidden streets and unspoken treasures that make the place special. In the same way we can all learn from the masters of our ‘craft’.

And so what about a compromise? Where is the middle ground when it comes to navigating your way through an industry?  A common ‘tool’ in design is intuition – a skill that many believe cannot be learned. In Design Anthropology, Jane Fulton Suri suggests that “design and innovation are creative endeavours that defy entirely rational and linear processes. Human intelligence, skill and leaps of imagination are required to grapple with multiple variables and uncertainties to make future sense”.

This idea of ‘intuition’ could be a boundary between the naïve approach and the experienced approach. Finding that boundary and remaining on the thin line is a balancing act; some may learn it, some may possess it already but we can always improve it through practice.

When we observe, question and try to understand people and cultures, our interpretations of what we’ve uncovered are what leads us to potential opportunities. Interpreting is a personal, almost ‘bespoke’ skill whereby experience, mood, naïvety and many other factors influence what we, as individuals, find meaningful and interesting. And that’s our intuition. In some respects this is the one skill that we can all have – beginner’s and professionals alike.

So what can we as explorers of design ethnography, take from this? Yes, anthropological theory and practice has an integral role in defining this emerging practice, but we can also look to other disciplines to establish a diverse toolkit of methods. On a wider level this becomes relevant when applying for jobs after university, moving into a new industry or career path, and even when starting a new project and working in a new team of people. In a ‘problem space’ multi-disciplinary working can bring new perspectives and often a synergy that does not exist when working alone.  All of us bring knowledge and expertise in one field, and are learning to have alongside that a broad empathy towards other skills and disciplines. More than anything, design has taught me to have trust in the experience and intuition that drives our thinking.

Fiona McGowan
http://strangesparks.co.uk
@strangesparks

Using POSTA framework for observation in the field

As part of a team I contributed towards two ethnographic research projects, ‘exploring the work patterns of mobile workers’ and ‘how multi-person households do grocery shopping’. The challenges I faced in documenting ethnographic research for design ethnographers were mainly concerned with ‘communication’. In order to communicate well, design ethnographers’ doc

umentation, such as interview transcripts, field notes, and hot reports, need to make sense not only to the researcher him/herself but also to other design ethnographers both within and outside a team. The clearer the documentation, the easier the data and obtain actionable insights.

Before the research takes place, we, design ethnographers, need to first make sure we, along with the client, formulate the right research question. Once the research question is set, we should then put our empha

sis on the communication within the team. When documenting a fieldwork, our writings about the people and culture we are studying undoubtedly makes sense to us, what we write doesn’t necessarily make sense to other design ethnographers and vice versa. One way to solve the problem is to create a certain protocol for observation and interviewing to structure the research in team situations; adopting frameworks is specially useful. Frameworks allow us to communicate with ourselves, making sure we stay on the right track while in the uncertainty of the field. Moreover, they provide us the tools to make sure our documentation is transferable to other design ethnographers. For instance, in the research on ‘how multi-person households do grocery shopping’, our team used the POSTA framework to observe the five categories, person, objects, situations, time, and  activity in different types of households. As far as interview framework is concerned, the DECA (see footnote) framework, meaning description, exploration, context and action, encourages design ethnographers to document as much background information as possible with ‘description’ and ‘context’, facilitating the understanding between design ethnographers and the synthesis and analysis process.

Though frameworks provide structure, guidance and solid found

ations for design ethnographers to make sense of data, the validity of ethnographic research is worth of discussion, as the qualitative data we produce in the field are not purely objective. How we trust each other’s documentation is thus a challenge. In ‘Problems of Reliability and Validity in Ethnographic Research’, Margaret D. LeCompte and Judith Preissie Goetz remark that different academic trainings of ethnographers lead to perceptual biases. To combat biases, LeCompte and Goetz note an often-used self-monitoring process of ethnographers, c

alled ‘disciplined subjectivity’. This is a process in which ethnographers keep questioning and re-evaluating all the attributes of the process and make sure the documentation as trustworthy as possible.

