Hi Anjali,

I hope you are prepared for reading my long mail on time needed for
understanding users
and role of ethnography in this as I feel the answer is not simple or linear.

Again-I dont speak for UI alone, and lack real corporate experience and I hope
that you
will also share you own views on what is the appropriate or ideal length of time
for user
research.

But my understanding, which is based on readings, my traditional ethnography
experience
during my masters and doctoral field work, as well the experiences in
course/labs we run
at srishti that have used different design research methods is that the time
required varies
according to several variables.

Even in Ui the time needed to adequately understand users, would vary with the
technology, version 1 or 2, the tools, methods used by the researcher of if
he/she is
working in team, the type and number of people in the research team, whether
user is a
willing participant in the reserach, type of design problem and many more
variables

Also varies with the system's unique atributes in UI (whether single or
thousands of users,
single culture or multiple cultures, and whether their needs are similar or
different, is it a
new product or have they used it before, etc) and one needs to examine the type
of
business, type of technolgy and type of usage.

Intel for example has been using a more comprehensive User Experience Design
(UED)
perpsective, in which ethnography plays an important role.
http://www.intel.com/technology/itj/2007/v11i1/5-voice/2-intro.htm

An relevant excerpt from this
"Outside the context of a specific capability, Intel IT has also begun utilizing
ethnography
and other qualitative research techniques, facilitating a broader understanding
of the
context in which IT products are deployed. Ethnography offers a window into the
employees' world by providing a holistic understanding of how and why employees
work
the way they do. Ethnography provides a deeper analysis of context, such as
user's values
and motivations (the "why" behind what they do) than other techniques. Whereas
UCD and
UED are useful to optimize design and deployment decisions, ethnographic and
other
qualitative techniques can be used to understand the social and organizational
factors that
may hinder the effective deployment and adoption of IT products."

However, you and I know that Ethnography by itself is often not an adequate user
research
methods and the time needed for understanding users and the social cultural
factors has
been shortened, because of the constant innovations in tools and methods used by
design
anthropologist and other design researchers through application in real world
contexts,
under real world constraints.

Howver, Ethnography typically takes longer than other design research methods -
However apart from undertsanding the social, cultural aspects of teh context and
the
users, as the Intel team's report points out, ethnography may be useful in
revealing
whether an IT solution is incorrectly being used to solve a Non IT problem.

The time alos varies with the type of products or service, how innovative the
software or
other product or service is, and even whether is version 1 or 2.

We all know that Version 2 doesn't necessarily mean it will automatically
transform to
better performance and we need to do user reserach for this.

and whether its usage is already known or not, will also determine whether
there is a need
to study usage over a longer period of time (longitudinal study) as in the
Microsoft's tablet
PC. (see Dray et al below where they studied just 47 users using a hybrid
approach,
although the Tablet PC is not the best example of the ethnography study being
successful-the problems of why it failed I am sure have been the focus of much
research
and debate within and oustide Microsoft ).

However, as we also know "the root causes" failure of a killer software
application or a
hardware product are not always tool related but instead can be linked to user's
culture or
the structure of the organization (esepcially if the user is an organization),
although
technologists are sometimes reluctant to admit that killer apps need not be be
user
unfriendly, and need an anthropologist orf design researcher to study this. More
nuanced
ethnographic resarch by a design anthropologist and other user research methods
or
other UED methods may have prevented such problems for the Microsoft Tablet PC,
but
again some technologists that i have discussed this don't agree with me.

Not just in predesign or evaluative stage in software design or other corporate
ethnography projects, but the time need to understand users adequately also
varies with
type of problems -e.g. in social innovation projects like public healthcare
systems,
education reform, depdening on what aspects we are looking at.

Ethnographers and other user researchers need to have knowledge of and adapt the
method and assess the time to accomodate each unique situation-sometimes a pilot
study
is necessary to determine this. If there is existing data (one need not reinvent
the wheel),
it shortens the time needed. I keep reminding my students about this and that
there is
value in doing research in the library or online before running helter skelter
in the field.

