Since the time globalization has taken the world by a sweep, more and more researchers are getting inclined towards ethnographic research. So, what is ethnographic research? Ethnographic research is a qualitative method of research where the researchers observe and interact with the participant in a real-life environment. It is a study of direct observation of users in their non-manipulated environment and not the lab. The purpose of this type of research is to get a deeper understanding of the way users behave and interact in their usual and natural environments.
The Purpose of Ethnographic Research
It is research looking at social interactions of users in a specific environment and it gives a detailed and in-depth insight into the views of the users and their actions with the sights and sounds encountered by them during the day. It gives an understanding to the researcher of the way the respondent interacts in his given environment and their perspective of the world around them.
The methods involved in ethnographic research are direct observation, diary studies, video recordings, and photography. Sometimes it also involves the study of artifacts and the detailed analysis of the devices used by the respondent during the whole day. The research observation can be done remotely. During the time the respondent is at work, home, or in social interactions with family and friends. Ethnographic studies can be brief, lasting a couple of hours too long and in-depth studies that call for observations that must be done for several months.
Popular and contemporary techniques for ethnographic research:
There are two key methods for ethnographic research that are most used
1. Passive observation: this is also termed shadowing where the respondent is under observation or shadowed when they are going about doing their day-to-day activities. Most of the time, before the onset of this research, the respondents are interviewed, individually or in their respective groups so that their needs and their background can be better understood. The researcher used his own tools and techniques to jot down the observations. They need to be documented in a methodical way, such as taking notes, photographs, sketches, or videos. Sometimes this research can be taken up in teams to save time and involve a large chink of respondents to get deeper insights in a shorter span of time. This method is an especially good method because it helps researchers to see how the respondent goes about their day firsthand and to find the gap and the disconnect between what the respondent communicates to the researcher and what he does in a real-life situation.
2. Contextual Interviews: These are where instead f shadow observations; the interviewer will interact with the respondent while he is up and about his daily routine. The interactions/interviews will not be happening in a formal setup but a natural environment to ensure that the responses do not get influenced or biased. The purpose of the interviews will be to gain insight into the researcher going about doing his everyday tasks.
Analysis of the observation
The analysis of the findings differs according to the method that has been used to gain insights. In both cases, the job of the researcher has been to gain insights and get in-depth information about the way the respondent goes about finishing the tasks that are under consideration. Further on, when the data is collected, the researcher will look for patterns and themes in the data. They will also look for challenges and barriers that were encountered by the users and the ways in which they impacted their performance.
One very useful and effective technique to analyze the observations is the affinity diagrams. All the information is taken from the various observations and then the researcher attempts to find patterns in them. This technique of analysis of data has been showing the most promising results.
Benefits of doing Ethnographic results
- It is useful and allows us to understand the interaction of respondents with technology firsthand in their unmanipulated environment.
- Bring forth those issues that must have not been encountered in the usability test
- It’s extremely beneficial to do an opportunity test to understand the acceptance of products in the market before their commercial launch or mass production.
Drawbacks of Doing Ethnographic Research
- It is a time-consuming process as it takes a greater insight into the user so analysis and findings are a longer and more engrossing effort.
- The respondent might feel noticed and hence may manipulate his behavior and not act naturally because of the feeling of the presence of the researcher.
- Because of a lot of close interactions and the time it takes, ethnographic research studies become expensive to perform and the cost involved is higher than usual
Even though ethnographic studies are a great way to understand the users and the challenges faced by them and their acceptance rate and level towards different things and developments, the study will only give fruitful results when conducted in an appropriate manner, which is not even time-consuming but also expensive. Not even that, the analysis and findings of the study must be presented in such a way that they are not just meaningful but also informative, and at the same time the results are not biased because of the element of subjectivity involved in them.
Process of Ethnographic Research
Ethnographic research is best done as a step-by-step process and needs to be taken up in a methodical and systematic manner. Here is a sequence of steps that you need to take up this study
- Identify the problem you are going to solve and for whom: you must have a clear idea about your research objective, as in why are you taking up this specific ethnographic study and which group is going to be the most responsive and productive in terms of useful output to get the best results. For instance, if you are trying to understand the response towards the acceptance of fitness apps among the population of a given city, the respondents would be fitness enthusiasts specifically and the different ways in which they incorporate fitness into their daily routine.