Documenting ethnographic research is not an easy task, but we definitely can reduce the lev

el of difficulty by adopting tools like protocols, frameworks and self-monitoring technique. With those, our documentation can then facilitate the communication between design ethnographers and others. And, with actionable materials to work with, we can then gain more actionable insights.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

It is my understanding based on the projects I have done in the course. It will be nice to hear what challenges you face and what processes you use to facilitate the transfer of materials in team situations.

Footnote: DECA is a framework designed by Catriona Macaulay used in the course of Msc. Design Ethnography at the University of Dundee.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Li-Chuan Chiang

http://www.linkedin.com/in/lichuanc

@brilliantrish

Start your journey here!

Applications are now open for the MSc Design Ethnography 2012/13 academic year starting this September, at the University of Dundee, UK.

The MSc Design Ethnography course provides students from a wide range of backgrounds with an opportunity to immerse themselves in the tools, techniques and controversies of user research and design ethnography. It aims to address an industry need for user/design researchers, design and business professionals who are sensitive to the complexities of delivering high value user data and insight, in global and multi-cultural design and business settings. If you want to be part of the continued growth of design ethnography: adding value to business, design and innovation, get in contact and join us in Dundee.

If you want a quick introduction to our programme check out our Programme Introduction.

We welcome students from a wide range of backgrounds – the only things all our gang have in common are insatiable curiosity about people, the world we live in, and design!

If you would like to apply, follow these two simple steps:
Step 1. Email Dr Cat Macaulay, Programme Director to arrange an informal chat: catriona@mac.com
Step 2. Visit the University of Dundee admissions page for entrance requirements and fees and funding information:
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/ postgraduate/courses/

The other night we had dinner and drinks with some good friends and soon the discussion turned to science and how the general assumption in our society is that if it’s science, its gotta be true. Science is often seen as the eternal truth…unquestionable facts…the secret weapon of many heated debates. And this was the exact point around which the conversation evolved. As one side of the argument rattled of all the times science has failed us and has mislead our understanding of the world (think the-earth-is-flat-type-of-stories), the other side stood loyally by science’s side.

Somewhere in this exchange, as art was brought into the argument, both sides seemed to agree on the fact that in today’s world, most people who perceive science as the unquestionable truth, would most likely put art on the opposite side of that spectrum. While science explains the world around us, art is just this “wishy-washy” thing we use to explore all the unexplainable components of human existence. After all, we can prove mathematical formulas and laws of physics, but art doesn’t offer us any statistics, numbers or reliable laws which help us explain the world around us (at least not in a “logical way”). Science gives us tangible numbers and facts while art can “only” give us intangible knowledge about our existence. Clearly an understanding of science and an appreciation for art are not mutually exclusive and many people who trust in science also love art. But there seems to be some sort of clear discrepancy between how “true” we perceive scientific work vs. artistic work to be.

While the argument spiraled in on art vs science, I realized that this is the same debate we as students of Design Ethnography have been observing in this evolving field – the debate about market research vs. design research, of quantitative vs qualitative data. One of the greater challenges in DE seems to be conveying the importance of qualitative data to the higher-ups in big industry, who, for so many years, have been given reports of statistics and numbers. How do you convey all the messy but oh-so-rich data that doesn’t always seem to fit into the major categories? How do you convince a client that months of research and thousands of dollars are worth it, even if no real “facts” are guaranteed to emerge at the end of it all? How do you change the perception that a large sample of a standard survey with multiple choice answers is your best bet of understanding your consumers? How do we convey to those who control budgets and make decisions that this rich, yet “unscientific” data will give them true, full-circle, 360-degree stories of human beings – their customers and clients – which will lead to far more valuable insights than clear facts and numbers about the “average consumer?”

There is an article on why science fails us by Jonah Lehrer titled “Trials and Errors” making the rounds on many blogs right now (I found it on curiosity counts here, but it was originally published on wired.com here about a year ago). He talks about science, and more interestingly, our assumptions of cause and effect.

