I love Tom Fishburne’s cartoons!

Don Norman and Roberto Verganti are asking in this article “Can design research ever lead to radical product innovation?“and they provide the answer “Yes, but this is unlikely to occur through the methods of human-centered design.”

Going on they say:

The more that researchers study existing human behavior, activities, and products, the more they get trapped into existing paradigms. These studies lead to incremental improvements, enabling people to do better what they already do, but not to radical change that would enable them to do what they currently do not do.

Of course they are not against research – for those who do not know Don is the “Norman” on Nielsen Norman Group - one of the biggest and most influential research institutes in the world and he helped to define what HCD is nowadays.

What I think is that disruptive innovations are not common and organizations need to know, get inspired and connect with people, so research is crucial. However, trapping people into a lab-like aquarium and watch a discussion while eat snacks will not be very helpful.

I have moderated many “focus groups” with a diverse range of objectives. From exploring a very abstract concept and its relation to transportation, to very concrete testing where was hard to tell what was prototype and what was a working product. For me the worst part was always the lack of context. Small comments that in a contextual situation (such as house visits) would lead to a conversation around a pan, a ring or a bible ended or simply never happened because the “hook” for the conversation was not there.

It is not new that “innovation” people hold some mixed feelings about focus grups, lately Gianfranco Zaccai from Continuum wrote on FastCompany that “Focus Groups Kill Innovation” and after a lot of negative reactions he wrote a more a more friendly article “Focus Groups Are Dangerous. Know When To Use Them“.

But why business and focus group live such a happy love story?

According to Jenn Schiffman and Defne Civelekoglu from Gravity Tank at their presentation Refocus Group there are three main reasons for such love.

Cost effective - You can have a relatively big group of people coming to a facility and giving answers.

Time effective - You can interact with 16 or even more people in a single day, a lot compared to house visits for example.

Proven method - It is somehow traditional and known at the clients side. Way easier to understand than more less traditional methods.

Their proposal is to develop a more empathetic kind of focus group. Do it in other environments, having researchers, designers, participants and clients together in a more natural conversation. Use rough prototypes to stimulate conversations and so on. Have a look on Gravity Tank’s lecture and gather some tips for future focus groups.

The Refocus Group from gravitytank on Vimeo.

What do you think?

Recording. Coding. Transcribing. It’s painful. But it’s necessary. And it normally doesn’t look like an orderly rainbow-colored layout of post-its on a ping-pong table.

I’ve gotten to the point where I know that 30 minutes of interview will take me 2-3 hours to transcribe. An hour of recording can take up to 5 hours, or possibly longer (due to fatigue). It’s one of those things that has to be done (kind of like vacuuming the floor or washing the dishes), but once it’s done, how delightful it is to read and re-read these interviews, especially ones you were not present for. It’s like reading a small chapter out of someone’s life.

I can’t say it enough. I hate coding even more than I hate transcribing. (I’m impatient and like to lead by intuition, kind of a no-no at this stage.) It just feels like one more extra thing to do. But what it did for us in this project was open up our minds to seeing the information we had in a neutral way, detached and separate from the influence of our initial hunches. Whoever said ‘you always find what you are looking for’ was undoubtedly talking about the biases and unique lens with which we all see the world (written *tongue in cheek* but it’s true).

If you read a transcript with a presupposition in mind, you tend to find all the points that confirm the ideas or hypotheses you began with. Coding helps to remove that bias, and although we can never be entirely free from our own world view, it allows us to take off our lenses (albeit temporarily) and re-focus our vision on what is grounded and verifiable, regardless of who is doing the verifying.

For more on coding:
http://changingminds.org/explanations/research/analysis/ethnographic_coding.htm

A great post from Sam Ladner on the theoretical how’s and why’s of ethnography:

http://www.samladner.com/being-practical-heideggers-lesson-for-design-research/

_________________

Friday, Nov. 9, 2012
THEME: Balancing Leadership & Perfection / What are my innate talents and strengths?
AGENDA: Morning Client/Cat Meetings, 1:1 w/ Cat / Take the Weekend to Transcribe

Stephani, Lan and I agreed we would take the weekend to transcribe everything from the week, and Monday would begin sensemaking and coding.

