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.
qualitative research
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]
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]
Business impact of ethnographic research
Leading up to the impending start of my graduate program in anthropology, I have gotten myself involved in an initiative which—based in the Department—will explore ‘real-world’ and sometimes non-academic applications of ethnographic research. While that initiative continues to be mostly … [read more]