Field Studies (Ethnographic Studies)

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Field Studies(Ethnographic Studies)

• Alfred Kobsa
• University of California, Irvine

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Characteristics

• At offices, homes, construction sites, airports,
• Between a few hours and a couple of weeks
• Primarily an observational technique, but can be
  combined with interviews, questionnaires, think
  aloud, etc.
• Important
• Buy-in from stakeholders
• good sampling plan (whom, where, when)
• Good recording of observations (notes, pictures,
  videos, audio), and quick write-up of report
• Develop detached partnership with subjects

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Inquiry-based vs. observational studies

• Inquiry-based studies
• Reveal aspects of users rationale that cannot be
  inferred from mere observation
• Respondents have difficulties recalling and
  formulating what they do/think, and may be biased
  through social desirability, conformity,
  acquiescence, prestige,
• Observational empirical studies
• Reveal actual user behavior (which may differ
  from users stated behavior)
• Subjects may act differently than normal
  (intentional, Hawthorne effect)
• ? Both methods complement each other (they yield
  overlapping
• sets of insights and may reduce
  misunderstandings).

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Different forms (Baxter Courage)

• Observation only
• Pure observation (? be unnoticeable to others)
• Deep hanging-out (structured observation,
  collection of artifacts, becoming a user oneself)
• Observation and Interaction
• Contextual inquiry (? strive for apprentice role
  avoid sage, interviewer or guest role)
• Process analysis (? see group task analysis)
• Condensed ethnographic interview
• Discount user observation (interviewer and
  note/picture taker)
• Special techniques
• Artifact walkthrough (e.g., documents, notes)
• Incident diaries (? useful for infrequent events,
  e.g. errors encountered)
• Observer-less recording (video cameras, screen
  recordings)