One thing I am worried about is taking too much time ‘coding’ without being aware of the amount of time we have left before the client presentation and report hand-in. Stephani made a good argument for going step-by-step, and I am seeing that she is extremely process-oriented and making sure we do things the ‘right way,’ which I appreciate. But some of the steps, in terms of coding the same transcripts so we can compare biases, while extremely valuable, are things that I am not sure we have time for at this point. Perhaps I lean towards being a little too ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ when I feel the clock ticking.

_________________
Sunday, Nov. 11, 2012
THEME: Transcribing is a Pain
AGENDA: Transcribing / Meet at Stephani’s on Sunday Night to Plan Out the Final Week

We transcribed and shared all of our interviews on Dropbox. We also met at Stephani’s to discuss coding protocol and dividing up the transcripts so we could start immediately first thing on Monday. This was very productive and a good kick-off to the week.

_________________
Monday, Nov. 12, 2012
THEME: Clicking Information – Getting Everything Into Our Brains
AGENDA: Coding Transcripts

A day of coding transcriptions. This was really key to get the info into our brains, absorb what we heard, and understand all the other participant voices.

We didn’t get to affinity mapping, but we limited our coding to highlighting with 4 colors:

• Yellow = Existing Uses / Current Activities
• Pink = Barriers / Obstacles
• Green = Hopes / Opportunities
• Blue = Waterfront-related Thoughts / Reflections

Although I was skeptical that sitting and coding (and ‘reading’ the transcripts as if they were assigned readings and journal articles that we would come back to discuss) would be a good use of time for the entire Monday, I found the coding incredibly helpful in the end and was very glad that we took the time to do it.

_________________
Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012
THEME: Eureka – How Everything Makes Sense
AGENDA: Affinity Mapping / Post-Its / What do we want to say? / Starting the Presentation

Last night, I brainstormed via email and Google Spreadsheet about a million ways this data is starting to ‘make sense’ and the themes I’m beginning to see. Stephani is concerned with ‘evidencing’ and not jumping too quickly to conclusions before we actually know what is there. But both Lan and Stephani agree with the key themes, and that our data does support what I am saying.

It’s interesting for me to note that while Stephani agrees with the themes I see overall, I guess I tend to make too many leaps for her comfort. She still needs to sit down and affinity map and see what the data gives to us before we come to any finite conclusions. I guess this is the difference between my intuitive nature and her sensing side.

We ask Lan to come up with a visual structure for the presentation that night – one of the challenges will be how to present the participant profiles, as we all agree that telling their story and allowing their voices come through is one of the main components of the presentation.

(This is the fourth post in a 5-part series. For the series intro, click here.)

(Continued from Part 2):

• Desk Research: A term unfortunately foreign to me prior to arriving at Dundee, this literally means stuff you can do at your desk, on your own, without going into the field. (Friends, please correct me I am wrong). Usually, this translates into Google Scholar searches, finding books, articles, reports and further citations that can help guide or shape your thinking around the research topic. The goal is to discover everything you can that is readily accessible to you now before you go out into the field. If it’s already written about or published, why duplicate work that has already been done?

• Conversations: Maybe you know someone who knows something, or who sounds like they know something. Talk to them. Maybe they don’t know a thing. Generally however, I try to stick a few ‘Expert Interviews’ in this space, in addition to casual conversations with friends and colleagues to help frame and guide the thinking around the research question as it develops.

• Visualizing / Writing It Out: This is more of a way to clarify and capture one’s thinking; after our last module with Hazel White on Strategic Information Design, it’s been helpful to try to draw out (even when unfinished or imperfect) my thoughts in the form of a mindmap, sketches, or dimensions, or even a random smattering of words, to try to give some structure and semblance to all of the ideas floating in our heads. Visualizing thought can also be a good technique for effective communication and collaboration, as Phillip Joe and Christine Kingsley taught us. Just be careful about showing ‘in process’ work to a client if they are not primed for it.

What To Do About What We Don’t Know [WWDK]:

• Fieldwork. Along with more desk research, conversations, visualizations, etc.

The dangerous thing is to go out into the field without a clear idea of what you are looking to find; this does not mean seeking ‘the answer’ to ‘the question,’ but it means understanding the boundaries and the frame of the picture that you are trying to fill in. What kind of research methods will lead you to the content that will fill this framework for analysis?

As Bas Rajimakers of STBY told us, in order to use creative methods (or any method at all) we need a clear understanding of the unit of analysis (What are we after? What do we want to get back?) and how it relates to what the client wants to know.

