Doing Design Ethnography

Ethnography is now a fundamental feature of design practice, taught in universities worldwide and practiced widely in commerce. Despite its rise to prominence a great many competing perspectives exist and there are few practical texts to support the development of competence. Doing Design Ethnography elaborates the ethnomethodological perspective on ethnography, a distinctive approach that provides canonical 'studies of work' in and for design. It provides an extensive treatment of the approach, with a particular slant on providing a pedagogical text that will support the development of competence for students, career researchers and design practitioners. It is organised around a complementary series of self-contained chapters, each of which address key features of doing the job of ethnography for purposes of system design. The book will be of broad appeal to students and practitioners in HCI, CSCW and software engineering, providing valuable insights as to how to conduct ethnography and relate it to design.

Ethnography is now a fundamental feature of design practice, taught in universities worldwide and practiced widely in commerce. Despite its rise to prominence a great many competing perspectives exist and there are few practical texts to support the development of competence. Doing Design Ethnography elaborates the ethnomethodological perspective on ethnography, a distinctive approach that provides canonical 'studies of work' in and for design. It provides an extensive treatment of the approach, with a particular slant on providing a pedagogical text that will support the development of competence for students, career researchers and design practitioners. It is organised around a complementary series of self-contained chapters, each of which address key features of doing the job of ethnography for purposes of system design. The book will be of broad appeal to students and practitioners in HCI, CSCW and software engineering, providing valuable insights as to how to conduct ethnography and relate it to design.

Ethnography is an increasingly important research method in the private sector, yet ethnographic literature continues to focus on an academic audience. Sam Ladner fills the gap by advancing rigorous ethnographic practice that is tailored to corporate settings where colleagues are not steeped in social theory, research time lines may be days rather than months or years, and research sponsors expect actionable outcomes and recommendations. Ladner provides step-by-step guidance at every turn--covering core methods, research design, using the latest mobile and digital technologies, project and client management, ethics, reporting, and translating your findings into business strategies. This book is the perfect resource for private-sector researchers, designers, and managers seeking robust ethnographic tools or academic researchers hoping to conduct research in corporate settings. More information on the book is available at http://www.practicalethnography.com/.

This open access book describes methods for research on and research through design. It posits that ethnography is an appropriate method for design research because it constantly orients itself, like design projects, towards social realities. In research processes, designers acquire project-specific knowledge, which happens mostly intuitively in practice. When this knowledge becomes the subject of reflection and explication, it strengthens the discipline of design and makes it more open to interdisciplinary dialogue. Through the use of the ethnographic method in design, this book shows how design researchers can question the certainties of the everyday world, deconstruct reality into singular aesthetic and semantic phenomena, and reconfigure them into new contexts of signification. It shows that design ethnography is a process in which the epistemic and creative elements flow into one another in iterative loops. The goal of design ethnography is not to colonize the discipline of design with a positivist and objectivist scientific ethos, but rather to reinforce and reflect upon the explorative and searching methods that are inherent to it. This innovative book is of interest to design researchers and professionals, including graphic artists, ethnographers, visual anthropologists and others involved with creative arts/media.

With regular exercises, lists of key terms and points and self-evaluation checklists, Doing Ethnography systematically describes the various phases of an ethnographic inquiry and provides numerous examples, suggestions and advice for the novice ethnographer. Ethnography seeks to understand, describe and explain the symbolic world lying beneath the social action of groups, organizations and communities. This book clearly sets out the coordinates and foundations of this increasingly popular methodology. Giampietro Gobo discusses all the major issues, including the research design, access to the field, data collection, organisation and analysis, and communication of the results.

Making Homes: Anthropology and Design is a strong addition to the emerging field of design anthropology. Based on the latest scholarship and practice in the social sciences as well as design, this interdisciplinary text introduces a new design ethnography which offers unique and original approaches to research and intervention in the home.Presenting a coherent theoretical and methodological framework for both ethnographers and designers, the authors examine ‘hot’ topics – ranging from movements and mobilities to im/material environments, to digital culture – and confront the challenges of a research and design environment which seeks to bring about the changes required for a sustainable, resilient, ‘safe’, and comfortable future.Written by leading experts in the field, the book draws on real-life examples from a wide range of international projects developed by the authors, other researchers, and designers. Illustrations throughout help to convey the methods and research visually. Readers will also have access to a related website which follows the authors’ ongoing research and includes video and written narrative examples of ethnographic research in the home.Transforming current understandings of the home, this is an essential read for students and researchers in fields such as design, anthropology, human geography, sociology, and media and communication studies.

Doing Sensory Ethnography responds to a recent an explosion of interest in the senses across the social sciences. Sarah Pink suggests re-thinking the ethnographic process through reflexive attention to what she terms the 'sensoriality' of the experience, practice and knowledge of both researchers and those who participate in their research. The book provides an accessible discussion and analysis of the theoretical, methodological and practical aspects of doing sensory ethnography, drawing on examples and case studies from the growing literature on sensory ethnographic studies, and from the author's own work. Doing Sensory Ethnography is the first book to concentrate on outlining a sensory ethnographic methodology. It will be of great interest to researchers and students from all disciplines interested in enriching their ethnographic work through a focus on the senses.

′[T]hose already proficient in ethnographic methods will find Doing Visual Ethnography a foray into what should be an increasingly normative terrain and what is certainly a much-needed addition to the literature. They will be challenged to simultaneously take on new methodological conceits and their application beyond traditional boundaries′ - Library & Information Science Research Following on from the success of Doing Visual Ethnography, this fully revised and updated second edition explores the use and potential of photography, video and hypermedia in ethnographic and social research. It offers a reflexive approach to theoretical, methodological, practical and ethical issues of using these media now that they are increasingly being incorporated into field research. Sarah Pink adopts the viewpoint that visual research methods should be rooted in a critical understanding of local and academic visual cultures, the visual media and technologies being used and the ethical issues they raise. The book demonstrates that these new challenges that shape ethnographic knowledge can be met by understanding the reflexivity and experience through which visual and ethnographic materials are produced and interpreted. New to the Second Edition: - General updating of figures, terminology and literature to bring the book up-to-date with recent innovations in theory, practice and technology - Annotated reading lists added to each chapter to guide the reader to further literature - Completely rewritten chapter on digital technology to ensure the text is in line with the latest developments in technology and methodological thinking Drawing from her own experiences of using photography, video and hypermedia in research, as well as the work of others, the author follows the research process from project design, planning and implementing and practising fieldwork to analysis and representation, suggesting how visual images and technologies can be combined to form an integrated process throughout the different stages of research. The Second Edition of Doing Visual Ethnography is an excellent resource for students of sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, media studies, and those doing ethnographic and qualitative research. It also provides valuable reading for researchers and postgraduates.