Cognitive Chrono-Ethnography as a Methodology for Defining People's Future Needs and Its Application

This paper describes how people’s future needs are derived by applying Cognitive Chrono-Ethnography (CCE), a study methodology for understanding people’s in situ behavior selections in daily life. CCE starts by defining critical parameters for understanding people’s behavior by considering the nature of behavior selection processes in the field in question, and then designing ethnographical field observations. The participant’s behavior is recorded, followed by a series of structured retrospective interviews. Analysis of the interview results aids in developing models of present behavior selections and their chronological changes in the past. This paper claims that these models should serve as defining future needs of persons who would follow the same developing paths with a certain amount of time delay. This paper illustrates a CCE study of spectators of baseball games at a ballpark who have become frequent visitors in 5 years to show the utility of CCE for defining future needs.