“Ethnography is the study of human cultures. For innovation and growth teams, this means studying users in ways that capture the full context of their experience, including behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and cultural meaning.”
- Liedtka, Oglive, & Brozenske. (2014). The Designing for Growth Field Book: A Step-By-Step Project Guide. New York: Columbia University Press.
Recently, while working on a project to find ways to get gym members to tidy up after themselves, I returned to my notes from my Design Thinking class. The purpose of ethnographic interview is not to collect a large set of datapoints to find trends.
Instead, identify a small number of customers (about a dozen) that represent various demographics, and dig deep to uncover their values, beliefs, and motivations.
Three tips for the interview process include:
“Orient, but don’t prime.” - be careful to not “lead the witness”. That is, make sure you approach the interview and each question without giving the notion of what you hope to find.
“Walk backward, then forward.” - Respondents will often tell you what happened. It is the interviewer’s job to uncover the cause and effect of the action.
“Ask attitudinal questions last.” - Asking interviewees about their feelings on a subject may taint the rest of their answers. Best to hold these sort of questions until the end.