We consider the role of ‘workplace studies’ in design and specifically, what it means to use ethnography to ‘inform’ design. We suggest that there is a need for a foundational change in the configuration of the practical relationship between ethnography and design if the approach is to be of lasting utility: from the traditional product-oriented configuration where ethnography attempts to infor...

Ethnography has been introduced into technology design lifecycles to help sensitise new technologies to the work practices of their intended users. This paper reports on how ethnography was used in parallel to technology prototyping in the design of a workflow system to improve accuracy and efficiency in banking in India. Unlike previously largely positive reports of how ethnography helps to sh...

The concept "cyberethnography" remains undefined in the social sciences while, at the same time, still overlapping too much with the more well-known concept of "virtual ethnography." The aim of our paper is to remedy this situation by underlining new directions in the ethnographic study of computer mediated settings. To do so, we define cyberspace as computer-mediated contexts intrinsically rel...

AIM Nurses are increasingly embracing ethnography as a useful research methodology. This paper presents an overview of some of the main characteristics we considered and the challenges encountered when using ethnography to explore the nature of communication between children and health professionals in a children's hospital. BACKGROUND There is no consensual definition or single procedure to ...

In this paper we discuss how institutional ethnography, a feminist materialist method of inquiry, can be use to study the social institution of housing. We begin providing a brief description of institutional ethnography and then recount how we are applying this approach in a study of changes in housing in the United States in the twentieth century. For purposes of illustration, we summarize tw...

Traditional ethnography, as applied to marketing research, involves the analyst spending time observing the consumer in her natural lair, so to speak, as she goes about buying and using a product or service. But ethnography doesn’t stop there. The observation of target consumers is almost always accompanied by depth interviews, during or after the observation phase. So, ethnography is actually ...

Development sociology as a distinct area of study gained prominence in the post-world war era with the evolving interest in political and economic progression of the post-colonial world. The emerging discipline from the mainstream sociology have been particularly interested in development paths and strategies adopted in nations in the various regions of the world with greater emphasis in develo...

'Implementation research in nutrition' is an emerging area of study aimed at building evidence-based knowledge and sound theory to design and implement programs that will effectively deliver nutrition interventions. This paper describes some of the basic features of ethnography and illustrates its applications in components of the implementation process. We review the central purpose of ethnogr...

In today’s global markets engineers need to design products for a wide variety of stakeholders and cultures. Engineering students, therefore, must learn how to design products that meet the needs of the stakeholders and are appropriate for the cultures inwhich theywill beused.Human-centereddesignguides students indevelopingdesign ideas that achieve this goal. This approach has proven to support...

Culture Categories Tree Metaphor Concepts in grocery retailing Customer Social Self Concept Modes of Ethnographic Research in Branding Tree as a Critical Model of Branding as a Cultural process