INTRODUCTION

Researchers have advocated the use of ethnography in technology development for the detailed information and insights about users it provides (Bentley, 1992) (Hughes, 1997). Later studies have, however, pointed out that this view mainly sees ethnography as a data collection tool, and essentially limits the way the designer understands field studies to finding problems to be solved or gathering requirements for new designs. Ethnography as a data collection tool is problematic since it isolates the researchers from design (Anderson, 1994) and limits the ways in which practice and technology can evolve together (Dourish 2006). In this study we would like to take a closer look at the role ethnography may take in provoking new perspectives in a design organisation. We take as a starting point Anderson’s claim that

“…the contribution that ethnography may make is to enable designers to question the taken-for-granted assumptions embedded in the conventional problem–solution design framework.” (Anderson, 1994)

We will offer two project cases that show such questioning of conventional understandings of problems and solutions and discuss how ethnographic material provoked this. In relation to the conference theme ‘Being Heard’, our focus is – at least at a first glance – on how ethnographers or (more broadly) design researchers may be heard in the organisation they work for. But on another level it is as much about the participants, the ‘users’, being heard in the design process, for we believe that provocation through well-crafted ethnographic material can instigate, and at the same time provide framing for, an ongoing dialog between organisation, participants, and design team.

ACTION RESEARCH

This work originated with the Danfoss User-Centred Design Group that up through the 90’s – after realizing that user interaction design is more of a social challenge than a technical one (Bødker & Buur 2002) – strove to develop new participatory design (PD) methods for product development in industry. The base was approaches from PD and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) that originated in IT (office) work settings. When the Danfoss Group expanded into the Mads Clausen Institute in 2000 and became a ‘university’, we maintained the practice of regarding every new design encounter as an action research experiment, in terms of video documentation, reflection on learning etc. Sometimes – as in this case – it has taken years to realise that experiments across several projects may form a new line of investigation and argumentation. In this instance we have gone back to 1999 tapes and analysed one project from the perspective of ‘provocation’ in order to stage the activities in a second project in 2006. For the analysis we solicited the help of conversation analysis colleagues to get a basic understanding of the socially constructed nature of the dialogues on which we wanted to focus.

Both projects included similar types of field observations: Shadowing of professional technicians at work in plant environments with one or more video cameras. The studies were counted in days (rather than weeks), and subsequently the technicians were involved in sense-making workshops and PD activities around design concepts. Both projects had some measure of text work theorizing about the observed work practices and what they meant. To talk of these as ‘ethnographies’ might be overstating the fact, but they certainly had qualities beyond mere requirements gathering. One point we will make in the discussion, though, is that the theoretical understanding only came about gradually through the engagement with engineers in the organisation and the realization that some findings seemed to thoroughly provoke them.

THE WATER VISION PROJECT

The Water Vision Project was initiated by the Danfoss User Centered Design Group to investigate opportunities for novel products to control wastewater treatment processes. It included field studies at six wastewater plants in Denmark and Sweden. Along with researchers from Aarhus University and Malmø University, we shadowed plant managers, process operators, technicians, and electricians through an ordinary working day and videotaped what we saw – typically with three camera teams working in parallel.

The project was a ‘vision project’ (as opposed to a development project) initiated in corporate research. It had budget support from R&D directors of three business units, but the innovation horizon was set so distant (8-10 years) that we had the freedom to explore without immediate client accountability. The first episode took place soon after the field study, when the team of design anthropologists, interaction designers, and user-centered engineers started discussing design opportunities based on field study findings. With half of the ten-member team being interns and visiting researchers, the team was still forming at this stage. The episode shows a clash of opinions between the team and a marketing representative, in discussing automation at wastewater plants.

The designers had seen operators quite naturally move around the plant to feel, smell, and observe the process, whereas the marketing representative was convinced that automation technology is about shifting work into the comfort of a control room. And, clearly, the designers lost this first duel on rational arguments.

Episode 1 – A Clash of Opinions. The design team is visiting one of the business units (the Flow Meter Division), to learn more about the products and company concerns. A marketing representative presents the product line and how it is applied, and then the team splits into small groups to sketch out future scenarios of use based on knowledge from the field. Joining one of the groups, the marketing representative presents a scenario of an operator in a control room. The following conversation unfolds (simplified transcript):

FIGURE 1 Heated discussion between design team and marketing representative on the necessity of operators ‘walking the plant’

Team member 1: ‘This I’m a bit sceptical about. Everything we have seen about the way water treatment people work, right, they walk out in the environment all the time, and I don’t think that’s something we neither, you know, they feel like stopping doing or they can stop doing.’

Marketing: ‘Well, they are allowed to walk out there in those facilities; we don’t mind that. If he has to sweep (the floor), then he has to sweep it.’

Team: (uneasy laughter)

Team member 2: ‘They do walk out there, right?’

Marketing: ‘They are walking out there, yeah’

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