I will be hosting this workshop on November 12th, 2011 at our SoHo offices. Check it out if your interested in how to bring ethnography to your product user experience practice.
As a proven way to uncover the shared values, beliefs and practices that inform the decisions we make and the actions we take as social beings, we are poised for a resurgence of interest in design ethnography for interaction design. This new interest is being driven by the designer’s increasing concerns for:
- Context – as computing expands beyond the desktop,
- Emotion – as we seek new ways of evaluating satisfaction and engagement, and
- Behavior – as the explicit goal of behavior change becomes more critical to design practice.
WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES
This workshop will begin in the studio with an overview of ethnography and common ethnographic techniques in the context of design. We will discuss traditional and emerging digital approaches to ethnography. Next we’ll divide into teams to give workshop participants the opportunity to put these principles into practice as we venture out into the city to conduct our “fieldwork.” Following our short period of participant observation with the “urban natives” we will return to the studio and discuss what we learned. Finally, we will discuss how to apply what we learned to problems of design and brainstorm ideas on opportunities for products, services, and other interventions that could fit into the lives of our subjects.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
- UX professionals
- People interested in ethnography as it relates to UX
WHAT YOU WILL DO
This workshop will begin in the studio with an overview of ethnography and common ethnographic techniques in the context of design. We will discuss traditional and emerging digital approaches to ethnography. Next we’ll divide into teams to give workshop participants the opportunity to put these principles into practice as we venture out into the city to conduct our “fieldwork.” Following our short period of participant observation with the “urban natives” we will return to the studio and discuss what we learned. Finally, we will discuss how to apply what we learned to problems of design and brainstorm ideas on opportunities for products, services, and other interventions that could fit into the lives of our subjects.
WHAT YOU WILL GET OUT OF IT
Whether or not you currently employ up-front research in your design process, this workshop will show how to embrace ethnographic principles in the work you do to improve your ability to:
- Build empathy for the people who engage with the products and services you create
- Improve understanding of the reasons that people use your products and services the way they do
- Identify opportunities for new products or services or for improvements to those that already exist
AGENDA
10:00 – Overview of ethnographic methodology, description of assignment (in the studio)
11:30 – Q&A and snack
11:45 – Ethnographic fieldwork (out in the city)
12:30 – Lunch and discussion
12:45 – Analysis and synthesis
1:45 – Q&A and closing
WHEN
Saturday, November 12th 2011
10am – 3pm
WHERE
The Ladders
137 Varick Street
3rd Floor
New York, NY 10013
Map
PRICE
$25
The workshop is limited to 20 people. You will need an ID and be on the RSVP list in order to be allowed upstairs to the event.
