Implications for design
Abstract
Although ethnography has become a common approach in HCI research and design, considerable confusion still attends both ethnographic practice and the criteria by which it should be evaluated in HCI. Often, ethnography is seen as an approach to field investigation that can generate requirements for systems development; by that token, the major evaluative criterion for an ethnographic study is the implications it can provide for design. Exploring the nature of ethnographic inquiry, this paper suggests that "implications for design" may not be the best metric for evaluation and may, indeed, fail to capture the value of ethnographic investigations.
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The appropriations and hacks of the artists are not a problem to be eliminated by design, but can be a point of inspiration.
“The appropriations and hacks of our artists [37] are not a problem to be eliminated by design, but can be a point of inspiration.”
From AI and Non-Western Art Worlds: Reimagining Critical AI Futures through Artistic Inquiry and Situated Dialogue (2025) · cites this paper as [37]
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“The hardest task for any ethnographer, especially those new to fi eldwork, is to analyse this mass of material, to fi nd out what it all amounts to and what ‘ implications for design ’ (Dourish 2006, 2007) might spring from these observations.”
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“As Dourish (2006: 544) argues, as well as providing findings that address the established frame of “implications for design” in HCI, EM/CA studies can defer and reflex-ively transform design-oriented analytic objectives into an “occasion for tacit theorizing”.”
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“The appropriations and hacks of our artists [37] are not a problem to be eliminated by design, but can be a point of inspiration.”
- Authors
- Dourish, P.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Irvine (US)
- Corresponding author
- Dourish, Paul
- ORCID
- Dourish, Paul
- Venue
- Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2006-04-22
- Pages
- 541-550
- OpenAlex
- W2166050198
- Cited by
- 860
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 47 · 2025: 83 · 2024: 49 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 36 · 2021: 43 · 2020: 40 · 2019: 32 · 2018: 34 · 2017: 39 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 42 · 2014: 30 · 2013: 40 · 2012: 56
- FWCI
- 37.34
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanical Engineering › Design Education and Practice
- Keywords
- ethnography, evaluation criteria, ethnographic inquiry, human-computer interaction design, requirements generation, fieldwork
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