We live in a world where each is to their own. People use different slang, different music they listen to, different clothes they wear and something that works in one part of the world will not work in another.
The same is the case with the UX of digital products; designers often have to have flexibility like water and adapt to different scenarios to fit the needs of various users.
Ethnicity plays a major role in the choices that we make. For instance, people in India know what KYC is when they see it on a fintech app, but can you say the same for people in Nigeria?
There’s a high chance that it will not come naturally to people living in Nigeria that KYC stands for Know Your Customer. In this case, a designer must come up with something different.
Akhil Nair, who is a research head at the Yellow Slice, has an enlightening opinion about ethnographic research; let’s hear it from the expert himself,
“Ethnographic research tells facts about users who don’t fully realise their needs. This is how authentic insights lead to an impactful design.
Though this research demands patience and resources, the pay-off is remarkable and makes the effort worthwhile.”
What is Ethnographic UX Research?
What is Ethnography? Wikipedia describes Ethnography as “A branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study.”
As consumers of products and services, we have a vague idea about why we like a certain thing and why we don’t like something else. We don’t pay much attention to the reasoning behind our choices. It doesn’t come to our mind that our environment and culture have any control over our perspective. That’s where the ethnographic research comes into play.
Researchers analyse user behaviour in their natural environment more holistically and contextually. Ethnographic research becomes even more crucial when developers and designers are not fully aware of the market when designing and developing the product.
For instance, Nilesh Chaurasia, who was present in one of the yellow insights for Yellow Slice, enlightened us on how he managed to design a fintech app for the audience of the UAE, being an Indian.
UX stands for User Experience, so a designer designs for the user and no one else hence knowing the user is more than half the job done in the process. Without understanding the user in their natural environment, you’re not designing but beating around the bush.
Traditional user research methods like surveys and interviews should have a standpoint from which the data is collected. When this research is conducted against the backdrop of the culture and environment of the user, then it has some roadmap to follow, and the product will be apt for the target audience.
Why Ethnographic Research is a UX Game-Changer
If you’re asking questions like: Why go through all this effort? Hold that thought while we explain why ethnographic research is used in many successful projects and why you should include it in your research process.
Catch people off guard in their natural real-world behaviour
Observing people in their natural environment gives you authentic, unbiased insights into their behaviour. By peeking into their daily lives (no illegal violation intended), you can understand how people react to tech in their daily lives as it unfolds.
For instance, people in India are aware of UPI and understand it instinctively. When they see a UPI icon on a website or app interface, they understand it’s for payment.
However, people living in other parts of the world will not understand what UPI means because, in their countries, it doesn’t exist as a mode of payment.
A pattern starts to form itself.
When you observe users in different arenas at different periods, you will see that many of them are bound to follow a pattern because human behaviour is somewhat universal.
In one-time research, you only get to know about the user behaviour once, and this information doesn’t add up much to the overall information because it’s isolated and doesn’t follow a pattern.
On the other hand, ethnographic research is ongoing and happens at different times, so a pattern can be deduced from such a lengthy study. Designers can follow this pattern while designing to reach the target population.
Improves overall product design
If a designer who lives in the Third World is designing for an audience living in the First World countries, then he doesn’t have much context for the consumers he is trying to reach.
During ethnographic research, the designer can get real-life insights into the user’s behaviour and design directly for them despite their cultural or regional differences.
Ethnographic research can improve the UX, positively impact the overall product, and fill out any gaps that the product might have.
Key Methods Used in Ethnographic UX Research
There are a few ethnographic research methods UX that come in handy when conducting ethnographic research. As a researcher, you can use one or a blend of these methods to develop an ethnographic research design.
Participant Observation
There’s a study called Graphology, where an expert can analyse a person’s writing and tell a lot about that person’s personality. However, the catch is that a person shouldn’t know that their writing will be observed because then it will be in their subconscious mind, and they will write consciously.
Why this example? This is the case with ethnographic research as well. When participants under the observation aren’t aware that they are being observed directly, they behave most naturally.
Sometimes, the observer should be able to hide themselves so the subject doesn’t care if they’re being observed.
However, in most instances, a researcher must declare their presence from a distance and hope that the users act naturally. The external researcher can use several tools to record and systemise their findings without interfering.
Advantages of this method include,
- As a non-participant researcher, one can be sure that there will be little to no observation bias and that the research is objective.
- The researcher is invisible, hence the observer effect or the Hawthorne effect, which means that the participant knows that they are being observed, so they will modify their behaviour.
- When there is no active participation in the research, the researcher can focus on collecting data and note-taking can be detailed.
Shadowing
To know how people interact with products and services, you can shadow them. Shadowing is a legit observation research method where the researcher watches and listens to the subjects’ daily activities under observation through their daily routines at work, home, and other places and times.
Following through with users’ daily tasks as silent observers, keeping a low profile and asking questions later in the process about why they made a move is how you achieve successful shadowing research.
How to conduct shadowing?
- Before the process, participants are asked to indulge in a group discussion and are interviewed to understand their expectations and needs.
- Then, the shadowing process starts, and during the process, the shadow works with an instructor who instructs about the study guidelines.
- This is because the participant might face a complicated situation that can get confusing and might need some assistance.
- After the process ends, the shadow/observer asks questions about their experience with the product or service.
Disadvantages of this method include
- Shadowing needs a lot of time, money, and human resources; hence, it can’t be conducted on a massive scale.
- It can be used as a starting point for further research, but designers can’t solely depend on it for all the necessary information.
- As observers do not probe in during the interview during this research process, it can be frustrating not to ask questions that arise in their minds for the user.