Ideally, the design anthropologist and other design researchers should work
with others
in a team and enage users as participants in their research and even try to
study what is
already exists in terms of data, or known outside of the system (online research
helps
here) and has been done and work with the technologists or other stakeholders to
set
initial goals, prepare questions, before determining how much time for actual
ethnography
or what other forms of design researchand methods, tools, techniques are needed
to
adequately understand the users. And field research alone is not enough and
sometimes
longitudinal research is need. For more complex systems and multiple users, the
time of
user research is longer, but we all know that in the real world the ethnographer
is forced
to fit his/her approach to the budget and time constraints and not vice versa.

http://www.dray.com/articles/field_trial.htm

http://www.dray.com/pdf/Tablet%20PC%20Field%20Trials.pdf

In introducing a new technology product like the tablet PC, as early as 2002,
Dray et al
pointed out that a "hybrid approach" integrating ethnography beyond the
pre-design stage
and usability throughout the development process which they called
"ethnographic field
trials" is needed. In this paper, they argued that its "cost justification" is
heaviest when one
is introducing innovative technology (the Microsoft Tablet PC in their case)
where they
conducted a "series of field trials" that were carried out over 1 ½ years to
study 3 different
iterations of the Microsoft Tablet PC prototype"

Not all of firms can afford to spend so much time and time doesn't always mean
good
research-need to employ qualified people. However even good doctors you know
have
misdiagnosed patients and a lesser expert has identified the problem.

Ethnographic data as Dray et al point is no use if they don't have data of user
interacting
with the Tablet PC. In this article they outline the process and methods they
use. However,
as you are aware, newer tools and techniques have been since been evolved by
design
researchers and design anthropologists that can reduce this time frame. But
obviosuly not
every company can afford this much time on getting a product to the market like
Microsoft
can.

The time needed would also depends on what risk there is to the company and its
brand (a
failed product for a company like Microsoft can do perhaps do more damage to its
brand
than all the viruses that are targeted towards internet explorer base
applications).

It would also depend on whether ethnography is being fitted into the design
cycle or just
pre-design phase, what we are trying to understand, type of users, location, how
comfortable users are with the presence of ethnographers, with digital/video
ethnography
and even how willing they are to participate in your study -sometimes the
CEO/school
principal is agreeable to let you study its people to redesign a new workspace,
but if the
technologists/teachers or other employees in the firm/school resent your
presence and
may not think what the corporate/principal is doing is of value, they may
actually find
ways to subvert your results-takes time to break through such "resistance" and
build
adequate rapport and get the undertsanding you need. The time needed to build
such
rapport in such situations can vary with the ethnographer you employ and level
of
resistance.

Just like there are bad and good designers, who may all know the tools and
techniques, a
more experienced and skilled design anthropologist can do this better and faster
than a
novice or less skilled person. The insights the former can gain may also be more
nuanced
and useful for the design process. Also if you have already had experience with
such
studying such users elsewhere. I would say, the time needed to adequately
understand
users in a single location (like a corporate0 where ethnography is relevant can
range from
as little as a few days and even as much as a few weeks.

As i pointed out-The cultural variables and busines structure and process may
also add to
the time needed. Others can surely add to the variables I have mentioned.

Basically the time needed to understand the user and the effectiveness of the
product/
service designed would vary with all that I have mentioned above inclduing the
experience
and skills of the ethnographer and others in the user research team as well as
other
variables-there is a lot of research that is emerging out of the UED team at
Intel and other
large corporations inclduing yours. In more complex situations, the ethnographer
or other
user research expert will train and work in a team, which includes the
designers,
technologists, users, anthropologist, and others playing difefrent roles in the
research
process etc.

However, many among those who accept the value of ethnography continue tend to
still
limit it to the pre-design phase in UCD while iterative usabiliy testing is done
during the
design process even though Dray et al pointed out that this can prove to be
problematic.

I am not familiar with the ethnography and other user research work Philips
Design does,
but what i have seen of HP and Intel and Nokia and other corporate design
research teams,
I think the Intel Research team which includes anthropologist Tony Salvador
(atleast i
think he is still with them) is among the best. They have also hired Girish
Prabhu from HP
labs a few years ago who is a contextual inquiry expert and understands the
value of rapid
ethnography as well as the value of a design anthropologist like Tony Salvador.
I was able
to convince HPlabs India under Girish Prabhu to partially support Srishti's
index lab where
students learnt to use apllied ethnography toolds an dtechniques to build a
bottom up
undertsanding and identify user needs, pain points and define their design
problem,
create perosnas, build scenarios, and continue to work with the users during the
design
process while they conceptualize and detailed a service or product in the arena
of body,
home, play, work. The data gathered however was analysed with the help of a
market
researcher and not an anthropologist.

Howver, these were ethnography informed hypothethical projects that seven design
schools form various parts of the world participated in and one can only
evaluate the
complet value of ethnography in this process if the prototypes of
products/services were
actually produced and tested by real users. This was a full semester lab headed
by my
colleague Poonam Bir Kasturi who is a Maverick.