It’s determining what kind of fieldwork will lead us to what we are trying to find that is the most difficult aspect of doing ethnographic research. Actually — it’s determining what we are trying to find (and defining our understanding of what the client really wants) that can sometimes be most trying.

_________________

Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012
THEME: Letting Go
AGENDA: Interviews with Ling and Alice, Toddler Group Parents

I waited at the Chambers Coffee House for my Interview with Ling to begin at 12pm, and then headed to the afternoon Toddler’s Group. Since I’ve encouraged Stephani to do this from the start of the project, here are some my weaknesses that she has called out:

• Fear of failure
• Perfectionism
• Being too hard on myself

Ouch. The last week has definitely reflected the above, but on the bright side, here are my:

Learning Points

• Giving up control / Not controlling outcomes
  I would like to be better at letting go of project controls from the beginning. To not fall into the same patterns again and again, even though I still do. To not feel like ‘I’m not doing enough’ and make us overperform or push too hard as a result. To ‘satisfize.’ To do my best to be adequate and ‘just enough.’

• Showing my need for affirmation and feedback (not only feeding into others)

• Being better at listening, learning patience
  I often try to jump in and fill in blanks out of a desire to clarify and understand (only when I am under a time crunch) instead of letting a person finish their entire thought.

• Pressure to finish what I’ve started (even if it’s unnecessary and no longer important)
  I realize I always feel compelled to ‘finish’ or put pressure on myself’ to utilize everything that we’ve done (and often plan things in my head from start to finish) which is where – I then wonder if we’re going to end up with too much information or stuff that will be hard to collate. I know it’s okay to be messy, to have data that might not make sense, but I often feel married to everything we’ve done instead of being wise in editing and cutting down to what is most important.

• Being confident in my ideas
  Instead of automatically ‘agreeing with Cat,’ I have to be better at defending the choices we’ve made about the research methods we’ve decided to use, knowing that not all of them will necessarily lead to a final product, but that they will all shape the information/research we are putting together.

I wrote Stephani and Lan cards tonight that said I would make the effort to simply let go, to be more confident, and to not stress out so much in the future. I thanked them for being on my team and for being so patient with me.

_________________
Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012
THEME: Prepping and Trusting
AGENDA: Running through the Workshop

Today, I prepped for the workshop, printed out all the relevant materials, and then had the opportunity to run through it with Lan and Stephani. I was antsy at first, anxious because I thought they wouldn’t want to run through it, and unsure if we had enough time since I thought I would need to leave for an interview right at 2. Luckily, it turns out the interview was rescheduled, and we could run through the workshop activity with myself as facilitator, and the two of them as participants.

Their feedback was really good. I was much more confident knowing that I was ‘supposed’ to be leading them, and though they tried to goof off to challenge my authority as facilitator, they were also active and willing participants and genuinely asked questions when they were confused, which was good because it forced me to just answer them without presuming that they knew anything about the activity or the purpose of the study.

Overall, I was really pleased with today. I realize the Workshop was my ‘darling.’ I need to be better at letting go, or as Helle Rohde from CIID said, to know when to ‘kill your darlings’ (or, perhaps simply letting them venture outside to meet the rest of the world).

_________________
Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012
THEME: Success
AGENDA: Workshop at Toddler Group

The workshop was awesome.

I baked apple muffins again because I was worried about maintaining a positive relationship with the coordinators who were personal contacts of mine. We were nervous in the beginning (no one seemed to be there when we first arrived), but soon the original participants who signed up arrived, and others who hadn’t signed up the week before started to show interest when they saw fellow parents participating.

Stephani complimented me afterwards on a job well done. Lan talked with the Chinese mom. I’m happy. I realized I was more concerned that they (Lan and Stephani) felt confident and comfortable with the process, and glad that they did in the end.

Stephani had to head off to do another interview right after. Lan had an interview in the afternoon with Sam, which I joined. We also spent time going through the entire project, the research proposal and explore report, and basically ensuring that Lan understood all of the decisions and choices we made with the project. It was a well utilized 3 hours together. (And she made me chicken nuggets!)

