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Degree of interpretation
Degree of interpretation refers to how and to what degree the ethnographers transform the data during the analysis and synthesis. The anthropologists abstracted the material to a high degree, producing generalized insights. However, they stayed close to their informants and used them to illustrate their points even at the higher abstraction levels. For example, Karlsson (2012) found that her informants all reacted strongly against perceived knick-knack at the fair and wanted to have it removed from future fairs. However, all her informants had different opinions on what constituted knick-knack.
The insights produced by the interaction designers did not strive to abstract the findings into a larger context. Instead the insights were removed from the individuals who had participated in the research, trying to generalize in such a way that the main patterns could be highlighted in the form of personas/user profiles. The team using surveys even expressed disappointment in only finding patterns strong enough to create user profiles in one survey.
The interpretation offered by the back-end of myServiceFellow is that it automatically transforms the participants’ uploaded material into journeys of their visit. It thus keeps focus on every single individual and does not abstract their experiences in any way.
How are the findings presented?
The anthropologists relied on text to communicate their insights. The texts were descriptive and argumentative in their nature and made strong use of existing literature and the theories presented therein.
The material by the interaction designers also included text, but rather as background material to those interested in how their tangibles were created. Design concepts, use scenarios and personas/user profiles are the center of the reports produced by the two Interaction Design teams.
Finally, ServiceFollow presents the raw material sorted according to the customer journey metaphor used in service design. The tool offers functionality to organize the material in various ways, but the underlying journey metaphor is a constant in the tool. The project owner can however dive deeper into a data point and participant generated video/photo/audio-material is not more than one or two clicks away.
What is presented?
Closely related to how the findings are presented is the question of what is presented (a question also discussed in Tunstall, 2008). The anthropologists presented their insights and how they relate to existing knowledge, providing a holistic view of the findings according to the scope of the study. As already indicated in the last section, the interaction designers presented their design concepts and user research supporting them – they did so by making storyboard-styled presentations of how their design ideas would be used at future fairs, based on the problems they saw. ServiceFollow gave the project owner access to and data submitted by the research participants using the app.
Applicability of presented findings
The final reports presented by the anthropologist give a theoretical description of the situation as it is, not suggesting any changes. This is in line with the anthropological tradition, where descriptive accounts of the current state have been the standard outcome for a long time. To be able to use them for making design changes these theories need to be re-interpreted and adapted. Moreover, the re-interpreted theories are more applicable to long-term strategic changes to the fair than improving elements of the fair now.
The reports by the interaction designers are streamlined towards suggestions for design refinements. Their designs are almost directly applicable – some detail design might be needed before going into production. But the suggested designs are mainly add-ons to the existing fair or changes to specific components, such as augmented reality games, way finding apps and services to create tangible memories from the fair.
The applicability of the Mobile Ethnography data is a mixture of the qualities of the two other approaches; like Interaction Design it focuses on specific components of the market (both positive and negative), which are seen as the most important by the fair visitors. And like Anthropology the material is not directly applicable, but needs to be interpreted and used as input for ideation.
DISCUSSION
If the processes and outcomes of the three ethnographies conducted at the advent fair are compared with the two previous comparisons between different styles of ethnography presented in the background section (van Veggel, 2006; Tunstall, 2008), the similarities between the findings are striking. The suggestions made by van Veggel and Tunstall are confirmed empirically by the insights obtained in this study, where content overlaps; there is a match between Tunstall’s arguments in regard to the questions and evidence of Anthropology and Design (described here as focus of study and what is presented how). There is also a fit with van Veggel’s descriptions of the two fields which finds resonance here in our discussion of the focus of study and applicability of presented findings in this paper. For example, we saw that the Interaction Design students had trouble connecting people’s actions and thoughts together, and opted to mainly focus their fieldwork analysis on what was said.
Comparing the three approaches in the study, it is evident that the Mobile Ethnography approach is the outlier of the approaches. A question arising from the material is whether Mobile Ethnography (in the form of the myServiceFellow ecosystem) truly is a form of ethnography or whether it should be seen as something else. This in turn raises the counter-question how to delimit ethnography. Agar (1996, pp. 241-246) suggests the use of a student-child-apprentice learning role and the search for patterns as defining qualities for ethnographies. As our analysis points out, the back-end does not provide much theoretical or methodological guidelines for analysis or synthesis (search for patterns) of the material received from the participants. Nor does it provide a true apprentice role (which relates closely to the aim of creating empathy held forward in design (e.g. in Segelström, Raijmakers & Holmlid, 2009). Thus, the beta-version of myServiceFellow used in the study does not pass current delimitations of what a full ethnographic approach is. However, a skilled user of myServiceFellow could end up with results which are close to fulfilling Agar’s criteria for what constitutes ethnography, aided by their previous knowledge in fields like Social Anthropology or Interaction Design.
Differences between the three approaches
Comparing the three approaches to ethnography it is evident that they differ from each other in many ways. These differences can be explained by the theoretical starting points used by the field workers. The differences manifest themselves in many ways, such as in the scope of the study, how the material is interpreted and to which degree.
In the case of Social Anthropology, they want to describe behaviors and make mental models apparent based on a very specific focus of the study in comparison to the two other approaches. This narrow focus made it possible for the anthropologists to go deep into the worlds of their informants and to get an understanding which was abstracted from their informants while still maintaining each informants perspective on the issues discussed. The focus of the work post-data collection for this team was to make the analysis true to the informant’s voices and produce an ethnographic text where the informants and their opinions were placed in a larger, descriptive, context. This deliverable is in line with the anthropological tradition.
Looking at the interaction designers we can similarly see how the overarching aim of their fieldwork (guided by the theoretical commitments of Interaction Design) affected their methodological choices throughout the project. The ethnographic work was directed at getting actionable insights; the initial focus was open to change at any time if the fieldwork pointed to more promising areas for future design work. This openness meant that the studies did not go as deep into any single aspect of the visitor’s experience of the fair as the anthropological study. Yet, on the other hand the interaction designers studied more aspects of the fair. The post-data collection work likewise focused on getting actionable insights for design, which meant that synthesis became the main focus in the processing of the material, leading to individual informants disappearing from the material (and the commonalities between various types of fair visitors being highlighted). The synthesis is however not seen as an end-goal, it is used as the inspiration for the design work, and later on as the guarantee for the relevance of the design solutions.
Finally, the Mobile Ethnography app myServiceFellow brings its own assumptions about the nature of the object of study, namely that it has a strong temporal aspect to it. As touchpoints cannot be reorganized by the individual participants, the phone app presumes that the order in which events happen is the most relevant to the participant. This assumption follows the material as it is transferred from the participant’s phone to the server of the project owners, who are also presented the data according to the timeline. The back-end offers the opportunity to re-sort the material but not to break free from the journey metaphor used along the timeline.