And thanks a lot for the wonderful experientia link you sent -
its 31 March issue of 31 March 2007 is particularly relevant to the discussion
here
Intel Technology Journal on "designing technology with people in mind" which
many on
this forum may wish to check out

http://www.experientia.com/blog/category/user-research/

A upcoming book I found on this link that I am planning to buy when it comes out
is
"Anthropology in Consumer Research"
See forward by Grant McCracken

Uwritten by Patricia Sunderland and Rita Denny of the Chicago-based Practica
Group.
McCracken wrote the foreword which he published on his blog.
An excerpt:

"Not so long ago it received a papal blessed from A.G. Lafley, the CEO of P&G.
And with
this CEOs and CMOs everywhere began to give the attention new attention. This
is, in
other words, a crucial moment in the history of the method. It will either grow
up to
dispatch the larger and more important responsibilities is now assigned. Or it
will continue
its descent into naïve empiricism, charismatic performance, or the commodity
basement."

http://www.cultureby.com/trilogy/2007/03/ethnology_the_n.html

and below is the link to his blog on partial ethnography that i give to my
students

http://www.cultureby.com/trilogy/2006/05/the_problem_of_.html

And some of the design forum members who are interested in corporate ethnography
and
found the time to read long messages like this one may also want to look at the
Jan
Chipchase (Nokia anthropologist -3 day "Guerilla ethnography" workshop at Doors
2005
fame) controversy where Bob jacobson (who is not an anthropologist but an Urban
planner, Environmental Designer and technology writing a book on Experience
Design -
see his weblog "Total Experience") declared that "corporate ethnography is
primitive" -and
see his quote below on post from anthrodesign where the debate that was provoked
by
this debates was still raging as of March 18th.

http://www.experientia.com/blog/index.php?s=nokia+jan+chipchase
+controversy&x=11&y=8

"Nokia's ethnographic research sounds basic, even primitive. It's akin to Dr.
Livingston in
"Darkest Africa," sussing out the "natives": how many yams they eat in a week,
who tells
the iconic stories, what clans do to maintain hegemony, etc. Very ho-hum, except
that the
technology is "cool." Cellphone ethnographic research, so far as I can tell,
studies
behaviors related to product use but as the snippet in BW reveals, not the inner
workings
of cellphone users — how they relate to cellphones in phenomenological ways, for
example."

Look forward to hearing your views on time needed for user research and the
above
controversy on corporate ethnography

Uma
Srishti
Purdue Univ-CSR Dept (Envtal. Design Analysis & Interiors) M.S.1989
Purdue Univ-Anthro & Soc Dept (Cultural anthropology) (Ph.D. a,b.d. 2000)