I’ve taken courses in statistical and research methods in psychology, and I’ve had the fun of discreetly sampling background music in various parts of Tokyo in an attempt to explore the city through an auditory perspective rather than a visual one (the mode most of us tend to default towards). When it comes to planning research and choosing the right methods however, I’ve either tended towards a highly inventive, experimental approach (‘doing what feels right and seeing what happens’) or have been very strict and rigorous in eliminating any possible mediating factors that would throw potential findings off (i.e. screwing up the statistical significance, the validity or reliability of a study, and all the rest of it).

For example, if a research design is uncontrolled and messy, we tend to discount the findings that result from it — the writing section from the old GRE and the critical thinking skills I gained from my undergrad trained me to think this way — or, as we often discuss here in the programme at Dundee, while many studies may not find much in the way of statistically significant conclusive results, they do tend to offer much more in the way of ‘anecdotal evidence’ (the bread and butter of qualitative researchers and design ethnographers).

One thing that I’m still having difficulty with in the ethnographic context is being able to find the right mix of methodologies that best correlates with the target goal or desired research outcome for a project, and at the same time is an approach that isn’t completely imprisoned or influenced by the more empirical methods of science and/or psychology (in comparing ‘actual’ vs. ‘theoretical’), which is where my background lies. In this context, I’m still asking questions such as, How do I know that my findings are valid or logical? And how does one design a research study in such a way that you can reach valid and logical conclusions without jumping (or post-rationalizing your thoughts)? Is the notion of reliability (the repeatability and consistency of a test returning the same results) considered null and void in ethnographic research, or, if a study is well-designed and the method of data-gathering considered valid, can we expect the field to return us with the same findings time and time again?

(There was much more spinning in my head from our first weeks’ lecture from Cat regarding Data (Qualitative, Quantitative), Research Paradigms (Positivist, Interpretivist), Philosophical Stance (Objective, Subjective), but I think these short papers will help you out more than me trying to explain. (1) The Relationship Between Positivism, Interpretivism, and Sociological Research Methods (2) Choosing the Appropriate Methodology: Understanding Research Philosophy)

As with most things in life, part of finding the right method is about working backwards from the ideal ‘unit of analysis’ with which you want to exit the field. But maybe it’s also about letting go of getting things exactly right (Right?). There’s always a degree of uncertainty and ambiguity that comes with doing any kind of research, but balancing the need to be open to where the field leads, vs. knowing the boundaries or frameworks of the study you are operating within, can be a bit stressful at times. Or perhaps, I’m just stressed since we are in the throes of working this out for our current engagement with Microsoft…

The irony of reflecting upon all of this is contrasting how I felt at the time of the research (uncertain and insecure), with the seeming clarity of our research plan. For the EXR1 project in November, our team organized our methods by first determining the key research questions and our strategic rationale for why we chose to map out specific questions to certain methods as follows:

Research Questions 

The focus for this project is to conduct research on Family Leisure, specifically as it relates to the City of Dundee’s waterfront and the current and future redevelopment of the area. The City of Dundee’s Community Partnership is concerned with building a deeper context for future city services or amenities that would cater equally to all families in Dundee, and our research aims to help set a solid foundation for this endeavor.

In order to further understand leisure within the context of different member families of the community, we’d like to focus in on the following questions:

Q1. FAMILIES IN DUNDEE: What does ‘Family’ mean to those who live in Dundee? What cultural elements or personal experiences have influenced the Dundonian view of family? Does this differ from a universal understanding? What makes families in Dundee unique?

Q2. FAMILY & LEISURE: How do families spend time together? How does the interplay of work and play influence a family’s opportunity to bond and connect? What are the key elements that define ‘Family Time’ for families in Dundee?

Q3. LEISURE IN DUNDEE: How are current leisure sites in Dundee utilized, and how saturated are they in their utilization? What improvements or opportunities can be made to the current family leisure offerings in the city?

Q4. LEISURE & THE WATERFRONT: What leisure opportunities exist in the Waterfront renovation project? Does the future renovation plan meet and serve the needs of the greater Dundee population?

Q5. FAMILIES & THE WATERFRONT: What do families think of the Waterfront in its current form, and what do they think of the city’s future plans to change the Waterfront? Is the Waterfront relevant to family life in Dundee? Why or why not?

