Using Ethnography to Better Understand Players in a System

Tools and Techniquesof

Interviewing and Observation

The CKS Innovation Cycle

Value of Understanding People fToMr Design

• Defining a research problem is a first prerequisite

to understanding people.

• Without a research problem there is lack of focus

set by the need to answer a particular question.

• Do not be discouraged if a research problem is

not defined early on, at the onset of your

research.

• However, thinking about it early will help guide the

research more effectively.

• Defining a research problem helps in preventing

aimless and endless gathering of data without

knowing what data is enough. It also helps in

better recording and representation of data.

Goal was to identify opportunities

for radical, rather than

incremental, improvement in

vaccine delivery and uptake

Research Problem

• Based on domain knowledge, a hypothesis

statement should be made in alignment with the

research problem.

• Building a working hypothesis document has

been useful to provide better direction around the

insights to look for during field research.

• These field insights are used to support or refute

existing assumptions, as well as build on the

hypothesis.

• Creating a hypothesis document also helps in

developing a more effective research plan and

design of field tools, such as field guides.

Hypothesis Statements

• The research guide is designed to serve as a

script for the field situation. It defines the extent

and depth of enquiry for a given protocol.

• The guide is the basis of the field interaction.A

good researcher will know where and how to

deviate and elaborate based on field conditions.

• It helps standardize the quality of output, in all

cases, including research across different

geographies.

• Guide should flow from general to specificquestions.

• Design the guide with utmost clarity and

specificity in response to project goals.

Researcher using field guide while interviewing

Field Guides

• Create a detailed recruitment questionnaire to

filter participants based on the proposed sample

criteria.

• It is important to build good rapport relations with

participants to make it easier to recruit them.

• Winning their trust and developing a comfort level

with them also helps in uncovering deep insights

during fieldwork.

• Communicating the value of research always

helps in making the recruitment easier.

• Always seek informed consent from them for

audio taping, photography, and videography.

Their rights must be respected in all situations

and their confidentiality must be maintained.

Recruitment

• While interviews reveal the conscious choices of

subjects, they do not expose unconscious, taken

for-granted ways of human behavior.

• To acquire an understanding of our subject’s

unconscious ways of doing things, we need to

rely on observation, at times participatory,

depending on the context.

• A sensitive ethnographer draws upon own

reactions to identify issues of possible importance

to people in the setting, but privileges “insider”

descriptions and categories over “outsider” views.

No field researcher can be completely neutral, detached

observer outside and independent of the observed

phenomena. His perspective is always intertwined with the

observed phenomena, which is not independent of

observer ’s perspectives and methods.− Pollner and Emerson, 1988

Ethnographic Immersion through Participant Observation

• Ethnographic attention involves balancing two

different orientations. On entering the field, the

researcher identifies significant characteristics

from her first impressions and personal reactions.

• With greater participation in local social world, the

ethnographer becomes more sensitive to the

concerns / perspectives of those in the setting.

– To begin with, ethnographers should take note of their

initial impressions of their physical environment – the

tastes, smells, and sounds of the physical

environment, the look and feel of the locale and people

Secondly, field researchers can focus on observing

key events of incidents, something that surprises or

runs counter to the expectations.

Thirdly, move beyond personal reactions to develop

sensitivity to observe what those in the setting

experience and react to as significant and important.

–

–

What to Observe

• Semi-structured, group and individual interviews

with subjects depending on context.

• Group interviews provide the opportunity for

subjects to engage in a dialogue regarding

shared beliefs or perceptions and respond to

each other ’s statements.

• Individual interviews, by contrast, allow the

subjects to be more open about their choices or

viewpoints, especially in certain contexts.

– Prime: raise a series of questions that set a theme or

topic of context and then ask the key question.

Probe: when getting no data, you ask specific

questions that have to do with the point under

discussion.

Prompt: asking the question in a leading way that

prejudges or forces a response. DO NOT DO THIS!

