Microsoft Power Point - Ethnography

Ethnography Nan Chen Zhang Zhang KT Lowe

Definition • a methodological strategy used to provide descriptions of human societies, which as a methodology does not prescribe any particular method (e.g. observation, interview, questionnaire), but instead prescribes the nature of the study

A Branch of anthropology

Why Ethnography?

Ethnographer’s work

Corporate ethnography • Corporate ethnography isn’t just for innovation anymore. It’s central to gaining a full understanding of your customers and the business itself. The ethnographic work at my company, Intel, and other firms now informs functions such as strategy and longrange planning.

Ethnography – Observatory Market Research • Ethnography comes from social research and anthropology. Instead of asking consumers what they believe or what they have done as we do in survey research, we watch what consumers do.

Intel’s Ethnopraphy Research

Drawbacks of Ethnography Research • Time-consuming • Expensive • Not “an ethnographer”, but an ethnographer of something.

Get-arounds

Ethnography in CHI Community • In the CHI community, “ethnography” has come to mean any sort of qualitative field work used to gather requirements for a product. • to define and design new products for our company.

Ethnography vs. Requirement Analysis

Photoethnography is the art and science of representing other cultures visually.

Ethnography is the Tool for Better Graphic Design

• Help designers to know their audiences better • Lead to more compelling and innovative design • Ethnography is a systematic process

Help designers to know their audiences better Ethnography informs graphic design by revealing a deep understanding of people.

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Lead to more compelling and innovative design Ethnography allows designers to see patterns of thinking and behavior of people in a real world context

Ethnography is systematic process The beauty of ethnography is that what one observes is visually compelling, real and meaningful without being staged.

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Main Functions of Ethnology in Graphic Design • Understand audiences • Identify barriers • Deliver worldly

Understand audiences

• Discover Meaning • Understand Cultural Norms • Clarify people’s real emotions and intentions

Identify barriers • Identify people’s “pain points” • Observe the solutions of design • Create local features

Deliver worldly • Create global marketplaces • Make communications powerful – Be Local – Be Universal – Or Both?

Case study: Universal? or Local? Restroom signs in different countries

Iran

Japan

USA Georgia State

Netherlands

USA Williamsburg

Universal Restroom signs

Universal Public Signs

Case study • Commercial brand

1979-2003

2003-?

Coca Cola logos in different languages

Chinese

Japanese

Arabic

Bulgarian

Thai

Hebrew

The Universal Use of “Pointing”

USA 1917

UK 1914

Germany 1915

Italy 1917

Soviet Union 1920

Graphic design: The Differences between German and Chinese

What To Say And How to Say It Graphic design, advertising , politics and ethnic markets in America

What Does a Graphic Do? • A graphic acts as an identifier – Logos represent companies – Instruction manuals contain graphics that identify steps in a process

• Graphics communicate messages to an audience, and are of particular importance to non-native speakers • Graphics can be used to represent a particular cause, neighborhood, event, party or ethnic/social group

Message graphics

Breast Cancer

The first US antismoking campaign (1961)

AIDS Awareness

What Does Advertising Do? • Communicates messages about products to various audiences • Differentiates one product from another - Nike vs. Reebok • Works as part of a wider marketing campaign which includes pricing and distribution • Helps forge emotional ties to a product (or individual, in the case of a political candidate)

Melting pot…

Or mosaic?

The America of Today • America has been changing from a “melting pot” to a “mosaic” model, in which immigrants and their children retain more of their own culture and exercise it in their daily lives • Graphic designers will no longer target a “general audience”, but a number of individual audiences

Similar concept, two audiences

Stereotypes • Stereotypes can be created; overuse of an image, especially one that exaggerates characteristics, can become a stereotype in time

Modern responses to stereotypical images

What Not to Do • Don’t hit people over the head with “ethnic’ images or font

• Don’t forget that people are more than ethnic, political or gender statistics • Don’t forget that your audience may be skewed by age as well as ethnicity • Don’t forget that every major category is made up of lots of smaller ones

What does this mean?

How To Say It • Immerse yourself: Shop at ethnic markets, watch foreign television, expose yourself to others • Learn what’s important to that community • Learn what’s taboo as well • Be sensitive to age ranges within groups – younger people tend to have much different preferences from older people – Immigration status also has an impact

What’s Meaningful? • Everyone wants to see themselves • Every culture has markers of pride, and they are expressed differently – ERGO: • You cannot assume that you can design one image and expect it to work universally for all cultures, or even all subsets of a single culture.

Calaveras: Why are these images meaningful? To whom?

What data to collect • Target group (Hispanic, Asian, European) • Target subgroup (Punjabi, 2ndgeneration, under 30) • Income level • Level of education • Known behavioral patterns • Known taboos, lucky symbols, cultural associations and sources of pride

Emerging groups: LGBT Community • 8-10% of general population, cutting across all races/genders/religions • Affluent and educated – 60% hold college degrees, estimated $800 billion in total disposable income • Brand conscious • Spend 33% more on vacations – target demographic for travel industry • While mainstream media rarely targets LGBT individuals, trade publications often have LGBT-specific campaigns (Out, The Advocate)

2007 American Airlines

2009 Sweet Lesbian Travel

Travel Ad Campaigns targeted to LGBT audiences