HumanComputer Interaction

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EthnographyUnderstanding Users
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Learning Outcomes

• A basic understanding of ethnography in design
• Understanding user needs through fieldwork -
  i.e., immersion and direct observation

• Ethnographys analytic focus
• The social organization of practical action and
  practical reasoning

• What you have to do for your Coursework 1
  Individual Report
• 2500 word report on a field study of your own
• 30 of overall course mark
• Due Friday 13th February, 16.00 WebCT

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Overview

• The origins of ethnography

• Social organization of practical action and
  practical reasoning
• A practical example handling mail in the home

• Focus of your study - social organization of
• Music distribution and use in the home,
• Or video distribution and use in the home,
• Or photo distribution and use in the home.
• Aim to inform the design of interfaces for
  distributing and sharing music or video or photos
  in and between homes (CW2 Group Report)

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The Origins of Ethnography

• A method derived from social anthropology as a
  means of studying people in the wild -
  naturally occurring behaviour

• Invented by Bronislaw Malinowski circa 1922 as a
  way of understanding other cultures through
  immersion in what people do
• Contrasts with previous reliance on travellers
  tales

• Immersion in a culture means
• Direct observation look at what goes on in a
  setting
• Interaction with a settings members ask
  questions and engage in conversation to
  understand what goes on in a setting
• Document what people do (produce a field report)

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Producing a Field Report

• You need to analyse what you see

• Focus of analysis is on social organization of
  practical action and practical reasoning (what
  people do)
• Specifically, the methodical ways in which the
  members of a setting do the things that they do
• Or, in other words, their collaborative
  work-practices

• Social organization
• Collaborative means social
• Members methods or work-practices socially
  organize practical action and practical reasoning
• Members methods or work-practices are
  accomplished through action and interaction (you
  can see them being done in the doing)

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Analysing Social Organization

• A practical example handling mail in the home
• A known in common delivery / collection point
• Collection point is obviously contingent on the
  particular home detached house, terraced house,
  apartment, etc.
• Despite the contingency, still known in common
• Access to mail is far less contingent just
  about any household member may collect mail, but
  not any may open it

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So Who Can Open It?

• Working out entitlements
• Opening mail is not governed by the name on the
  item but by entitlements to open mail
• The visible character of the mail conveyed by
  logos, organizational stamps, postmarks, and
  handwriting, etc., articulates entitlement rights
• Depending on who is entitled to open mail an item
  may be opened, junked, or left for someone else
  to do it

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Who Is The Mail For?

• Sorting mail
• The person who opens and / or sorts the mail is
  not necessarily the recipient of the mail
• Mail is subsequently placed at known in common
  sites
• Placement performs different functions
• 1) It announces that new mail has arrived

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Who is the Recipient?

• 2) Placement displays the relevance of mail to
  others
• The placement of mail is done in fine-grained
  ways to display its relevance to particular
  people in the home
• For example, a card from a family friend may be
  placed by one partner at the others seat at the
  table to draw attention to its relevance

Mail for a Particular Person to Read
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What Needs to Be Done?

• 3) Placement displays that responses are
  necessary
• Mail often requires a response of some kind
• Opened mail is placed to articulate at-a-glance
  the kind of action that needs to be taken in
  response
• For example, a bill may be placed at the front of
  the table to show that it needs to be taken out
  of the home and paid

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Will It Wait?

• 4) Placement displays that no immediate action is
  required
• Mail that requires no immediate action is placed
  on a pending pile, which displays outstanding
  tasks
• For example, bank statements, subscriptions,
  notifications of future events, etc., may be
  placed at the back of the kitchen table

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Do I Need to Display It?

• 5) Placement enables household members to keep
  track of important events
• Mail that is not of immediate relevance but which
  members need to be aware of is placed in a
  location that maintains its visibility
• For example, invitations, appointments, concert
  tickets, etc., may be placed on a notice board

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Is It Special?

• 6) Placement reflects the intimate character of
  mail
• Certain mail is put on show after it has been
  read in order to display its special character
• For example, birthday, anniversary, thank you
  cards, etc., may be placed on the mantelpiece
• This placing may also serve a mnemonic function

Thank You Card from a Friend
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Members Methods

• A naturally accountable assembly of local
  work-practices
• 1. Collecting mail from a known in common place
• 2. Opening mail based on household members
  entitlement to do so
• 3. Sorting mail into relevant categories of
  action through its physical placement
• 3.1 To announce to others that new mail has
  arrived
• 3.2 To display the relevance of mail items to
  particular household members
• 3.3 To display what kind of action needs to be
  taken in response
• 3.3.1 None
• 3.3.2 Immediate
• 3.3.3 Pending
• 3.4 To maintain awareness of events
• 3.5 To display the intimate character of mail
  items

• Members methods elaborate the real world, real
  time social organization of practical action and
  practical reasoning
• In this case, how the distribution and use of
  mail is collaboratively organized by a settings
  members (implications for design)

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Your Task

• To identify through fieldwork the methods that
  members in the settings you immerse yourself in
  use to organize
• The distribution and use of music in the home
• Or the distribution and use of video in the home
• Or the distribution and use of photos in the home
• You will be assigned one of these topics - Steve
  to release list on course website

• Practicalities of fieldwork
• You can go to any home you like, but do not study
  yourself
• You can do fieldwork in more than one home
• You should ask people to show you how they
  ordinarily distribute and use the media you are
  interested in
• You should take fieldnotes that describe what you
  see people doing and of what they say about them
• You may, with their permission, record what they
  do on audio or video tape and take photos to
  document what people do
• You must assure people that you will not make the
  recordings public, that they are for your use
  only to enhance your notes, and that you will
  destroy them afterwards

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Coursework 1

• Your Individual Report should
• Anonymize the participants in your study
• Report how many settings and people were involved
• When and for how long fieldwork was conducted
• How it was conducted (observation, interview,
  fieldnotes, audio recording, etc.)
• Do not use questionnaires or statistical analysis
• What was observed (what actions and interactions)
• How the things observed are socially organized
  (members methods)
• A summary of your findings stating how media
  distribution and use is organized
• Conclude by stating the key implications of your
  findings for design
• i.e., state the key things a new interface for
  handling the media distribution and use you
  observed should support
• If you do not include these things you will lose
  marks
• You may use diagrams, photographs, and extracts
  of talk to elaborate your report

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Reading

• Hughes, J., Randall, D. and Shapiro, D. (1992)
  Faltering from ethnography to design
  Proceedings of CSCW 92, pp. 115-122, ACM.
• Good ethnographic study that elaborates the
  approach

• Rouncefield, M, Hughes, J. and OBrien, J. (1997)
  Some practicalities of ethnographic analysis
  CSEG Technical Report, University of Lancaster.
• Work-oriented but addresses many practical issues
  involved in doing ethnography

• Salmon, B., Hady, F. and Melican, J. (2007)
  Learning to share a study of sharing among home
  storage devices, Parallel Data Lab Technical
  Report, Carnegie Mellon University
• Identifies some social/design issues involved in
  media distribution and sharing
• Your reports must identify more (i.e., not
  sufficient to just rip this report off)