Rationale for Methods

We would like to understand the meaning of ‘Family’ in Dundee in order to get to the heart of what matters first to the people who live here. From that starting point, we want to connect back to the idea of leisure time within the family, and whether the city itself provides opportunities or amenities that are conducive to family bonding and quality time. In addition, because the city is currently in a stage of transformation and change, there is an opportunity for the Waterfront Redevelopment plan to also redefine how families bond and connect, and it is this opportunity that our research hopes to exploit.

Research Methods

• Family Leisure ‘Go-Alongs’: Accompany families on leisure-oriented events or leisure times, whether they take place in-home or outside of the home.
• Video Observation & Survey: Conduct non-participant observations at various leisure points in the city (video ethnography will be used to capture activity and make initial inquiries and short interviews with those active in the space).
• Visual Toolkit: Provide interviewees a ‘visual toolkit’ of icons and images that they can arrange and name in order to depict their ‘Ideal Waterfront’.
• Open-Ended Interviews: Conduct in-depth interviews of both individual family representatives, as well as go-along participants (before, during and after excursions).
• Desk Research: Review literature around 1) the City of Dundee’s future development plans, 2) Case studies of past, current, and future waterfront development projects in other cities and the impact it made on the existing community, 3) Types of families and diverse populations that make up the greater Dundee community, and 4) Leisure options available for families within Dundee.
• ‘Families’ Workshop: Facilitate a workshop for parents or family decision makers to understand the deeper values and cultures that define individual families. Goal is to uncover what defines a family in Dundee. 

Using these various methods will allow us to get a deeper glimpse into the problem domain from multiple points of view, and push us towards bringing new questions and insights to the Dundee Community Partnership that will allow for greater alignment and connection to the people that they work to serve.

For our current project in EXR2, I’ve tried to remind myself that it’s okay to feel nervous and insecure, and to keep framing things in terms of ‘What we know’ vs. ‘What we don’t know’.

Then, by subtracting [WWK] from [WWDK] (or really, just focusing on what we don’t know), we end up with  [WWNTFO], i.e. What we need to find out.

Unfortunately, my tendency of wanting to jump right in and ‘get things done’ can come at the detriment of thinking things through and making sure we are getting the right things done.

(Thoughts continued in Part 3.)

Friday, Nov. 2, 2012
THEME: Moving Forward
AGENDA: Client Meeting / Research Plans & Prepping for Saturday’s Fieldwork Observation / Sorting Out the Workshop

One thing Stephani keeps reminding me is that ‘it’s okay to be uncomfortable and be in a state of not knowing. That’s the point.’ And it also points back to what Cat said: ‘Not knowing’ is part of doing ethnography, but you have to trust the ethnographic process.

Another point to ponder: When I am under stress, I have a tendency to close up from teammates and not communicate, because I know I’m on edge and potentially will say something or share an attitude that I will regret later. I don’t like talking or interacting when I am unhappy because I don’t want to make other people unhappy or stressed as well, but invariably I do from simply being stressed in the first place.

_________________
Saturday, Nov. 3, 2012
THEME: Out in the Field
AGENDA: Saturday Fieldwork & Video Ethnography at Discovery, Olympia Pool, Riverside Path

We’re out of the planning phase and into the doing. I love it. Finally feel ‘free’ to be creative and follow my nose where it leads.

_________________
Sunday, Nov. 4, 2012
THEME: Friendship vs. Personal Agenda
AGENDA: First Family Interview / Go-Along Home Visit

Went to Rob and Jan’s house in the evening. I baked an apple cake, and wanted to be very conscious and careful of the fine line between ‘friendship’ and ‘personal agenda.’

It’s great to have friends who are willing to help out with project work or assignments, but I know I need to always prioritize relationships first; if the research fails because there is a need to resolve a personal matter or issue (or the participant no longer feels comfortable participating), I want to always take that into account and never push my own agenda or the needs of the research onto any participant that would endanger the relationship we already have.

Luckily, this was not an issue during this home visit.

_________________
Monday, Nov. 5, 2012
THEME: Embarrassing Personal Values Matrix Exercise
AGENDA: Explore Report Update / Interviews and Workshop Planning

Since Stephani is Client Lead, we’ve given her full authority over all ‘presentation’ responsibilities, in terms of asking her to strategize and lead all of our client interactions and outside presentations, and trusting her to take and shape that in whatever way she sees fit. One thing I really appreciate is that after every presentation or client interaction, she will ask Lan and I what we thought of it, or how we feel it went. This is good to clarify our own perceptions, the client’s response, and how we might improve or build off of what we’ve already done.

