What Ethnographers Do: The Art of the Email Interview
The internet is a many-splendored thing. It provides a great opportunity to learn more about people, largely unrestricted by geography and time. However, it also presents a significant challenge.
Quantitative: Why You Need Stories
Only once I have the story to connect with the data will the patterns in the numbers make sense. Only when I have the story and the data can we paint a complete picture.
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 … 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 … 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 … Continue reading
Ethnography and the Bleedy Edge: How to Deal With Useless People
In an ideal world, we would only work with people we wanted to work with. Teams would be perfectly composed of people with complementary skillsets and compatible personalities. Everyone would … Continue reading
Field Note Experimentation
The least enjoyable part of being an ethnographer, my class mates and I have discovered, may be the writing up of field notes. The notes we take in the field, … Continue reading
Making Numbers Talk: Something Exciting in Design Ethnography
I have always refused to be constrained by the conventions of a genre, discipline, or society. Fitting neatly into such a compartment cramps my style, harshes my zen, and squashes … Continue reading
And Now for Something No One Will Want To Read (Or, Design Ethnography: Like Anthropology, but Less Conflicted)
Design Ethnography: Like Anthropology, But Less Conflicted Academic anthropology is the unholy love child of natural science and colonialism, and is burdened with the resulting identity issues that one might … Continue reading
Rachel Shadoan Muses 