--- In designindia@..., anjali kelkar <anjalikelkar68@...> wrote:
>
> Uma
> How much time would you say is adequate for
> understanding users? Is there ever an appropriate
> timeline?
> Anjali
>
> Anjali Kelkar
> Parsons School of Design, 1992
> IIT-Institute of Design, 2002
>
> --- M P Ranjan <ranjanmp@...> wrote:
>
> > Posting for Uma Chandru:
> >
> > see forwarded message below on Design Anthropology
> > and ethnography.
> >
> > Ranjan
> > from my office at NID
> > 31 March 2007 at 12.15 pm IST
> >
> > Prof M P Ranjan
> > Faculty of Design
> > Head, Centre for Bamboo Initiatives at NID
> > (CFBI-NID)
> > Chairman, GeoVisualisation Task Group (DST, Govt. of
> > India) (2006-2008)
> > Faculty Member on Governing Council (2003 - 2005)
> > National Institute of Design
> > Paldi
> > Ahmedabad 380 007 India
> >
> > Tel: (off) 91 79 26623692 ext 1090 (changed in
> > January 2006)
> > Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054
> > Fax: 91 79 26605242
> >
> > email: ranjanmp@...
> > web site: http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/
> > web domain: http://www.ranjanmp.in
> >
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > > From: "Uma Chandru" <uma@...>
> > > Date: 31 March 2007 9:43:47 AM GMT+05:30
> > > To: <ranjanmp@...>
> > > Cc: <sudhirelephant@...>
> > > Subject: difficulty posting my response (copied
> > below) to
> > > Ethnography & Its role UI Design
> > >
> > >
> > > Dear Ranjan/Sudhir,
> > > I tried posting this through the reply web post
> > link at the bottom
> > > of Lokesh's mail and I was able to go into the
> > Design Indian yahoo
> > > group to lehesh's message and it let me type my
> > message and send
> > > it, but it hasn't shown up in my mailbox or on the
> > yahoo group
> > > Design India site.
> > >
> > > Is there a time lag or did I do something wrong?
> > > Let me know what I should do or if you can post
> > the message below
> > > again for me as this discussion is in my arena of
> > inetrest as a
> > > cultural anthropologist and design faculty who
> > teaches the value
> > > and practice of different approaches to
> > ethnography to
> > > undergraduate design students in India where
> > "Design Anthropology"
> > > is yet to make a real dent, although Contextual
> > Design and what is
> > > called design ethnography approaches have begun to
> > gain greater
> > > acceptance.
> > >
> > > However, I prefer not to try posting again because
> > of the triple
> > > messages some people have been sending are
> > annoying for me as well
> > > as others.
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > > Warm regards
> > > Uma
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi Lokesh,
> > > I teach tools and techniques of ethnography to
> > design students at
> > > Srishti and I can't speak
> > > for UI in particular.
> > >
> > > While ethnography emerged out of the discipline of
> > cultural
> > > anthropology-it has been
> > > adopted by many fields and adapted to fit their
> > needs and has
> > > provided useful insights into learners, users,
> > corporate structures
> > > and space design, new product design, etc
> > >
> > > However, today-There are several medium and large
> > companies and
> > > corporations
> > > worldwide using ethnography and they either use
> > consultants or
> > > employ contextual design
> > > researchers as well as Design Anthropologists,
> > psychologists,
> > > sociologists, who practice
> > > and apply the tools and techniques of ethnography
> > in different ways
> > > (even their forms of
> > > data analysis and synthesis differ) , but this may
> > not be
> > > affordable for small firms.
> > >
> > > Some questions to think of in forming a team apart
> > from the budget
> > > and time constraints
> > > (which of course are the real world vs academic
> > constraints) are:
> > > Are we in need of a deeper understanding of and
> > gleaning better
> > > insights of the users?
> > > Are we an Indian firm/transnational corporation
> > that requires cross-
> > > cultural
> > > understanding?
> > >
> > > Basically, What will ethnography do for you as a
> > company?
> > >
> > > If you agree you need ethnography
> > > What type of ethnography will add value for you?
> > > -good old fashioned where an
> > > ethnographer spends 2-6 months
> > > or quick and dirty, rapid, guerilla ethnography
> > (which can be as
> > > little as 2-3 days to two
> > > weeks and sometimes longer,
> > > team ethnography
> > > Is there value in "evaluative ethnography" or
> > "analysis of existing
> > > ethnographies" (see
> > > Hughes et al) for small firms or even large
> > corporations?
> > >
> > > Do we need more than just naturalistic observation
> > of users/customers?
> > >
> > > Also as Dipti Pant (DM) has pointed out in an
> > earlier mail in this
> > > forum -Is the
> > > observational and visual approach enough
> > (difficult to teach more
> > > than that in a four day
> > > course that is discovery based to undergraduate
> > design students)-or
> > > is the attitudinal,
> > > psychosocial, (i would add cultural, political,
> > economic,
> > > ecological and if we are talking of sustainability
> > -environmental
> > > aspects as well)
> > >
> > > Who can bring more value for you as a company?-a
> > design researcher
> > > with a contextual
> > > inquiry (interviews situated in work context- has
> > been described as
> > > a sort of
> > > "micro ethnography" but with a design focus and
> > can help identify
> > > pain points of the users
> > > and new business opportunities for firms)
> > background who also uses
> > > ethnography to get
> > > results of value to a company or a design
> > anthropologist who can
> > > help you build a deeper
> > > cultural understanding and insights of not just
> > the present or the
> > > past but future users? of
> > > course-the big question is -Can you afford both as
> > Intel or other
> > > large firms can?
> > >
> > > Also will an design anthropologist learn things
> > that have more
> > > value for you that a design
> > > researcher expert who has learnt a few tools of
> > ethnography can't do?
> > >
> > > Can partial ethnography be dangerous for a
> > firm-Read Grant
> > > McCracken's blog on this
> > >
> > > And as Dipti pant (design management consultant)
> > has argued -Do you
> > > need a design
> > > manager to integrate the work of the members
> > involved in the
> > > research team?
> > >
> > > There are a lot more I can add to this -but
> > perhaps others with
> > > more corporate
> >
> === message truncated ===
>
>
> Anjali Kelkar
> Design Research
>
>
>
>
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