In other words, "case reports" or "studies" regarding human societies, extending the cultural panorama to the entire world. Focusing on the patterns of everyday life, good design can generated, benefiting both businesses and production, as well as the important folks (here, yee) - people like you and me.
Because design is so broad in nature, we must rationalize it by creating some sort of process. Assumptions within design ethnography is that people are social creatures - not merely consumers. They articulate, discover, and appreciate. They don't just work, but live.
Ethnographers can thus be the mediators and creative directors between the home and the workplace. Because our perspectives of work have always tended to be negative, we can easily work to improve quality of life for all of us - so long as we use context as our guide.
Here's a good example. Italy vs. America. What's the perfect living room like? Some of us will answer, "Yeah, a TV, sofa, and maybe a computer." For Italians, you'll probably get a very bewildered look and a surprising answer, "Well, we love our dining room table. That's where everything happens. It's the center of our home" (Design Management Journal, Fall 1999). Immediate ethnographic insight.
Which brings us to the skills needed to be a design ethnographer. For one, you must be a master of social intimacy. Otherwise, no one's going to let you go into their homes to observe. You also need to ask the right questions. It's not, "How do I master e-commerce?" It's, "Why do people shop online?"
Unfortunately, these types of approaches do not use the same hardcore mathematical approaches of science nor do they allow for "deliverables" to be presented before undertaking the task at hand. Nonetheless, there is no denying the importance of understanding the context of relationships and associations between people and the world we live in. It's not our voice, but theirs, that must be heard.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Design Ethnography
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
About Me
Topics
- Accessories (60)
- Advertising (14)
- Advice (15)
- Anime Reviews (12)
- Apple (47)
- Appliances (9)
- Architecture (65)
- Art (329)
- Bath (6)
- Bedroom (47)
- Bikes (44)
- Branding (15)
- Business (8)
- Cameras (42)
- Cars (18)
- Clothing (64)
- Concerts (2)
- Customize (8)
- Decor (155)
- Dermatology (1)
- Design (496)
- DIY (1)
- DS Lite (11)
- Economy (1)
- Entertainment (5)
- Event Reviews (2)
- Exposition (251)
- Fashion (73)
- Feature (2)
- Finance (3)
- Food (44)
- Funny (126)
- Furniture (131)
- Game Reviews (20)
- Games (68)
- Gear (124)
- Girls (127)
- Giveaways (3)
- Graffiti (2)
- Green (8)
- Hair (1)
- Hardware (20)
- HCI (82)
- Head-Fi (23)
- Health (1)
- Hip-Hop (13)
- Home (271)
- Ideas (50)
- IKEA (30)
- Inspiration (75)
- Interface (6)
- iPad (5)
- iPhone (11)
- iPod (6)
- Jokes (1)
- Kitchen (60)
- Landscape (2)
- Laptops (20)
- LCD (14)
- Lighting (1)
- Linux (1)
- Marketing (2)
- Materials (2)
- Medicine (1)
- Movie Reviews (201)
- MP3 (104)
- Music (261)
- Music Reviews (6)
- News (24)
- Nintendo (12)
- Office (59)
- Pens (3)
- People (4)
- Phones (2)
- Photography (59)
- Picks (1)
- Poetry (9)
- Politics (10)
- Print (1)
- PS3 (35)
- PSP (2)
- Publications (7)
- Puppies (1)
- Quotes (28)
- Random (127)
- Reads (1)
- Real Estate (3)
- Recipes (31)
- Retro (5)
- Roundup (5)
- Shopping (1)
- Software (12)
- Software Review (1)
- Speakers (2)
- Square-Enix (2)
- Style (131)
- Technology (224)
- Technology Reviews (6)
- Television Reviews (5)
- Tools (1)
- Toys (15)
- Travel (8)
- Trends (40)
- Tutorials (40)
- Video (242)
- Wallpapers (2)
- Windows (12)
- Xbox360 (7)
Popular Posts
-
A second viewing justifies an updated score. Powerful, mesmerizing, and unbelievably emotionally draining; this multi-layered portrait of al...
-
Make no mistake: this is as epic as cinema gets. The visuals are absolutely stunning, the score emphasizes "big production" in eve...
-
An argument ensued in the forums over an article written by the Examiner expressing the need to bear arms and the injustice of jailing a pe...
-
Sometimes I think Lykke Li really should do a performance on the moon. Her sweet Swedish tendencies may prove to the aliens once and for a...
-
A friend told me about one of the must-see speciality stores in Hong Kong, Goods of Desire (or G.O.D.). There are 5 stores throughout the ci...
-
Today's humanistic reaction to technology takes the form of discipline convergence and an ever increasingly large pool of devices embrac...
-
Here's 5 indispensable skills you must learn to become the Master of UX: Sketching : One must be able to convey ideas outside of text....
Archives
-
▼
2009
(460)
-
▼
September
(32)
- Temporarily Stuck in Japanese Party Mode
- Google Suggestions
- Variations on Themes
- Corn Con Queso Fresco Recipe
- Vintage Goes Mainstream
- Fail, A Good Thing
- Fun with Mannequins
- Why We Need Things
- Taxi Cab Yellow Vipp Garbage Cans
- Probes: More Contextual Awareness
- Hey There, Nice Glass
- Micro 4/3, You Sexy Beasts
- Fixies In My Sleep
- Vin. Diesel.
- Arranging In Small Spaces
- Scrabble Pieces as Book Labels
- BKRW x Albrecht Gerlach NYC Street Fashion
- Probing Culturally, Masterfully
- Short, Crude Laughs
- Contexual Design at Work
- Studio Sexy No Jutsu
- Design Ethnography
- Process of Interaction Design
- Max Manus Review
- Fonts That Piss Us Off
- Interfaces, Interactions & Playthings
- Bringin' It Back to 2002
- We All Love Surveys
- Micro Four Thirds, What?
- In Regards to Those Evil Focus Groups
- An Aviator World
- So, What Is Design Exactly?
-
▼
September
(32)
0 comments:
Post a Comment