Re: UCD and Innovation

Todd sensibly says

> Interviews: typically involve a moderator/interviewer and one to some
> number of participants. Interviews typically have a series of
> questions, often high-level that they ask in order to discover user
> goals and business objectives.
>
> Ethnography: focuses on observation with a component of interviewing
> involved. Ethnography requires more interaction and observation skills
> than traditional interviews as it  uses a less structured interview
> process. The key goal is looking for behavior patterns and what impact
> lifestyle, behavior, technology, environment, etc. have on daily tasks
> and living.

Honest, sensible and reasonable, and good for both ethnographers in HCI and
HCI people who work with them (and the more flexible generalist social researchers ;-))
You see, they really do talk to their observees.  Hire Todd.  He'll be good!

So, next time a one true faith ethnographer expects you to support some cult activity under the guise of
paid work, quote Todd.

Let's start with Louise:

> Ethnography and interviewing have little to do with each other.
> Unstructured or semi-s interviewing *can* have something to do. But there
> is really no way of discovering things that you know nothing about,
> except.....through PO (participant observation). Half-decent PO takes about
> a couple of days to get into....depending on context, jargon.....

> There Is No Alternative (or TINA) as MT (gawd) used to say....

And there you have it - TINA.  Of course, there is an alternative -
DEAFE - Don't Employ Any Fervent Ethnographers.

Observation is an indispensible part of the method tool box.  It is essential to understanding
contexts of use.  However, it must be supplemented by other methods (triangulation is the
only TINA in social research).  Ethnographers do not have a monoploy on observation (my
first degree was in education and they do it differently - and well - there, as do clinical
psychologists etc. etc. etc.)

What observation does not do is drive innovation,  It rightly constrains it.  We have to live with
this tension.  Design is about the new.  Fit is about the old.  Observational methods, properly
triangulated, let us understand what will and what will not fit (hence Louise's comments on
mail order in Spain -  no arguing with the facts here).  What observational methods do not do at all
is actually deliver the real value of good innovation into existing contexts of use through design.

Innovation and evaluation are very closely intertwined.  They are however separable and very very
distinct intellectual activities with very distinct intellectual traditions and values.

We've all had our lectures on contextual research, so how about focussing on innovation.
De Bono's been mentioned.  What other approaches exist to bring out creativity in the
design process, and how well do these interface with the evaluation methods that tell us whether
we are desiging anything of value?

Discuss
Gilbert

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