On a different note, I’ve self-analyzed my own tendencies and ‘values’ in terms of what matters to me within a team or group project environment. These are the things that can sway me from doing what I know are the ‘right’ things to do and maintaining focus. (On a 2×2 Matrix):

BOREDOM ————> FUNDOM / INTERESTING-DOM

BEING HATED ———–> WANTING TO BE LIKED / BEING LOVED

Obviously, on a personal level, I want to ‘have fun’ and I don’t want to ‘be hated.’

But I forget a third Z-axis dimension to this matrix that oftentimes overtakes the other two drivers, particularly when I am in a work or professional environment: PRODUCTIVITY & GETTING S*** DONE.

I can’t say I’m proud of having this last axis.

(This is the second post in a 5-part series. For the series intro, click here.)

Here, we are incredibly diverse:

• There are 12 of us from 5 different countries (USA, China, Brazil, Scotland, Germany).
• Four are straight from undergrad; some have been working for 3-5 years; others for much longer.
• A few are former (or would-be) designers; others are anthropologists by training; NGOs, design consultancies, technology start-ups, market research and transportation companies dot our various backgrounds.
• Some have moved to Dundee with partners (and cats ) while others have left significant others behind to pursue this course.
• But we all came here to do one thing: Design Ethnography.

This would be a good segue into ‘What is Design Ethnography?’ but I’ll leave you to explore that if you join us next year (Kate’s post from 2011 may help you get on the right track).

So, without further ado:

Monday, Oct. 29, 2012
THEME: Project Management
AGENDA: Making a Project Plan

I spent a good 3-4 hours over the weekend looking at the Client Brief, and devising a project plan. This consisted of:

1. Assigning team roles.
2. Assigning domain expertise (for our sub-research foci).
3. Assigning research methods.

I wrote out clear guidelines and descriptions for each of these, and then worked backwards from our Friday deliverables in order to figuring out who would do what, and next steps / action items for each. By Tuesday and Thursday, all of us should be done with our individual ‘briefs’ on desk research and field guides for the research methods we are responsible for leading.

Stephani commented that this was the most beautiful email document she had ever seen, and Lan was happy that someone put clear structure into what we were going to do for this project.

Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012
THEME: Team Culture / Empowerment
AGENDA: Assigning Roles and Tasks for the Week

I was anxious and worried when trying to send another ‘Update / Summary’ email tonight, and realized that I spend way too much time on (3-4 hours or so) trying to map out action items, next steps, assignments, agenda, etc., instead of simply saying, let’s finish this by Thursday and meet then to discuss, and putting in assignments or task items that will simply lead us to the final deliverable product.

So today’s email to the team was about empowerment and roles. Keeping things simple:

• STEPHANI: Video Observation, Leisure, and Client Lead
• LAN: Home Visit / 1:1 Interviews, Waterfront, Resource Management
• JOYCE: Workshop, Poverty/Underserved Population, Project Lead & Team Management

This seemed to work much better. Judging from email communication today, we all felt much more comfortable and confident with what needed to get done.

In terms of empowerment, I realized that it seems like people sometimes (including myself) need permission to actually ‘be.’ Permission to be better, to be the best, to push ourselves, to be okay with moving things forward, and not worry that other people will put us down or be angry that we moved past them and left them behind. Somehow, it always ends up that these unspoken assumptions or expectations are the things that need to be communicated the most.

_________________
Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012
THEME: What is a workshop? / Life Stages
AGENDA: Independent Desk Research and Creating Research Methods Field Guides for Thursday

Cat wanted me to remember that I said this:

Five years ago, three years ago or even a year ago, I would’ve been in a different place, and not ready to assume a leadership role. Five years ago (when I was just starting the Masters of Architecture at Berkeley), I had NO clue what I was doing, and would not have wanted to lead any group projects. Not at all. So I understand where some of my classmates are right now – we’re in different stages of life, and I get that.

The point being: We’re all in different points in our lives, we’re not all in the same place, we’re not all a part of the same company or a type of job or life stage. BUT we’re in the same program, which means the commonality we share is that we’re all here to learn. That is the primary goal above all else.

(This is the first post in a 5-part series. For the series intro, click here.)

Hello!

