1. Sara Petry & Jessica Richman
Fieldwork Activity
Sara Petry & Jessica Richman
17 April 2008

2. Observation
Types of fieldwork ... observation, interview, document analysis
Observation ... most common in HCI
The “Master-Apprentice” model is common in observational research
Learning to do observations well takes time

3. The Activity Break into groups of 3 or 4
1 person will be the user, others will be researchers
Go to
5 minutes to play with any or all of the experimental searches
Researchers - note areas of improvement for each search
5 minute debrief with the whole group

4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be63 nTdnwFY&feature=related

5. Situated Actions, Lucy Suchman, 1987
All this complexity =
Action is context-sensitive
Planning is not always followed and sometimes a rationalization
Language is easily misinterpreted

6. An Ethnographic Approach to Design, Jeanette Blomberg, et al, 2003
Historical: anthropology and relativism
Philosophical/epistemological:
Natural settings
Holistic
Descriptive
Members’ point of view

7. Practical Ethnography
Your experiences:
Sampling
Gaining access
Observation, self-reporting techniques, remote data collection, digital observation
Artifact analysis

8. Experience Models and Opportunity Maps

9. Profiles and Storyboards

10. Questions?