Ethnographic Design

1. Ethnographic Design • Study user practices for insight into design • Can be associated with design as • Of development • For development • Within development

2. Fact overwhelms innovation • Important to consider current technology use • Change to technology may obliterate unofficial uses • Implications of methodology change

3. Ethnography vs Design • Ethnography is detail oriented • Design is abstraction based

4. Structured Framework • Structure presentation for developers • Dimensions: • Distributed coordination • Means and mechanisms • Plans and procedures • Organizational support • Awareness of work • Methods of overview

5. Coherence Method • Integrates social analysis with object-oriented analysis • Presents ethnographic data through viewpoints and concerns

6. Viewpoints • Guide observer to realizations about environment • Consideration from multiple respects

7. Viewpoint prototypes • Distributed coordination • Plans and procedures • Awareness of work

8. Distributed coordination • Division of labor by coordination • Clarity of boundaries between responsibilities • Appreciation of other’s tasks • Orientation of individual work towards group

9. Plans and procedures • Function of plans and procedures • Utility • Failures • Consequences of failure • Circumvention methods and motivation

10. Awareness of work • Spatial organization facilitating interaction • Worker organization of space • Often used notes/list/objects • Location and use of objects

11. Concerns • Goals which drive requirements • Addressed with respect to viewpoints

12. Evaluating concerns • Is the concern relevant to the viewpoint • Elaboration used to further define concern

13. Concern Elaboration • Paperwork and computer work • Skill and use of local knowledge • Spatial and temporal organization • Organizational memory

14. Paper and Computer work • Embodiment of process in forms and screens • Ability of work to indicate progress • Flexibility of process supporting technology

15. Skill and local knowledge • Necessary everyday skills • Local knowledge sources and usage • Adaptation of standard procedures to suit local conditions

16. Spatial and temporal organization • Reflection of work in spatial organization • Time dependence of aspects of work • Obsolescence of data • Assurance of up-to-date information

17. Organizational memory • How is process learned and remembered • Correlation of formal records and actual work

18. Contextual Design • Structured approach • gathering and representing ethnographic data • Focused on providing data for design

19. Parts of Contextual Design • Contextual Inquiry • Work Modeling • Consolidation • Work Redesign • User Environment Design • Mockup and Test with Customers • Putting It into Practice

20. Contextual Inquiry • Apprenticeship model • Interview is typical format • Four Principles: • Context • Partnership • Interpretation • Focus

21. Contextual Inquiry Principles • Context • Importance of observing environment with facts • Partnership • Developer and user collaboration in comprehension

22. Contextual Inquiry Principles • Interpretation • Observations must be interpreted • Interpretation constructed by user and developer • Focus • How to know what to look for • Project focus developed for interviewer

23. Difference from Ethnography • Shorter – 2 to 3 hours • Intense and focused • Observation not participation • Intent to build new systems, not detail existing ones

24. Work Modeling • Compilation and interpretation of interview data • Serve to build various models of work • Work flow model • Sequence model • Artifact model • Cultural Model • Physical Model

25. Model Types • Work flow model • Interpersonal communication and coordination • Sequence Model • Detailed steps necessary for work • Useless without understanding of goals

26. Model Types • Cultural Model • Constraints on system from organizational culture • Physical Model • Physical plan of work • Communication networks • Office space • Show physical constraints

27. Interpretation session • Developers must have coherent view of system • Combination of results of interviews • Work Models generated in session • Structured roles for discussion

28. Roles in interpretation • Interviewer • Work Modelers • Recorder • Participants • Moderator • Rat Hole Watcher

29. Consolidation • Affinity diagram • Capture notes of interpretation • Consolidated Models • Retrieve commonalities

30. Affinity Diagram • Notes are collected from interpretation sessions • Grouped by similarity to other notes • Groups emerge from data by induction

31. Consolidated models • Consolidation of model types • Generalize individual models for validity • Help designers to understand users • Intent • Strategy • Structures • Concepts • Mindset

32. Design Room • Repository of work models • Models pinned to walls as reference • Surround team during design meetings

33. Participatory Design • Methodology which employs users in active involvement with development • System designed in cooperation • Provide user control over work environment

34. Obstacles • User and developer mismatch • Knowledge assumptions may be disparate • Skillset mismatch

35. Methodology Examples • PICTIVE • CARD

36. PICTIVE • Plastic Interface for Collaborative Technology Initiatives through Video Exploration • One-on-one collaboration or small group

37. Method • Employs physical representations of interface components to design work • “Work” is performed through evolving interface mockup • Design surface recorded by video • Interactive

38. CARD • Collaborative Analysis of Requirements and Design • Uses representation cards to explore workflow step options • Storyboarding

39. Method • Similar to PICTIVE • Participants manipulate step cards in order to come to a conclusion about work flow

40. Focus level • PICTIVE • Detailed system aspects • CARD • Macroscopic view of task flow