Work, Ethnography

and System Design

Bob Anderson

Ryan Yasui
ICS 280
March 11, 2004
Overview
Introduction
History of Ethnography
Central Ideas
Ethnography in Practice
Remaining Issues
Introduction
Definition
Ethnography is a particular analytic strategy for
assembling and interpreting the results of fieldwork
gathered very often by participant observation
Authors Aim
Describe ethnography
Raise a few questions against which to determine if
ethnography might actually be what design needs and
is able to use
Decide if ethnography is what system design should
use.
A Bit of History
Invented by Bronislaw Malinoski in 1915
Spent three years on the Trobriand Islands
Invented the modern form of fieldwork and
ethnography as its analytic component
Collected three types of data
Synoptic Charts
Detailed description of day to day life and activities
All stories, narratives, myths, magical formulae
Motivation Behind Ethnography
Things arent always what they seem
Appearances do not tell the whole story
The native is not necessarily the best
judge of what they are doing
Must combine this with other analysis
There is a need to look behind
appearances in a detailed way
Central Ideas
Ethnography is a representation of what has
been seen, heard, and found in the field
Not just writing up field notes
Kula Ring example

Ethnographers know in ways that others cant

Ethnography is also about us
Ordinariness of our everyday life
Central Ideas
Communities of Practice
Viewed work groups as communities of practice
Learning a culture is learning these practices
Situatedness of Action
Phenomena of sociological inquiry is the outcome of
structures of activities
Determine whats going on by local, occasioned,
and situated actions
Example is Conversation Analysis
Summary of Central Ideas
Dependent upon fieldwork as its investigative
technique. Ethnography is the analytic
component of this investigation
Concerned with representing communities of
practice and actual work practice by examining
the minutiae of working lives
Sees the structure and order of working lives as
situated, occasioned, and co-produced
Ethnography In Practice
Integration
Ethnographer is a member of the design team
Used in conceptual stage, the design
requirements analysis stage, and the
evaluation of design stage
Objectives of the study are set by the design
team
Ethnography In Practice
Complementary
Objectivesare set by what the ethnographer
perceives them to be
May not be what the designers want
Aimis to raise awareness of the setting in
which the technology will be deployed
Ethnography In Practice
Independence
Ethnographer doesnt want to impact design
Findings are relevant to debates within the
social sciences
Remaining Issues
Methodology?
Relationship to theory?
Scope of the findings?
Politics of intervention?
Methodology or Gift?
Portrayed as a methodology
Does it have a body of techniques and procedures
that anyone can apply?
It is more interpretive than empirical
Is the ethnographers skill a gift?
Need to look at the broader method
A way of finding out
The fieldwork experience is most important
How do we relate these findings to design?
Relationship to Theory
Disagreement with current Engineering
style theory
Divide and Conquer
Ethnography needs to decide on its
epistemological grounding and how it
relates to other accepted approaches
before it can be integrated into these
approaches
Scope Of The Findings
Common reservation is its idiosyncratic
character
Findings are from a particular point of view
But generalizations are needed for design
Based on summarization and abstraction
Ethnography can provide this with some
trade-offs
The users point of view
Politics Of Intervention
Designers dont feel that they are
responsible for social/organization effects
of their technology
Ethnographers disagree
All design is in/for someones interests
Whose are dominant?
How do you decide on politics for design?
Questions?
What can ethnography contribute to design?
Feasibility of this approach?
How far can this be taken to develop a practical,
design-oriented social science?
Above just consciousness raising
Examples of ethnographic analyses in Software?