–

–

Interviewing

• Ethnography is not the mere implementation of a

field guide – it is a means of empathizing with the

users which allows them to feel respected and

heard.

• Some ethnographers seek to do field research by

doing and becoming to the extent possible

whatever it is they are interested in learning

about.

• Developing first hand relations with those studied

helps in understanding more subtle, implicit

underlying assumptions that are often not readily

accessible through observation/interviewing.

• Keep your ears and eyes open at all times, yet

respect privacy of respondents.

Doing Ethnography

• Be aware of the impact of your presence as an

ethnographer. You have to organize your and

your subject’s body naturally.

– Stage actors do that, they are conscious of the

audience location and place themselves accordingly.

• You want to avoid yourself and your stuff being

picked up by the camera. In some cases it is

useful to be out of the scene.

• Imagine the camera frame and move your body

around the room and the subject accordingly.

• Help the subject to open up to you. Project calm,

poise, and use silence to allow the subject to

open up his mind, his life and his world to you.

– If you communicate anxiety or tension, the subject will

respond in kind.

Doing Ethnography

“ The ethnographer inscribes social discourse, he writes it

down.” This process of inscribing, of writing field notes helps

the field researcher to understand what he has been

observing enables him to participate in a new ways to hear

with greater acuteness and to observe with a new lens.

– Geertz, 1973

• Doing and writing should not be seen as separate

and distinct activities, but as dialectically related

and interdependent activities.

– It is important to realize interconnections between

writing, participating, and observing a means of

understanding another way of life.

– Ethnographer writes field notes more or less

contemporaneously with the experience and

observation of events of interest.

• Field notes involve inscription of social life and

discourse through deep immersion into context.

– Only through deep immersion, the ethnographer is

able to inscribe context specific and locally informed

notes that Geertz terms as “thick description.”

Doing and Writing

• Writing ethnographic field notes is an interpretive

process, the first act of textualization. Never a

simple matter of inscribing the world, field notes

do more than record observations.

• It is not about passively describing facts about

what happened. Rather, it involves active

processes of interpretation and sense making.

– Noting and writing down some things as significant

and noting but ignoring others are not significant.

• There is no one “natural” or correct way to write

about what one observes.

• Rather, because descriptions involve issues of

perception and interpretation different

descriptions of the same situations and events

are possible.

Textualizing Experienced/Observed Realties

• In writing field notes, the field researcher should

give special attention to the indigenous meanings

and concerns of the people studied.

– To do so, they must learn to recognize and limit

reliance upon preconceptions about members lives

and activities. They must become responsive to what

others are concerned about, in their own terms.

• Important for an ethnographer to document her

own activities (methods followed) as they shape

the process of observing and recording.

• Field researchers take mental note of certain

details and impressions while observing. They

should not forget to jot them down.

• As it time consuming to write down every word

fully, many field workers develop their own private

systems of symbols and abbreviations.

Nuances of Ethnographic Field Notes

• Each ethnographic visit is unique and contributes

to the study in its own way.

• It is unlikely that the specific and analytic

research questions will be directly answered

during a field visit.

There will be many visits that seem boring and

through which no great insights are achieved.

• Various subjects are met during a study so that

collectively, they help the research team to arrive

at conclusions.

• The big picture can be achieved only when

insights are derived out of all the field data.

What to Expect?

• You will meet people that are far away from what

you think is the norm, even in different cultures

from your own.

•

You must bring empathy, understanding, interest

and attention, especially to these subjects.

“In preparing for battle, I have always found that

plans are useless, but planning is indispensible.”

- Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower.

• Things never turn out exactly as originally

planned. Subjects are late, detailed instructions

are misinterpreted, cultures and contexts vary,

and the complexity of human and social life pose

unanticipated challenges to the study.

• Stay cool, be open, try to think about the purpose

of the project, try to answer the key research

questions, no matter what comes your way today.

What to Expect?

Data Models: User Experience Maps

EXPERIENCING TELECOMMUNICATIONS

DELHI

Data Models: Interactions Between Players in a System

Data Models: Process Maps