For those thinking of applying to the MSc Design Ethnography, I will be posting a few excerpts over the next week from my ‘daily log,’ courtesy of our first semester’s Experience Research 1 module taught by Catriona Macaulay and Kate Saunderson. These entries will take you through the mind of one would-be design ethnographer during her first foray into ethnographic fieldwork on a team of three bright, curious, and incredibly inexperienced fieldworkers.

CONTEXT: We had just wrapped up Mike Press’s Design Research module (for Mike’s blog, click here), where each of us searched for our own definition of Design Ethnography and the current state of the field. My interpretation: DE is like ‘water’ – transformative, adaptable, but also largely transparent and invisible – unable to be fully measured, appreciated, or grasped without a glass (i.e. a business context or desired outcome) to hold it.

That was back in October 2012.

While I’m still looking to articulate my understanding of Design Ethnography (as it continues to morph and change over the academic year), the following reflection taught me invaluable lessons in terms of Team and Project Management, Research Planning, Ethnographic Fieldwork, Personal Motivation, and my own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to leadership and collaboration.

I hope you enjoy this baring of my soul and following the ups and downs of an experience research project from one [perfectionist, fear of failure, too hard on herself] individual’s perspective. If you’d like to learn more (I did cut out all the juicy tidbits on workshop planning), I love getting email: joyce.in.scotland@gmail.com. If you’d like to relate or offer advice (one slideshare, that I found helpful for creative leadership [credit: Sarah B. Nelson]), please feel free add to the comments below.

Cheers!

• Part 1: Project Management, Team Culture
• Part 2: Research Methods
• Part 3: Out In The Field
• Part 4: Synthesizing Data
• Part 5: On Presenting & Final Thoughts

At the time that I interviewed Brigitte Jordan, I was wondering about design ethnography’s way of handling data. While the academic anthropologist usually works alone, goes to the field alone and then writes up his or her field notes afterwards alone, ethnographers in the corporate world have to make their notes and findings quickly available to a range of stakeholders and interested parties. Often, they don’t have great influence over how that data will be handled afterwards.

The Interview. Anthropologists, on the other hand, often see themselves as representatives of the people they study, and they try to influence policies on their behalf. Brigitte Jordan herself had tried to convey to the Mexican Ministry of Health how childbirth worked in rural settings in the country, and how the healthcare system should be adapted to local needs. So I couldn’t help but wonder if she hadn’t ever been conflicted in the corporate world, between the people she morally felt responsible to, and the expectations of the paying client. „Well, our work is full of ethical problems in the academic world as well as in the corporate arena,“ Jordan said. „Whether you work in academia or commerce, you try to make the world better in some way, right? And you know that fundamentally, your idea of what’s better might not be better in the long run. That’s one thing to keep in mind, to have some humility about that.“

She admitted that it’s not uncommon to find out that, what one thought the client wanted, is not what they really had in mind. „We call it requirements creep. It’s something that is very common, but that often has major ethical implications,“ she said, remembering one of her own assignments in which it became clear that the aim of her research was to automate parts of the factory she was studying. „That’s a bunch of people being let go.“ For her, the answer to this requirements creep lies in communication with the stakeholders. „They need to be involved in the design of the study, in the methodology, in the failures. If that is the case, then there is a much greater chance to talk about questions such as ‚how many people are we going to lose‘ in a constructive way.“

This reminded me of her 1997 paper „Transforming Ethnography— Reinventing Research“. In it, she describes our role in the corporate arena as that of „co-producers of meaning.“ What I understand from this is that unlike anthropologists, who merely study how other people make sense of the world around them, design ethnographers become themselves involved in the making of meaning when they continuously present, explain and discuss their findings with different parties and stakeholders. For me, this thought really helped ease my concerns about depth of research. If data collection and sense-making are transparent and collaborative processes in design ethnography, then generating meaning – and hence representing people’s experiences – becomes a communal effort that is negotiated throughout the length of a project. I now think that this is something academic anthropology could learn from design ethnography: Sharing your ethnographic data (strategically) can make it less subjective – and more actionable.

