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A TURN TO THE SOCIAL

Dr Dawn Woodgate

D.Woodgate@bath.ac.uk

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Overview of Presentation

• What is ethnography?

• Stages in an ethnographic study.

• Ethnographic skills and problems.

• Why use ethnography in HCI and CSCW research?

• One particular study.

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WHAT IS ETHNOGRAPHY?

In its most general sense, a study of the culture(s) a given group of people more or less share (Van Maanen 1995).

Another definition: ‘A form of qualitative research which

combines several methods, including interviewing and observation’ (Fielding 1993)

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AND ANOTHER…

‘Genuinely social interaction in the field with the subjects of study, some direct observation, some formal and a great deal of informal interviewing, some systematic counting, some collection of documents and artefacts; and open-endedness in the direction the study takes’ (McCall and Simmons 1969).

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•Negotiating access•Entering the field•Collecting data•Leaving the field•Analysing the data•Writing the report(s)

STAGES IN AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY

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ETHNOGRAPHIC SKILLS

It isn’t rocket science. Ethnography involves very prosaic abilities, though not everyone has them!

• Listening and observational skills• Empathy• Tolerance• Courtesy• Respect and integrity

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Pros and Cons

• It takes a long time, and it cannot tell a developer directly ‘what to build’.

• It can however make visible ‘real world’ aspects of a work setting.

• It describes a social setting as it is perceived by those in the setting, ‘the users’.

• It is primarily an informational input to the design process.

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CAUTION - TAKE CARE IN DESCRIBING ETHNOGRAPHY TO PROSPECTIVE RESEARCH PARTNERS.

• Avoid raising unrealistically high expectations of what it can do.

• Be aware that people may feel threatened and suspicious of your purposes.

• A TYPICAL REACTION

‘Have you come to tell us how efficient we all are?’ (IM, consultant orthopaedic veterinary surgeon)

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THE STUDY IN QUESTION

Designing for Common Ground in Mobile Distributed Collaborative Systems.

Dr Eamonn O’Neill Dr Dawn Woodgate In collaboration with the Royal London Hospital Funded by EPSRC (Grant no. GR/R24562/01)

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Main Research Objectives

• To extend and operationalize the theoretical concepts of common ground to distributed, mobile, collaborative systems.

• To develop design principles which exploit the developed theory in the design and evaluation of distributed, mobile, collaborative, computer-based systems.

• To test the design principles in producing and evaluating a system prototype.

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Where does ethnography fit in here?

• The first objective involved a field study in the Accident and Emergency Department of the Royal London, of the work of the department in terms of collaborative activities and the artefacts that support them.

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The Domain

• A very busy inner city A&E department • Subject of the BBC TV series Trauma• Diverse participants – anyone can walk in off the

street, people are bought in by ambulance, staff shifts change 3 times a day; to complicate this further, many agency staff are employed, who may only come to work at this hospital infrequently, or even on only one occasion.

• A range of computerised and manual ‘systems’ in use.

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The Study

What I actually did was to:

• Try to get an overview of the work of the Department, the layout, the roles of different categories of staff and so on.

• Tried to identify situations where people would collaborate around an artefact.

• Observe different individuals, groups or collaborations on different occasions.

• Spent a lot of time talking to people about what they were doing.

• Took (a few) photographs, only where and when this was allowed.

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Constraints

• We could not collect video data as we had hoped, because of the impossibility of avoiding patients or visitors; we did not have the necessary NHS Ethics Committee permission to involve patients.

• Sheer complexity of the context.

• Difficulties related to patient confidentiality issues.

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The Data

• Extensive, detailed field notes.• A few artefacts and still photos – I always had to

ask permission; this was rarely granted!• Some interview transcripts – though often these

interviews had to take place on the job, I was allowed to audiotape these because I had the permission of the individuals involved.

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FINDINGS FELL INTO TWO MAIN GROUPS

• Ways in which the flow of patients through the department is managed, and the systems and artefacts used to accomplish this.

• Ways in which these artefacts and systems are actually used, as opposed to assumed, obvious or taken for granted uses.

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Some Interesting Examples

• The whiteboard

• Paper records

• Protocols

• Patient information systems

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P9270115.jpg

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How the Data Were Used: an example.

• O'Neill, E., Woodgate, D., and Kostakos, V. (2004) Easing the wait in the Emergency Room: building a theory of public information systems. Proceedings of the ACM Designing Interactive Systems 2004, Boston, MA., August 2004, 17-25.

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OVER TO YOU!