Ethnography Articles

            Ethnography is a research tool used to create better design. It helps designers connect with people and realize what they need from a given situation. Design can have a large and positive impact on society, but to do this designers have to understand their audience.

            Studying the way a culture or group of people, your target audience, thinks in a real world context serves to uncover patterns that can be understood and followed. To do this, designers must immerse themselves in the situation/culture and collect data in the form of photos, videos, audio recordings, and other contextual data detailing how they felt and saw others feel about the what is being studied. This can provide insight into what things are meaningful to your specific group of people and once this is considered the resulting designs can evoke a meaningful experience for them.

            Observation and interacting is the most important part of the Ethnography process. When observing, think about what people do and not just what they say they do. These can be two completely different things. When interacting with people and asking them about their feelings on your subject, ask open-ended questions to stimulate creative answers; have a conversation instead of an interrogation.

            The Ethnography articles helped me understand a new way of approaching a problem: from a human need centered thought process. It gave me tools like what to observe and how to observe our situation to fully understand the human need in regards to wayfinding. To put this into practice in my project my group defined the problem as people not being sure where The Underground was or how to get there from inside the other end of Wescoe. We then tried to find it ourselves as well asked a new student to try our primary solution to the problem.

            In retrospect I wish that we had observed the process of people who already knew how to get there and how people other than ourselves found the way there for the first time. I also wish that we had interviewed people about the way to The Underground and found out if the general public actually did find it problematic instead of just assuming we were right about it because of our newfound understanding of wayfinding.

            After reading these articles I have a better understanding of how people interact with designs. The way people feel can be directly affected by the design of their environment or the product they are using. It can cause confusion and anxiety or create an exciting experience for the participant.