I asked Brigitte Jordan how easy she thought it was for people with no background in anthropology to wrap their head around the concept of ethnography. „It depends on how open they are,“ she said. „How curious. One thing struck me when I was teaching anthropology: I used to have large sign-ups, and a lot of people would drop out in the beginning. But the people that stayed, they were the types that really wanted to know. They wanted to find out, they wanted to experience things. And I think if that’s the case, it doesn’t matter where they come from.“

Key reflection: Coming to the programme in Dundee with a first master’s degree in social anthropology, I felt a certain uneasiness when we were first introduced to the short-lived, quick-paced research that is at the heart of design ethnography. The academic world tells anthropologists: If it’s for less than a year, don’t bother going into the field in the first place. Design ethnographers’ research, on the other hand, often takes no longer than a few days or weeks. I just didn’t see how they could possibly achieve the same depth as „traditional“ ethnography in such little time. The answer, I now know, is of course that they don’t aim for the same scope of insight, and most importantly, that they process their data very differently. Brigitte Jordan addresses this issue brillantly in her aforementioned paper „Transforming Ethnography“.

Brigitte Jordan’s new book “Advancing Ethnography in Corporate Settings” is available from booksellers now.

The Interview: In talking to Brigitte Jordan, I was really curious to hear what her big challenges had been in the transition from anthropology to corporate ethnography. I guess in asking that, I was wondering how far a background in anthropology was an advantage, and in what ways it could turn into a handicap when moving into the corporate field.

Before starting her work with Lucy Suchman at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Brigitte Jordan had, among plenty other things (such as raising three children), conducted 13 years worth of anthropological field work in rural Mexico, notably in the field of ethno-obstetrics. „I know deeply about the value of long-term fieldwork, of repeat studies, of coming back with a new point of view, of doing comparative work. See, this, to me, is anthropology,“ she told me.

Jordan, who humbly attributes most of her achievements to chance, says her transition into the field of corporate ethnography then happened accidentally, through personal relationships she had developed in her research. „I was thrown into the world of corporate consulting. I didn’t expect that I would have to work with organisations. It was difficult,“ she freely admitted. When I asked her what she struggled with most at the time, I got an answer that I didn’t quite expect: „The first problem was language,“ she said. (Brigitte Jordan is a German native but has lived in the Unites States for over 40 years.) „I often did not know what my colleagues at Xerox meant with certain expressions. I didn’t get their jokes.“ She also recalled, laughingly, how during her first lecture in Palo Alto, Lucy Suchman sank lower and lower into her chair in the audience. „It was clearly not the performance that was required in that environment.“ Back then, Jordan, already a seasoned university lecturer, didn’t know what wasn’t right. Her way of finding out was to listen closely – to her own body. „In all learning, I find I have to pay attention to when my body doesn’t feel well. And I try to figure out where I have to stand to feel better.“ I think this is excellent advice for any kind of fieldwork. It reminded me of my experiences in Senegal and Haiti, where I often felt very clumsy and self-aware in the beginning, until I became more apt in local norms and manners.

„I think moving into the corporate sector was like moving into a new culture,“ Jordan agreed. „Except that you think because you have in some respects the same language, you can rely on what you know.“ As I was typing up the transcript afterwards, this bit struck me as wonderfully ironic. It hadn’t occurred to me that maybe the best way to understand the fundamental differences between academic anthropology and design ethnography was to treat the transition from one field into the other like a fieldwork exercise. Listen, observe, and ask.

Part 2 of this interview, “Making meaning”, will be published on this blog tomorrow.

As we sometimes forget, technology is made up of tools for serving people. People inhabit certain contexts that are important for what they choose to do or avoid to use. These contexts are made of different factors, but the global/local cultures are crucial in understanding why certain innovations arise, are adopted and kept, or just vanish. Therefore, the right innovation needs the right context to flourish.

Just like living creatures in nature, new products/services are trying to survive following rules that resemble natural selection. In Darwin’s theory the environment plays a major role – with predators, mating rituals and food scarcity - in the innovation field the socio-cultural context is the “environment” determining who thrives and who vanishes. In this particular case, the Russian historical, social, cultural, juridical and economical context are set a stage where small digital cameras fit perfectly.

Key Reflection. The good thing about it is that by using tools from social sciences (such as ethnography), we can study these socio-cultural contexts using findings to design products/services to fit in these scenarios. It is as if species could plan beforehand how they should be, in order to have better chances of success in a certain environment. True intelligent design.

Guess. Now that we had this deep impact on the culture of visual documentation, maybe the habit of 24/7 footage will arise in other countries, both to better deal with lawsuits, or just to be ready in case pure awesomeness knocks at your door.

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/