This semester I was tasked with creating a new recruitment video for the Computer Science department. I decided to do something a little offbeat, that might attract a different variety of folk. Here is the result! Seven Reasons OU Computer Science is Better Than Hogwarts from Rachel Shadoan on Vimeo.
What Ethnographers Do: The Art of the Email Interview
The internet is a many-splendored thing, and its advent and success has vastly expanded the reach of your average ethnographer. Information that we could once only access in face-to-face interactions can now be collected remotely, from across an ocean, across continents, across time and space. This is a great opportunity to learn more about people, … Continue reading »
Quantitative: Why You Need Stories
I want you to take a look at these visualizations. These are all charts depicting what skill a Plant Wars player is training, as well as how many stat points they receive as a result of their fertilizing of their plant. (There is a direct correlation between the amount of fertilizer used and the stat … Continue reading »
Quantitative: A Look at the Big(ger) Picture
And now, for more data visualizations than you can comfortably shake a stick at. Here I have charted all of the fertilizes for January-March 2009. These are a little hard to read, because there’s so much information here, but take note of the sort of density spike in the middle of the chart. Basically it … Continue reading »
Quantitative: Some Plant Wars Player Patterns
We have some new visualizations for your viewing pleasure, this time of individual Plant Wars players! In Plant Wars, players can increase their plant’s abilities by fertilizing, or “training”. Players can choose what ability they want to increase when they fertilize. Fertilizing Attack (referred to as Potency in the game) makes their plant’s attack stronger. … Continue reading »
What Ethnographers Do: Interview Guide
Part of the documentation we assemble before every project is an interview and observation guide. It’s supposed to serve as a checklist for supplies, as well as a guideline for how to conduct the interview. It includes the information we are trying to get at, as well as the questions we’re using to do so. … Continue reading »
What Ethnographers Do: Data Management
One of the greatest challenges for ethnographers is what to do with all of the data we collect. In addition to the physical notebooks full of scratch notes, we also have lots of digital data–from audio recordings of interviews to photographs taken during observations to the field notes we write up after an interaction with … Continue reading »
What Ethnographers Do: Field Notes
Field notes, for the ethnographically uninitiated, are detailed descriptions of field work (interviews with and observations of people). Contrary to what the name suggests, field notes are not actually taken in the field while we are interviewing and observing people. Rather, while we are in the field we take scratch notes. In our scratch notes … Continue reading »
Quantitative: The First Patterns of Play Data Visualization
Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived! The first data visualization of Plant Wars player interactions is finished! The data used in this visualization tracked Plant Wars in-game banking transactions, of which there are several varieties. A player can deposit money into a bank, transfer it to another player, … Continue reading »
Now, For Some Robots
In case I hadn’t bombarded you with enough content today, or in case you happened to be someone in my audience who could not care less about design ethnography (I suspect there are some of you out there), I offer you something new and completely different to investigate: my review of Machinarium. I love Machinarium; … Continue reading »
