On the ritual use of personas in design
What happens when a method meant to represent complexity becomes a performative shortcut instead? A critical look at the persona artifact in design work.
ethnography
Gamestorming for ethnographic data analysis
On January 31, 2022, I gave a talk at the Ethnography Lab at the University of Toronto, about using “gamestorming” — a set of collaborative workshop techniques — for ethnographic data analysis.
Qualitative data analysis with Microsoft Word comments & Python (updated)
About two years ago, I wrote a post here describing a simple and cheap method of coding text documents such as interviews. (I’d encourage you to go and read it first before you continue. I won’t repeat the original argument … [read more]
Qualitative data analysis using Microsoft Word comments
Update February 2020: Since writing this blog post, I have updated the method described below to using a newer, more broadly compatible approach which works with all/most versions of Microsoft Office — and also on the Mac and Linux computers. … [read more]
Four books January 2018
Starting this year, I will occasionally post lightly commented lists of books I’m currently reading. My tendency is to occupy myself with nonfiction, erring on the side of theory, anthropology, philosophy, politics. For those who got to know me (or … [read more]
On Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow
Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow, at two and a half hours, is neither light entertainment nor what most would think of as a seasonal movie. It is currently in an extended run in two of Toronto’s theatres supporting more cerebral fare … [read more]
Navigating ethics
The following is an excerpt from the introduction to a forthcoming master’s thesis in anthropology which I am working on at the moment. This quasi-autoethnographic piece looks at why I am interested in ethics and ethnography in the context of … [read more]
Of bullet points, knowledge, and organizational ethnography
Recently, I experienced the following scene during a client meeting to review preliminary research results from the “ethnography” phase of a short service design consulting engagement: The research team, having been deeply engaged in fieldwork for several weeks, has worked … [read more]