- Formulating the research questions: Once the core problem is clearly and completely understood, it becomes easier to create a question bank to be able to do ethnographic research. Since Ethnographic research is evolving in nature and needs to be modified in accordance with the situation so having a fixed set of questions may not be the best way to take it forward, but at the same time creating a minimal question bank is the great starting point and should always be adopted at the preliminary stage.
- Freeze the location of observation and research question: after having zeroed down on your research question, target audience, the next important thing to know is the location in which you would take up the research. To be able to zero down on the right and precise location, you need to have an answer to which geography are you building the project for. There can be a situation where you might need to identify multiple research locations if the problem you are trying to solve is complex in nature and the outcome applies to various locations.
- Finalize the method for conducting the research: As discussed before, there are two kinds of methods for conducting ethnographic research and you need to choose the one that is most appropriate for your research objective. If interaction with the respondents is mandatory for the analysis and application of the research, then the contextual method is right, however, if shadow observation can help in understanding the behavioral patterns of the respondents and give productive results then passive observation is the best thing to do.
- Get the required approvals: once the preliminary requirements are in place, the next thing to do is to look for approvals from the concerned officials wherever required. The first permission you may need is from your project manager. The most important approval is the approval from the respondents or as we may call them the subjects to get their approval to peep into their daily lives is to interact with them. Observing their routines and behavior without their permission is not the right thing to do, both ethically as well as legally.
- Conduct the research in the form of observations: conducting the research here is all about data collection and observation which could be in the form of notes, photographs, interviews, or even videos, and all of this with due permission. This part of the research process is the one where you are in the live environment of your target audience and observe them as they perform their daily tasks. You may conduct the research based on the chosen ethnographic method. You can Record the findings in the form of notes, photographs, and videos — which you can then present later at the requirements analysis meetup.
- Data Analysis: At this stage, the researcher will organize the collected documents and data for the purpose of further analysis. The researcher must be very honest here and careful at the same time to present only the facts. Some amateur researchers can get carried away and mix up the facts with their opinion or even intuition at times which can lead to biases. The next thing to do here is to combine the research, connect the dots, and make a presentation for others to see and understand your analysis. The final report that is drafted by the researcher should necessarily include the following key points:
- The key Observations made: This of course means the key observations made by you while you observed the subjects or respondents
- Behavior analysis: The details about the behavior of the respondents and their reactions at different moments. Moments of frustration and delight.
- Data Analysis: What is the representation of your data analytics? You can adapt the data visualization technique here which is very useful at this stage
- Ideas: What were the innovative ideas that struck you while you were doing the research
- Important Suggestions: What was the response of the respondents at this stage and what can be inferred from the observations? The researcher can give his suggestions here.
- Limitations and hurdles: What are the main limitations of your research and what were the key challenges that you faced while conducting the research? Biases are one of the main limitations of ethnographic research.
Application of Ethnography:
Ethnography is found most useful in the early stages of user center design project. This is primarily because the focus of ethnography is on developing an understanding of the research problem. This is the reason we see ethnographic research being conducted in the preliminary stages of a project so that there is support for future design projects. These methods are found to be of use in the evaluation of the existing designs also but the best application and genuine value of the ethnographic designs comes from developing an early understanding of the relevant domain, audience, processes, goals, and context of use. The biggest benefit of ethnographic research is to help in the understanding and analysis of issues that are unexpected and unpredictable. In other types of studies and methods of research which do not allow observation of the situation or interaction with the respondents, the unexpected issues can easily get missed or ignored. This usually happens because the relevant questions are either not asked or the respondents miss to mention the important detail but if the researcher is present in the situation, like in the case of ethnographic research it helps to mitigate the risk of missing or neglecting as the issues become apparent to the keenly observing researcher.
Thus, it can be concluded that ethnographic research is extremely useful and impactful in many situations but one important decision to take here is the choice of the researcher. The researcher should be seasoned, interested, and have the required knowledge and skills to conduct the research. This researcher will design, conduct, and analyze the study’s findings so it is essential that they have the skill and experience to make sure the study is rightly representative, precise, and at the same time unbiased.
