Topic: Design for Social Settings using Ethnography

Instructor: Nitin Sawhney

Summary: In this class we will examine the approaches to understand social
settings within which technology is deployed. Ethnography is a set of
techniques developed within the framework of social anthropology. We will
consider the role of ethnography in informing design for social practices
within everyday communities. The lecture session will involve discussion
of key papers and review of 'quick-n-dirty" ethography. The design
excercise will allow students to work in teams to utilize such techniques
in real-world settings. Subsequent presentation and peer review in the
design studio will enable informed critique and better understanding.


Readings: (selected sections from the following papers and books)

Lofland, John, and Lyn H. Lofland. 1984. Analyzing Social Settings: A
Guide to Qualitative Observation and Analysis.  New York: Wadsworth.

Hughes, J., King, V., Rodden, T. and Anderson, H. (1994) Moving out from
the control room: Ethnography in system design. In Proc CSCW '94,
p429-439, ACM Press. 
 
Mackay, W. E. 1999. Is Paper Safer? The Role of Paper Flight Strips in Air
Traffic Control. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, Vol.6,
No.3, 311-340.

Crewe, Emma and Harrison, Elizabeth. Whose Development? An Ethnography of
Aid. Zed Books. 1998 


Design Excercise: 

Select a social practise, and examine the role of technology. e.g. Observe
people using a PDA for specific tasks, you may videotape it and
interview them about their practises. Examine their paper and digital
artifacts over the course of a few days. In 1 page write your impressions
of how the social setting and their cognitive model influences how the
technology is used. Propose how you may devise an improved approach.
In the design studio you will present your findings in the form of
recorded interviews, artifacts and sketches.


Potential Invited Speaker(s):

Mark Ackerman (Prof. U.C. Davis, currently at MIT)
Herve Gomez (student of Social Anthropology, Paris - will be at MIT in
February)


Web Resources and optional readings:

Comprehensive Review of Ethnographic and Participative methods
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/Fieldwork/TutWWW.html

Concise Summary of Ethnographic Methodology
http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~saul/681/1997/amy/ethnography.html

Books on Ethnography:
http://www.serve.com/archaeology/books/ethnography.html
 
Recent Study at the Media Lab:
Nitin Sawhney and Herve Gomez. Communication Patterns in Domestic
Life: Preliminary Ethnographic Study. MIT Media Lab, Technical
Report. September 2000
http://www.media.mit.edu/~nitin/ethno/DomesticEthno.pdf