“The problem with this assumption, however, is that causes are a strange kind of knowledge. This was first pointed out by David Hume, the 18th-century Scottish philosopher. Hume realized that, although people talk about causes as if they are real facts—tangible things that can be discovered—they’re actually not at all factual. Instead, Hume said, every cause is just a slippery story, a catchy conjecture, a “lively conception produced by habit.” When an apple falls from a tree, the cause is obvious: gravity. Hume’s skeptical insight was that we don’t see gravity—we see only an object tugged toward the earth. We look at X and then at Y, and invent a story about what happened in between. We can measure facts, but a cause is not a fact—it’s fiction that helps us make sense of facts.”

This often seems to be the real challenge of good qualitative research – analyzing the data, but not data you can count, or prove, just lots and lots of complex, messy data. To not give into temptation and try to find patterns and stories in the data that aren’t there, because that is the only way the data can be “sold” to the client. We found out first hand during semester one how hard it is to NOT “look at X and then at Y, and invent a story about what happened in between” as Lehrer puts it so well. We have to stay true to the data, we are always reminded. Look at the data, find patterns emerging, note them, then take it all down and start over.

And yes, something new does emerge every time you take down all those carefully arranged, beautifully coded stickies. And sometimes it is a real story about real customers that will excite the client. And sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it is just real, messy data. Artfully collected, artfully told data.

So maybe one of our considerations as design ethnographers should be guiding the science-minded clients to learn to love the artfully evident data? How do we bridge the gap between the “science believers” and the art lovers in business?

Lena Blackstock
http://www.lenacorinna.com/

“The Dundee Summer Hothouse epitomises for me the way that industry-academic collaborations of the future could and should work. Everyone wins.” - David Prendergast, European Social Science and Design Lead, Health Research and Innovation, Intel Labs (Hothouse 2010 and 2011, now external examiner for the MSc programme)

The Dundee Design Ethnography team are on a mission; we are looking for s small group (4 or 5) of organisations to join us for a summer investigating the impact of the rise of self-service and automation on users and providers. The start of the  21st century has been marked by the rapid growth of the self-service revolution begun in the 20th century. Self-service has now become visible in high street shopping centres, in airports, even in health care settings. It’s not just in retail and service sales contexts that self-service is becoming more important. Governments, public and voluntary sector organizations, educational institutions, even the arts, are all becoming sites of self-service experience/provision. But what is this shift from staffed to unstaffed service doing to the user experience, and to service providers? Are we really designing for some solitary self, or are things more complex than that? The research space is huge, for example:

• Self? - Self-service supermarket checkout and airline check-in kiosks are now commonplace. But whereas when they first appeared they were often devoid of all but the occasional brave user, we are now used to seeing around them a flurry of users and, interestingly, a retinue of staff there to help people with the ‘self- service’ process. The more unstaffed service grows the more it seems we need, or are required to use, new kinds of staff within the self-service experience. What impact is this having on staff, organisations and users? How do people feel about needing help at the kiosk? Why is it so hard to create a truly self-service experience? Who is the ‘self’ we are designing for, are they really alone in the experience: what happens when the ‘self” service is in a multi-user context – for example when a self-service transaction is being conducted on behalf of a group of people?
• Better? – For service providers the narrative is that self-service (whether it be buying groceries, making a financial transaction, or learning something new) is cost- effective and improves user experience. But how do services users define ‘better’? What are the hidden impacts on both users and providers of the shift to self- service or automation? And how do self-service and social networks (online and/or real world) interact?
• Barriers? – many people still find self-service off-putting. Whether it’s buying the groceries, finding our way around a building or accessing customer-support, the lack of the human touch is seemingly a barrier for many. What role do issues like trust, security and identity, play in different kinds of self-service encounter and industry context? Are some people more likely to use self-service than others, and what role might peer support play in encouraging the self-service refusers?

