This document discusses the role of ethnography in design. It defines ethnography as the study of foreign cultures through observation and defines four key components: being present on-site, spending sufficient time, being part of the community, and capturing data. The document discusses whether designers can be considered ethnographers and notes differences in scale and intent. Designers use ethnographic techniques to contextualize people and propose valuable solutions, though on a smaller scale than traditional ethnography. Two approaches are designing with people through facilitation and designing for people through empathy and synthesis. The conclusion is that designers can embrace expertise through experience while still designing with people using research methods.

1. What is the role of ethnography in design?
Julia Moisand Egéa
29 SEPT 2010

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Contents
1. What is ethnography?
2. Are designers ethnographers?
3. Ethnography techniques are valuable for
conducting design research
4. Designing with people
5. Designing for people
6. Conclusion

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What is ethnography?
Ethnography, as a term coming from the social sciences and anthropology, is the study of foreign cultures, often
unknown communities, minorities or endangered cultures. The ethnographer observes the social structure,
relationships, interactions, vision of the world, relation to life, morals, ethics, rituals, artifacts. Some ethnographers are
also linguists and are especially interested in the dialects and languages spoken.

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studies unknown cultures
An ethnographer
can also be looking for
terminology, dialects, languages
spoken. understands the structural and
societal model, as well as the
interactions between people
studies rituals, ceremonies,
artifacts of the community

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Four components define ethnography as a method:
- being present on site, in the studied context
- spending a sufficient amount of time
- being part of the community
- following a process to capture data

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goal 1 goal 2
The main goal of ethnographers is to capture, record and archive data.
Then, an ethnographer can decide to write an analysis or a theory from the fieldwork.

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Are designers ethnographers?
Designers (like Emily Pilloton, Chris Le Dantec) adapted methods from ethnography and anthropology in order to
conduct Design Research. They follow a similar process, researching in the studied context itself, spending time there,
being part of a community and capturing data.
So, are designers ethnographers?

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The first main difference that distinguishes a designer’s process from an ethnographer’s process is the scale. Because of
time and budget constraints, designer’s research process usually embrace smaller scale in term of context, time, role
played in the community and data captured. Designers conduct «corporate ethnography» as J.Fulton Suri says, not real
ethnography and anthropology (which also requires specific knowledge).
Ethnographer’s scale (Geertz, Levi-Strauss) Designer’s scale (Jane Fulton Suri, Jodi Furlizzi, Liz Sanders)

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The second and most important difference is that designers create impact on the community they observe by improving,
changing, implementing, creating products, systems or services, while ethnographers don’t intend to change the
behavior of the people they’re studying.

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Ethnography techniques are valuable
for conducting design research
Ethnography techniques are valuable to contextualize information and people in order to propose activities, services,
products, that will be valuable, meaningful, helpful, and playful to people.
Ethnographic techniques make design relevant. They help to structure the design process and it’s the way of collecting
real data, on which improvement and innovation can be based. Ethnography techniques help designers to stay
connected with their users, audiences, customers.
Different ethnographic techniques can be chosen by the design team, using different level of empathy:
- by using sympathy and facilitation methods (Pilloton, Le Dantec, Sanders)
- by using empathy and synthesis methods (Fulton Suri, Forlizzi, Gaver)

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Use of sympathy and facilitation methods:
designing with people
By being there, focusing on one thing and being involved in the community, while looking for
local experts and acting as a facilitator. (Emily Pilloton, Project H)

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By connecting ideas from the «public», assuming that an idea is like a network,
gaining to be enriched by the participation of the targeted users. (Chris Le Dantec)

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By leveraging user’s creativity and embracing a co-creation process (Liz Sanders)

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Use of empathy and synthesis methods:
designing for people
By experiencing prototyping in order to have a personal experience with a service or a product
and, as much as possible, to simulate the user’s situation and feelings. (Jane Fulton Suri)

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filter
By looking at attributes like time, distance, multiple individuals, context and by building
frameworks for synthesis (Jodi Forlizzi).

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By finding inspiration in individual and subjective stories from users
(cultural probes, W. Gaver)

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17
Use of ethnographic techniques to make
incremental changes on existing products
Technological changes drive innovation, new services and products emerged because of
technology not because people think they need them. Design Research is good for small
incremental improvements of existing products but irrelevant for innovation (Don Norman).

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Conclusion
Ethnography in design can be approached in two different ways:
- designing with people by helping them generate their own ideas and potential solutions.
The fieldwork is creation itself.
The designer acts as a facilitator and looks for the expertise among the users, community and publics.
- designing for people by collecting and synthesizing design research insights and/or technology requirements.
The fieldwork is used for inspiration, experiences prototyping, iteration and testing.
The designer creates the solutions, in partnership with the users but there is a distance between them.

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Conclusion
I don’t think there is necessarily an opposition between designing with versus for people.
Designers can be considered as generalist because they embrace a lot of information on different fields and domains
but I do think they reach a level of expertise in design process, methods, synthesis, communication over their career.
Because they have this expertise, they can make recommendations and design for people.
Designers design with people by including design research methods in their process and that’s how they stay connected
to their users and make sure they design solutions that make sense.
I relate to designers who design FOR people but WITH them, by using ethnographic research methods.
Jane Fulton Suri, Forlizzi and Gaver, for example, collect data and experience ideas from the field but there is a moment
in their design process where there is an official channel for synthesis, interpretation and therefore, subjectivity.
I think subjectivity happens anyway so I am comfortable with design processes that assume it.