Insights curated by Experientia, the international UX consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the international UX consultancy
After her much talked about piece “Does corporate ethnography suck?” – which presented a cultural analysis of academics critiques of industry ethnography as a second rate or illegitimate forms of ethnography – Sam Ladner followed up with two more posts…
Tricia Wang of UCSD’s Department of Sociology and Barry Brown of the Mobile Life VINN Excellence Center Stockholm presented the paper “Ethnography of the telephone: Changing uses of communication technology in village life” at MobileHCI 2011. Abstract While mobile HCI…
Heather Ford spoke with Stuart Geiger, PhD student at the UC Berkeley School of Information, about his emerging ideas about the ethnography of robots. “Not the ethnography of robotics (e.g. examining the humans who design, build, program, and otherwise interact…
In this first piece, Sam Ladner examines the different temporal conceptions of ethnographic fieldwork in industry and academia: “Academics frequently criticize corporate ethnography simply as “too short.†But this is just as shallow an insight as is the idea that…
Two interesting posts by Danish photographer and visual ethnographer Jacob Langvad Nilsson: Business ethnography as a key strategy for international brands When penetrating new markets, two critical mistakes seem to repeat themselves. The first mistake involves thinking that because it…
Applying Anthropology in the Global Village Edited by Christina Wasson, Mary Odell Butler and Jacqueline Copeland-Carson Left Coast Press – November 2011 – 326 pp. Hardback (978-1-61132-085-5) Paperback (978-1-61132-086-2) The realities of the globalized world have revolutionized traditional concepts of…
In its new focus on products for girls, Lego is using quite a lot of ethnographic research: “To develop Lego Friends, Knudstorp relaunched the same extensive field research—more cultural anthropology than focus groups—that the company conducted in 2005 and 2006…
Tricia Wang reflects on the fact that ethnographic work is often invisible. One way to overcome this, she argues, is for ethnographers to find ways to visualize their work. Visuals make recommendations tangible and demonstrate the ethnographer’s value. This is…
Recently Dianna Miller had a chance to talk to Genevieve Bell, anthropologist and researcher, and the director of Intel Corporation’s Interaction and Experience Research. Genevieve Bell will be one of the keynote speakers at Interaction 12. Dianna talked with her…
Larry Dignan discusses – in a conversation with David Ginsberg, director of insights and market research at Intel, and Tony Salvador, senior principle engineer of the Experience Insight Lab at the company – how Intel is boning up on…
The Danish Alexandra Institute (see also previous post) published in 2009 an anthropological user study of needs, motivations and barriers in relation to energy consumption in the home. It was part of the MCHA project (Minimum Configuration – Home Automation)…
In a long interview, Matias Duarte, Android’s head of user experience, explains how Google conducted deep user ethnographic studies to understand how people were using their smartphones and other devices. What is the soul of the new machine? This isn’t…
Ethnography, Ethnography or Ethnography? What Happens When the Same Word Means Different Things to Different People? is the title of a new paper on ethnography by Sasanka Prabhala, Daria Loi and Subhashini Ganapathy of Intel. This paper discusses how…
Debbie Millman of DesignObserver.com interviewed design anthropologist Dori Tunstall on the insights that anthropology brings to consumerism and branding, and about the powers of transformation in design and designers. “Dori Tunstall is a Design Anthropologist, meaning she tries to understand…
Intel’s corporate anthropologist Genevieve Bell has written an elegant introductory article for the BBC site on the role of anthropology in the corporation – particularly aimed at a lay audience. “Ultimately, my team’s role is about making sure the product…
The draft proceedings of EPIC 2011, the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference, currently taking place in Boulder, CO, USA, are available for download during the conference. They contain drafts of papers and workshop abstracts, and photos and abstracts from Pecha…
An essential part of any design activity is understanding the context one is working in, particularly the social context. Eventually when proposals are made, these too must be measured by their likely impact on the people who will use and…
Dr. Kusum Gopal, an anthropologist who has served as a United Nations (UN) Expert and Technical Advisor to government agencies, speaks to The Chronicle on challenges facing developing countries and offers solutions. Q: You mention Ethnographic analysis – what…
Applying Anthropology in the Global Village Christina Wasson (Editor); Mary Odell Butler (Editor); Jacqueline Copeland-Carson (Editor) 288 pp. – Nov, 2011 Left Coast Press Hardback (978-1-61132-085-5) Paperback (978-1-61132-086-2) [Amazon link] Synopsis The realities of the globalized world have revolutionized traditional…
A two-year, five-campus ethnographic study on how students view and use their campus libraries showed that students rarely ask librarians for help, even when they need it. The idea of a librarian as an academic expert who is available to…