Ethnographic research offers a great way of getting up close and personal with some of theses issues, but for most organizations, even those that can afford to undertake exploratory ethnographic research, tackling such a huge space is difficult. This is where the University of Dundee MSc in Design Ethnography Hothouse Summer comes in…

The Hothouse Idea

Like most masters courses, we need industry projects for our students. Learning how to be a good design ethnographer is greatly accelerated by live experience with a real client. In the current climate, such projects can also offer a cost-effective way for an organization to engage in exploratory or blue-sky work design research work. Working with you we help to define a project for a small team of ethnographers, project manage your team, and coordinate with you to ensure that the focus and outcomes are delivered to suit you (not us!). But why have only one project when you could have 4 or 5? The novel bit is that during and after the project our partners share their progress and outcomes: you sign up for one project but you get insight into several! And our students work on one project but learn from several. It’s open innovation for industry-academia partnerships.

“Great experience with dedicated students, curious, well trained and aware of what is important in our job, ready to learn, hard workers, independent and creative, and tech-friendly. We did a great job together and really could use their fieldwork thanks to a straight collaboration in its preparation and analysis.  I am looking forward to collaborating on another top topic!” - Laure Kloetzer, Senior Corporate Antropologist, Swisscom (Hothouse 2010 and 2011)

The Details

When Does This Happen?
Projects officially start May 1st and end the 2nd week of August. We develop the project briefs with our industry partners in March and April.

Is This an Internship?
No. Students are based in various locations around the world and primarily managed and supported by the Dundee faculty team. Your relationship with them is in effect that of client and consultants. We ask you to meet in person at least once in May where possible to launch the project, subsequent meetings are usually a mix of online/phone and in person. We have however found that as with any consultancy, the more face-to-face time the team and you have together, the better the project goes.

What Will It Cost?
Three things: Time. Money. Enthusiasm.

1. Time: How much time you put in is up to you and your circumstances. Our experience though indicates that the minimum time required is: around 4 hours during March and April for us to work with you on developing a project brief for your team. During the main project period we ask you to commit to meeting online or in person with your team at least once a fortnight for an hour. A further hour will be required for meeting prep, responding to team requests for information or help, etc. We will also ask you to complete a project wrap-up report, which will take around an hour.
2. Money: We charge a basic fee of £4000 to cover university and student travel etc. costs for projects based mainly in the UK and Europe. Projects with fieldwork sites beyond the UK/EU or with particularly high fieldwork costs are negotiated individually.
3. Enthusiasm: Our students are well trained, energetic and desperate to do a good job for you. This project will provide their main talking point in job interviews when they graduate. Their enthusiasm is at your disposal, but like all students they are learning. They will need your guidance, input and enthusiasm too.

Where Can I get Fieldwork Done?
Our students are internationally diverse and happy to travel wherever necessary for your project. Past fieldwork sites have included Indonesia, the USA, Germany, Finland, India and the UK. In 2012 we can offer potential fieldwork opportunities in the USA, UK, Germany, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Hungary, Indonesia or Canada.

How Do I Find Out More?
Contact Hothouse Director Dr Cat Macaulay: c.macaulay@dundee.ac.uk.

What is it?

A chance to learn, to get advice from students and alumni, and to find out more about Design Ethnography.

How:

1. Post a comment with a question you’d like to see answered.
2. Scan through the comments to find questions you’d like to answer.
3. Continue the discussion by replying to the thread.
4. Take it farther! Sharing and expand the discussion – post interesting questions/responses on twitter with #dethnoama, link the post to people who’d like to participate, and join in the conversation.

Suggestions for potential question areas:

• Lessons from previous years
• Project/life management strategies
• Expectations v reality
• Hindsight is 20/20
• Staying sane outside of class
• Beyond DE – next steps
• Where are you now?
• Applied DE – futher applications/experiences
• Professional advice

So who’s asking?

Current DE Students

DE Alumni

Professors, Experts, and Professionals

**Please include your class year and profession in your reply (for example, DE 2011, Researcher at XYZ)

And who’s answering?

Everyone! Don’t hesitate to post replies, add to existing answers, and join in the conversation.