Netnography
Netnography is a research method that focuses on studying online communities, cultures, and people’s behaviours on the internet. It’s nothing but ethnography; researchers just took it up a notch to apply it to the internet world.
This includes observing online interactions in social media and public forums and later analysing the data collected.
The Term was coined by marketing professor Robert Kozinets in 1995. He combined three terms, “network”, “ethnography”, and “internet”, together to describe netnography.
Research with Responsibility: Ethical Considerations Ethnographic Research
When dealing with people, you have to keep some ethics in mind, such as:
- Privacy concern
With the advent of Artificial intelligence, people have been worried about how it would affect their data and privacy. Even in real life, not everybody wants to be under surveillance to deliver insights. So remember that consent is taken beforehand when using people as participants in the research process.
- Compensation
There are a few studies where the participants must devote significant time to the research process. In such cases, the compensation should be provided to them.
Bringing Data to Life: Analysing Ethnographic Data
After completing the process of gathering data through ethnographic research, now is the time to analyse the data and draw conclusions from it. After the analysis, you can then transform raw data into actionable insights that can be applied.
There are several ways to analyse the data and determine the meaning of that analysis. Still, if done correctly, this analysis can be the building block of all the decision-making processes. Creating deliverables and sharing findings with stakeholders becomes easy.
Since ethnographic data is qualitative and subjective, there is no one way to analyse it and make the gist of it, which is a good thing because you can incorporate a blend of methods such as,
Affinity diagrams sometimes referred to as the KJ method, is named after Jiro Kawakita, who used this term for the first time in the late 20th century. Anyway, not to bore you with history!
It is a visual tool that categorises information into groups or categories based on similarities or shared characteristics. It is a common practice in which information can be clustered based on common themes.
- Journey Maps
A journey map visually represents a user’s journey and how they proceed through the website or app. It describes the users’ behaviour and how they move through different touchpoints.
It helps develop a pattern of the key points in the user journey and how designers can better these key points.
You can use a different method to analyse the data, but make sure that you’re answering questions like,
- Which patterns or themes are recurrent in the participant’s behaviour?
- How did participants’ behaviour change over some time?
- What led to this change in behaviour?
- What was unexpected about this behaviour change?
- How, as a designer, can you leverage this pattern and behaviour?
Once you’ve answered these questions after the analysis, you can return to the customers for the second round of questioning. Try to keep various experts for various answers and perspectives for a broader, well-thought-out analysis.
The Hidden Hurdles: Challenges of Ethnographic UX Research
Roses come with thorns. This is a perfect example of how good things don’t come alone. Hence, ethnographic research UX also comes with its challenges and limitations.
Resource Intensive
Ethnographic research is qualitative and can be very resource-intensive and time-consuming. Think for yourself; noticing all the details of several participants under study will need many resources.
Because of the huge resources needed, it’s difficult to scale this research to a bigger scale.
Hawthorne Effect
As mentioned above, the Hawthorne effect is the observational bias, which states that people behave differently when they know they are being studied. When Eve and Adam are told not to eat the apple, guess what’s the first thing they will do, eat that apple.
When participants are told to act naturally, they will become conscious and not act naturally.
Observer Bias
It’s not just the participants that can create a blunder; you, as a researcher, can also create a bias in your head. It may be that you declared something just because you observed and thought it to be true.
Since ethnographic research is based on subjectivity, thought processes, and people’s feelings and emotions, it can’t be objective. The observer needs to keep an open mind and perceive different ways of thinking.
Ethnography in Action: Real-World Case Studies
Still not convinced with the importance of ethnographic research? Look at these real-world problems that were solved by ethnographic research.
1. Innovation in Parking Technology
Ellen Isaacs and her team at the Palo Alto Research Centre planned to innovate parking technology to improve the usability of limited parking spaces. They studied factors like intuitive parking signs and how people searched for parking spaces.
For this, they did an observational study and developed an ethnographic method called REACT (Rapid Ethnographic Assessment and Communication Technique). This method uses observational practices to discover and communicate key insights through engaging video podcasts.
The video podcasts eventually helped many people and improved parking technology.
2. Developing a Fintech Solution
IDEO, a global design and innovation company, noticed that people usually don’t easily reveal information about their finances. Rather than opting for the traditional interview and question method, they incorporated a mixed approach: interception-based recruiting of participants under study.
The company collaborated with the Mercy Corps to support the Typhoon Haiyan survivors in the Philippines, which was suffered by thousands of people in 2014. Their goal was to figure out how people would rebuild their livelihoods.
The people’s answers helped Ideo build a fintech product that served the needs of the people in need.
A Final Takeaway
Understand that ethnographic research does not have to be complicated, and it does not have to block hours off your calendar. You don’t need to employ different experts if your budget does not allow you to do so.
The gist of this research method is that you develop a comprehensive analysis that reflects the end user’s actual behaviour so that the product reaches the right target audience.
Contact Yellow Slice if you wish to create digital products that arise from the customers’ emotions so that you end up with a product that’s functional and intuitive.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why opt for ethnographic UX research rather than other traditional UX research methods?
Traditional UX research methods like surveys and interviews rely heavily on reported data and controlled tasks. On the other hand, ethnographic research focuses on the natural interactions of the user and finding deeper meaning in how culture and surroundings influence customer decision-making.
2. When should ethnographic research be used in UI/UX design?
Ethnographic research should be used when the context of culture and environment can’t be ignored while designing for UX, for instance, in workplaces, cultural products, and apps useful in daily interactions.
In these situations, survey and interview data can’t be reliable as it doesn’t reveal the nitty-gritty of the user’s needs beyond self-reported experiences.
