Ethnographic research is qualitative research on a group of people and their behaviors and social interactions within their own, native environment. It involves studying people in context, mainly making observations rather than focusing on hard data and numbers.
A classic example of ethnographic research would be an anthropologist traveling to an island, living within the society on said island for years, and researching its people and culture through a process of sustained observation and participation. In fact, that’s exactly what Margaret Mead, perhaps the most famed ethnographer in history, did for her ethnography Coming of Age in Samoa, published in 1928.
Although you’re probably not going to be traveling to any remote islands any time soon, there are several key concepts to an ethnographic study that you can take away from this, including:
Naturally, living with your users for a year probably won't be possible or necessary when it comes to product development. And, indeed, ethnographic research in user-centered design doesn’t tend to look exactly like it does in anthropology.
You can expect the ethnographic research you’ll conduct during product development to differ from typical ethnography in that it will:
When doing ethnographic research it’s important to keep notes in a structured way. Use the template below to keep track of users’ environments, needs, key events, and impressions while doing your research. Having these notes available will help you when analyzing your data to get to valuable insights.
There are several different ethnographic methods that you can implement in your ethnographic research, with each having their own pros and cons. Below, we detail a few.
Passive observation is an ethnographic research method that essentially involves shadowing your study subjects, following them and observing them without interacting with them or in any way interfering in their natural actions. This includes documentation in various forms such as video and audio recording, note-taking, photography, and even sketches.
Passive observation is a popular ethnographic research method as it allows you to fully focus on your research subject whilst maintaining an outsider's perspective. It is worth noting though that you cannot assume that your subjects’ behavior is not affected by your presence. Even if you don’t interact with them, be aware of biases that can occur as a result of your presence.
In contrast to passive observation, active observation involves getting hands-on with your study subjects, working and cooperating with them, essentially joining their group or team. This is the product development-focused ethnographic research method that most resembles the type of study done in traditional ethnographic research, such as those conducted in the field of anthropology.
While your methods of documentation might be the same as they are in passive observation, the main crucial difference is that you are now observing from within, as a temporary member of the group you are studying. The main benefit of active observation is that you become a part of the natural flow of your research subject's process or environment, allowing you not only to observe their behavior but to also better understand their perspective.
Interviews can be performed as a standalone form of research or as an addition to participant observation. In ethnography, interviews follow up on observation by asking subjects questions to gain more insight about what they are doing, why they are doing it, what their thought process is, and so on.
Generally speaking, an interview alone does not really qualify as an ethnographic research method - even when conducted in the subjects’ natural environment. However, when added before or after a participant observation (or both), it can provide valuable insight as you follow up on your observation with a deeper dive.
As with all forms of ethnographic observation, asking people questions in their natural environment might be subject to biases, but there is the advantage that your questions are more directly linked with the subject's experience, which can oftentimes unearth insights that might have been forgotten or underestimated in an interview that happens in a very different time or place than the subject's experience.
If you’re looking to implement one or more of these types of ethnographic research, you may be wondering how to plan an ethnographic study. Here are the steps we recommend taking.
To help you understand exactly how you could potentially implement ethnographic research as part of your design and product development processes, here are some ethnographic research examples from real life.
Ellen Isaacs, with a team from the Palo Alto Research Center, sought to study how people searched for parking, and whether the signage was clear, especially when driving by during rush-hour. They focused on challenges people encountered, the way parking restrictions were defined, what worked and didn’t work with the existing infrastructure, and what could be improved to make parking better. The findings were used to inform the design of new parking systems. Her ted talk linked above gives some great insight into her approach to ethnographic research.
Researchers from the Chicago consultancy firm Fuzzy Math sought to research how people file their taxes, so they went and observed people filing their taxes in the context they typically filed them in. They began sessions with a short interview, observed passively as participants filed their taxes, and asked further questions, such as how subjects chose which software to use and what the best and worst parts of the process were for them. The researchers noted their observations, the answers to their questions, and measured the participants’ comfort levels with filing their taxes.
A team of researchers from the University of Queensland studied kindergarteners in their natural environment (kindergarten), with the goal of obtaining insight into developmental technologies for children. Thanks to their observations, they were able to identify key patterns in the children’s behavior, which they then used to make key decisions when developing playful technology for them.
Nowadays, teams are more remote and products more digital, meaning that ethnographic research expands beyond the traditional in-person approach developed by anthropologists.
There are many companies out there using tools like Hotjar to capture recordings of users' on websites and web applications in order to observe their behaviors and challenges.
If you are in the early stages of a user-centered product development project, ethnographic research may prove to be an invaluable tool to help you obtain insights that can help you deeply understand your design problem, your users’ needs, and discover previously unknown issues. So get out there in the field and start observing. You’ll likely be glad that you did.
Need a place to manage learnings and insights from ethnographic research? Then check out Reveall! Reveall helps you turn your customer insights into concrete actions. Understand user needs. Get your team aligned. And make the right product decisions.
