| In An Overview of Ethnology and System Design the authors, Ford and Wood, explain that ethnography is rooted in social anthropological investigation. The intrinsically unstructured descriptive nature of ethnography along with its limitation in studying a small population often make it difficult to justify (to management?) when other more quantitative research data is available. The authors note that anthropologists and systems designers need to act like translators in understanding a new and unfamiliar culture. "Like the anthropologist, the system designer faces the need to understand and document the 'language' of prospective system users as it relates to their actual work tasks. They need to speak this language to users as they gather design information, instead of the more technical language of software engineering that many users find incomprehensible and intimidating." (page 171) In following this simile, systems designers then need to translate the users' culture language into a technical language from which the prospective system can be designed.
In outlining the history of systems design and testing (from system-centered design to client-centered design to various ethnographic approaches to system design,) the authors explain the rational behind system-centered design. However, in considering that the need for client-centered or user-centered design has been recognized for over twenty years, it is surprising to me that there are still so many system-centered or developer-centered products still on the market. For example, in Diane Brown's article Challenges of User-Based Design in Medical Equipment Market we learned that original ultrasound imaging systems "were built by engineers and physicists," and still in 1994 "they have not yet adopted a user-centered design..." (page 159) What are the reasons behind the lack of user-centered designed products? Possibly users' "conspiracy of silence" as Norman describes - "If we believe that others are able to use the device and if we believe that it is not very complex, then we conclude that any difficulties must be our own fault. ... Because everybody perceives the fault to be his or her own, nobody wants to admit to having trouble. (Norman, DET pages 40-41) Another reason for the lack of user-centered designed products could be that "Usability is not often thought of as a criterion during the purchasing process." (Norman, DET page 78) People buy products because they look good, or they have a good reputation, not because they are usable. In forecasting future trends, Ford and Wood end their article with optimism. They predict that "sophistication in ethnographic methods ... will migrate into the user community." (page 279) Do they have evidence of this trend? They also predict that we will see an "increasing availability of software tools that support the organization and analysis of ethnographic data." But, as we saw in Diane Brown's article, the researchers had to develop their own tool ("based on a musical composition metaphor." (page 70)) to visually organize their data. I would like to know more about the kinds of tools which Ford and Wood are predicting. Who is using them? What kind of data are being analyzed with them? Are these tools all field specific, or can they be used in various domains? |
