ISSD Fall 2010 School of Information, UC Berkeley

You obviously can't do anything resembling classical ethnography to understand your design context and community in two weeks, and you probably can't even much "rapid" ethnography. But a little ethnography is better than none, so we're going to do some.

PART 1. First, consider where your project falls on the "ethnography continuum" and decide if it is more "experience-intensive" or "information-intensive." Divide your project team into two groups so that the number of people in each group and thus the amount of ethnographic observation and analysis reflects where your project falls on the continuum. For example, if there are three people in your team and you have an "information-intensive" project context, you'll have one person taking an "experiential" perspective and the other two taking an "information-intensive" one. If you have four team members, split two and two.

PART 2a. The "experiential" team member(s) should first develop an "Engagement Plan" (see the slide in the 14 October lecture) that briefly explains what they would ideally like to do. This has five parts:

1. Define the Scope
2. Identify the Informants
3. Plan the Observations and Data Collection
4. Make Observations and Collect Data
5. Analyze and Interpret

This plan doesn't have to be extensive - it is only to ensure that you think ahead so that you maximize the return on your limited time. AND YOU PROBABLY WON'T BE ABLE TO DO EVERYTHING IN YOUR PLAN... BUT IT IS A USEFUL EXERCISE TO IMAGINE A "RAPID" ENGAGEMENT EVEN IF YOU'RE LIMITED TO A "VERY RAPID" ONE

For example, a project team trying to understand the bookstore setting might plan as follows:

1. Define the Scope: We'll visit two different bookstores, a large chain store (Barnes and Nobel) and a small independent one (City Lights)
2. Identify the Informants: Bookstore customers of different ages and gender (at least 10 in each store), bookstore clerk (at least 2 in big store), bookstore manager
3. Plan the Observations and Data Collection: We'll pretend we are customers and watch people, focusing on their interactions with the books, other customers, and bookstore employees; After customers leave the store, we'll try to intercept them to ask them a few questions about their experiences. ( Probably should talk to the clerk or manager first so they dont think we are stalkers).
4. Make Observations and Collect Data: We'll visit each store at least three times, once in the middle of day mid-week, once in the evening, and once on a weekend
5. Analyze and Interpret: How long do people spend in the bookstore? Do they always buy something? How many books? Do they talk to other customers? Do they talk to bookstore employees? etc.

• "Getting People to Talk: An Ethnography and Interviewing Primer"

PART 2b. Similarly, the "information-intensive" team member(s) should first develop an Engagement Plan to guide their work. There will be some similarity to the plan for the "experiential" ethnography.

For example, a project team trying to understand the ISchool office might plan as follows:

1. Define the Scope: We'll visit the ISchool office to understand the primary information-intensive processes that involve ISchool students.
2. Identify the Informants: We'll interview the "Front desk" person, the Office Manager, the Accountant, and one of the assistants.  Ask the Office Manager first to get permission and "legitimated access" to the other employees in the office. We'll also interview some of the students who go to the ISchool office to have encounters with the employees.
3. Plan the Observations and Data Collection: We'll interview each informant to identify the essential documents/artifacts and information flows, trying to find the "headwaters" of each and the processes/transformations that they undergo during their life cycles. We'll collect examples of each as well as an information about their models.
4. Make Observations and Collect Data: We'll interview each informant twice, at least a few days apart, so that we can ask followup questions suggested by what they told us the first time.
5. Analyze and Interpret: What are the essential documents? Can we develop a causal model of information flow? Can we determine how the information components of each document type are incrementally and collectively transformed? 

• FINDINGS: In the bookstore ethnography engagement example, (O1) you observe customers taking books to the in-store coffee shop. (I1) Customers tell you that taking a close look at a book is often a necessary step in a purchase decision, especially for expensive books, and (I2) if they need to take a close look at a book, they would prefer to sit down rather than stand, and the only chairs in the bookstore are in the coffee shop. But (O2) sometimes customers abandon books in the coffee shop, and (I3) bookstore employees call these "zombies" and consider the task of re-shelving them a nuisance.
• TRACEABILITY: You recommend creating a "zombie re-shelving map service" that uses the RFID tags in the books and the bookstore layout plan to make the re-shelving task more efficient (O2, I3). You recommend placing comfortable reading chairs in various locations near the bookshelves so that customers are encouraged to look more carefully at books (I2), which would result in zombie books being abandoned closer to their correct locations (I3).