Harper
Human v. Human and Human v. Technology

The problem with a lot of systems in CSCW is that they model the process, not what is “actually” going on.

Ethnography

• Study of people in a natural environment
• Usually used to tackle the question of what are they doing when they tackle the job on their own terms.
• Always do data triangulation.
• You want to look at the situation from a variety of angels (Observation, Interview, Artifact Collection / Analysis, etc.)
• By doing these multiple takes on the same situation, you are essentially “double checking” to make sure that your assumptions / observations / hypothesis are correct.
• Key thing here is that you use NOT only the things your produce… but the things they use.
• What they use is “how” they do it, and what they produce is “what they did.”

Ethnomethodology

• Harold Garfinkel in 1967 – A discipline / method that studies the organization of everyday activity and how people make sense of these activities as well as the worlds they are in.
• The unit of analysis here is the sequence of activities.
• Often mixed with a conversation analysis.
• By doing this, you can look at how they communicate… topics, conversational methods, overlapping conversation, etc.

Ethnography vs. Ethnomethodology

• Both look at what people do
• Both observe
• Ethnography is a flashlight, Ethnomethodology is a laser beam.
• Ethnomethodology is a subset of Ethnography

Are you going in with something specific in mind? ETHNOMETHODOLOGY
Are you going in with a vague, or general purpose in mind? ETHNOGRAPHY

Contextual Inquiry was originally based on Ethnomethodology. It was originally developed for workplace studies.

What Sort of Results?

• Ethnomethodology will be a much more specific report, where is Ethnography is a more general look at what happened.
• Ethnography gives you something that has been interpreted / filtered through the eyes of the researcher.
• Ethnomethodology gives you something that is “from the source,” or, from the people who are actually being researched.

Project Runway – Vincent / Angela Working Relationship – Season 3 – Episode 4
Mike / Joe Group Work

– Describe relationship –
From her perspective, she was not only picked last, but the guy that picked her got her name wrong! Team Leader treated her like a lackey… doesn’t want her input or help unless asked for. No establishment of common ground… he knew what he wanted and didn’t care about her thoughts / opinions. Neither of them really tried to make it right. She stood there, and he was too stubborn to bring her in. When she DID try to contribute, he thought she was nagging / not being productive.

- What went wrong –
No common goals
Horrible communication
Team Leader / Facilitator abused role (or perhaps didn’t understand role)
Negativity / Behind the back talking

- What contributed to the distrust –
Negativity / Behind the back talking
Getting her name wrong
Threatened her / Was defensive
Wanted her support but didn’t allow input