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In a research project aimed at suggesting improvements at an annual advent fair three different ethnographic research approaches were used; Social Anthropology, Interaction Design and Mobile Ethnography. The paper focuses on how the three different approaches on ethnography affected choices in the research process, the outcomes of the research and how the outcomes were presented. It is found that the different motivations for doing ethnography between the three approaches make their outcomes differ in a clear way. These differences make the three ethnographic approaches suitable for achieving different research outcomes.
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INTRODUCTION
From its early origins in the works of Boas, the Torres Strait island expedition, and Malinowski, the ethnographic approach has moved in many directions. One of the many disciplines which has adopted and appropriated ethnography is User-Centered Design (UCD). The various branches of UCD aim to create services, products and interactions based on insights about the “needs” and habits of the people who are the intended users of the artifact being designed – ethnography has established itself as a crucial tool to gain that understanding. Yet another development is the emergence of Mobile Ethnography which guides smartphone owners in collecting ethnographic data about themselves. These forms of ethnography however often differ from how it is conducted in academic anthropology.
This paper offers a comparison showing how different ethnographic approaches produce different kinds of knowledge while investigating the same empirical context and broad brief. The paper is based on a recent fieldwork experiment with separate research teams using Social Anthropology, Interaction Design and a Mobile Ethnography app respectively.
COMPARING STYLES OF ETHNOGRAPHY
Ethnography’s journey from Anthropology to design and the design community’s motivations for incorporating ethnography in its toolkit has been described in a number of publications throughout the years (e.g. Grudin, 1990; Ford & Wood, 1996; Segelström, Raijmakers, & Holmlid, 2009; Segelström, Holmlid, & Alm, 2009; van Dijk, 2010) and will not be discussed further in this paper. Nor will the argument that designers have misconstrued anthropological ethnography be explored any further than this acknowledgement of the (former) existence of such a discussion (see Dourish, 2006, for an example of this discussion). Rather, this short background section will focus on previous comparative studies of ethnographic styles.
At EPIC 2008, Dori Tunstall (2008) presented a comparison of how the basic approach to ethnography differs between anthropology, marketing and design. Her study was based on a literature review of how the three fields are described, grounded in one prototypical company for each approach. She used a framework for theory suggested by Barnard (2000), called QAME. QAME stands for questions, assumptions, methods and evidence. Tunstall explores each of the categories and maps how the three different approaches to ethnography differ. Table 1 summarizes her findings.
TABLE 1. Tunstall’s analysis of ethnographic approaches. Adapted from Tunstall (2008, p. 220).
Anthropologist Rob van Veggel (2005) published an account of potential clashes which can occur when anthropologists and designers collaborate, due to the differences in motivations for using ethnography. He bases his comparison on recollections of his experiences whilst working as an anthropologist for design companies. He explains how designers and anthropologists approach ethnography:
“[D]esigners approach ethnography for the practical reasons of gaining a rich and deep understanding of users that can be easily integrated into design projects, and yet quick and relatively inexpensive to obtain.” (van Veggel, 2005, p. 5)
“[A]nthropologists approach, ethnography as the methodological component of a theoretical endeavor to understand humans as socio-cultural beings, who presumably act and think in different way; ethnography is a method to understand other people – Anthropology is that understanding” (van Veggel, 2005, p. 8)
Based on these differences van Veggel (2005) identifies four potential conflicts when the two disciplines collaborate: the translation of anthropological insights into usable insights for designers, designers lacking in preparation and training before doing ethnographic work, how to link people’s actions and thoughts together and that Anthropology is excessively theoretical.
It is evident that both previous comparative studies presented see a clear difference between the design take on ethnography compared to the anthropological one. The motivations to use ethnography differ, leading to different aspects being seen as the important ones during the ethnographic process.
One of the goals of this paper is to assess the claims of van Veggel (2006) and Tunstall (2008) through an empirical study.