The importance of observation
A couple of years ago, Tommi Moilanen and I published this post on Moment’s blog, reflecting on a three-day ethnographic observation around New York. In advance of the workshop I’ll be delivering with Christina Noonan at Interaction 17, I’m re-sharing this as an example of what you can learn from conducting research-in-context.
Here at Moment, so much of the work we do depends upon having a deep understanding of the people we’re designing for, and the cultures and contexts that we’re designing within. This level of understanding is rarely found through staring at a screen—it’s important to get out into the real world to get a sense of what’s going on. And it’s important to recognize how quickly the world changes.
To polish up our observation skills, we took to the streets of New York to get some fresh perspective. We chose a broad focus for this three-day ethnography workshop:
How is technology influencing behavior and activities in New York’s public spaces?
Goals for the workshop
This workshop, like many things at Moment, was pursued in the name of continuous learning and skill-building. Specifically, we wanted to fulfill these workshop goals:
- Practice ethnographic methods through observing a range of people, places and objects and evolve our field tools
- Collect insights to inform our roles as designers of digital products
Location selection
Given a timespan of three days, it was important to strike a balance between seeing as much as possible and gaining a deeper understanding of any particular location. With this in mind, we split into two groups with the plan that each group would cover a different neighborhood.
We were purposeful about targeting neighborhoods outside of the Soho design demographic. To work out which neighborhoods to observe, we surveyed a range of interactive maps and data visualizations (here’s one of our favorites) to identify areas with high levels of diversity in terms of age, race, and income level.
We were hoping to get a snapshot of technology usage among a younger section of the population, so we chose to conduct observations around two different college campuses in the city: Columbia University on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and LaGuardia College in Queens.
In both neighborhoods, our time was split across a range of public spaces, including coffee shops, parks, libraries, transportation centers, historical sites, public plazas, and bars. While this was a lot of area to cover, it enabled us to observe technology being used in contrasting environments and contexts.
All of these planning decisions involved some assumptions, but for the purposes of this workshop, we felt that they formed an appropriate starting point.
Capturing
To help guide our observations, we created some lo-fi note-taking tools using two different frameworks: POEMS (People, Objects, Environments, Messages and Services; from Kumar and Whitney 2003) and AEIOU (Activities, Environments, Interactions, Objects and Users; from The Doblin Group 1991). Using these frameworks helped us focus our open-ended observations into factual and objective data. It also saved us a lot of time once we returned to our offices and began breaking down our notes into discrete data points as part of our analysis work.
We found the more general AEIOU framework more appropriate for our open-ended topic. The POEMS framework, which includes more specific categories such as ‘messaging’, might be more appropriate for more targeted observations.
We started with A4 worksheets that contained fixed-size boxes within which to write our observations. Through our study, we evolved these capture sheets to be more flexible, and to help us remain discreet and anonymous in the public space. The worksheet eventually shrunk down to a bookmark-sized observation guide, which could be discreetly placed in a standard notebook for reference.
What we learned
The broad nature of our initial problem statement allowed for multiple insights to emerge, but also presented a challenge in terms of creating a cohesive narrative. This challenge was multiplied by the range of observation sites and through the varied perspectives of our seven person observation team. Even so, themes and tensions did emerge.
Ultimately, our observations spoke to the interplay of technology and the rules of public space.
Spaces have protocols. Technology use simultaneously follows, challenges, and influences them.
The rules of space often begin as deep-rooted expectations (for example, that one should go outdoors if speaking loudly on a cell phone call). These may be governed by physical layouts, signage, verbal communication, or more subtly, through gaze and body language. Certain behaviors are either encouraged or suppressed by our surroundings, whether by design or implicitly.
Over time, rules can either shape behaviors, or become superseded by opposing natural tendencies. Such opposition can lead to various outcomes. Often, it can elicit a defensive response — many coffee shops in New York have now removed power outlets, preventing customers from using their devices for more than a couple of hours. In the most extreme cases, we observed signs that specifically prohibited patrons from staying too long.
On the other hand, emergent behaviors can trigger the repurposing of spaces to suit the needs of the community — today, libraries often serve as internet cafes as much as book repositories. Where leaving your phone on the dinner table may have been unthinkable a few years ago, today we see it as commonplace.
As designers, it’s important for us to understand this interplay when creating new products and services. By familiarizing ourselves with the tensions present between technology and space, we can design to alleviate frictions and/or conform to certain protocols.
Observational research may be just a starting point, but it’s an important one.
Originally published at momentdesign.com in 2015.
