project scope

01. Project Proposal Abstract, Key words and proposal

02. Project Schedule Timeline and description

03. Methods and Practices Glossary

04. Literature Review Introduction, frameworks and case studies

05. Bibliography P

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Mayuko Yoshida, s3122677

0 1 . Pro j e c t Pro p o s a l

Ti t i l e : Proposal for the design of multifunctional furniture for solo-living

A b s t r a c t :Furniture is part of important elements which create a home. People’s life style has been changed and it has affected on the choice of furniture. The example of changes is that the size of space has been decreased because of overpopulation in the urban area. This causes that people only have limited small living spaces and they are not able to gain enough space to live in comfortably. Other change is globalization. People keep moving between countries, or even in a country. It seems that there is not any idea of “home” which is stable and stuck on the one place. In order to face to this issue, I would

relationship between users and furniture. From this research, users’ necessity and desire would be found and used for defining the speci-fication. Based on the specification and research, persona would be created in order to make storyboards. Imagining persona in the story behind the product provides ideas, and visualization and mock-up would be repeated until idea is refined and finalized. Through this process, the necessity of solo-living will be revealed and it will be em-bodied as furniture. This is also my challenge to achieve embodiment of human needs which is uncovered by ethnographic research. The outcome, which is multifunctional furniture, would help people who live in small space or move around the world.

K e y wo rd s :Human-centred design, contextual design, ethnographic research, observation, ergonomics, form and material exploration

Pro p o s a l :

IntroStyle of living space has been changed. Overpopulation in the city causes decreasing in area of individual own space. Also, people move around the world because of globalization. It seems that there is not any idea of home which is stable and stuck to one place. Keep moving means that people create and break own territory continu-ously, and create own space again which they feel comfort every time when they move; however, as Ken (cited Margolin 2002) said that independent space is important for improving individuality, and

like to design multifunctional furniture which can create own space in any place, especially for solo-living. This furniture would provide minimum functions to maximize value of small space. Design process would start with historical research about existing furniture in order to understand the basic function and materials. As part of research, I would like to undertake an ethnographic approach such as observa-tion and participation to understand users so that I could see the

Figure.1 prototype of mobile living furniture Casulo designed by Marcel Krings and Sebastian MühlhäuserSource: website casulo. http://www.mein-casulo.de/en/casulo_photos.htm

it would be required for productive community. How could people have and feel own space if they would have only small limited space or have to move constantly?

One of the elements which define the meaning of space is furni-ture. People just can choose space which is already constructed but cannot transform them. What they can is how they use the space. Furniture is one of the elements which can modify the way of using space. Furniture gives the meaning of space, and when human use them, the room is surely defined. For example, if there is a bed in a room and people sleep on them, the room become a bed room. If there is a dining table and people just use a laptop on the table as working space, the room become studio or workplace not a dining room. Therefore, it could be said that the meaning of space could be defined by relationship between furniture and people.

In order to help to establish feeling of having own space in small space, I would like to design furniture, especially for solo-living be-cause one person is the minimum unit of human being. By defining specification of furniture for solo-living, I would be able to gain the specific and detailed understanding of relationship between human and living space.

ProposalThere is a large various type of furniture such as table, chair, bed, shelf, and desk and so on. Before researching users, I would like to understand the objects, which is furniture, and the relationship of furniture and daily life. What kind of events and objects compose daily life? What can make living life comfort and smooth? The answer of these questions would give us what is required for solo-living by understanding of solo-living which is the smallest form of life style.

In order to make multifunctional furniture which meet users’ desire, it is essential to understand potential users. Furniture is a part of living space and it is deeply related into life, so, I would like to know the re-lationship. In order to deepen the understanding of usual life, I would undertake an ethnographic approach. The reason of taking the ap-proach is that I consider about not only the interaction between hu-man and object but also the context. And, the way of ethnographic research aims to understand people and culture, so it would fit for the object with user which I would like to know.

As a designer, what I concern is to be close together user in the pro-cess. Practically, it is required to enter the living space and observe people and their action. This would help designers to understand the relationship between user and product with life contexts(Press and Cooper 2003). Also, I am interested in objects which are not sup-posed to be used as furniture but actually used as furniture. This kind of objects could be found outside of house like public space.


Figure.2 Living Structure designed by Ken IsaacsSource: website http://thedustoflife.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html

From these research, persona would be born and live in the scenario. This shows the possible action of objects in context, and it would help designer to imagine user who will use the product, and persona will encourage designers to find development in scenario(Pruitt and Adlin 2006). Based on the concept which is created from scenario, I would do visualization and mock-up to see the idea in 2D and 3D, and then get feedback from others. Through this process, the idea will be refined.

This process requires couple of skills such as researching information, analysing data, organizing memo and observing people and events at the stage of research. After defining specification, skill of sketch-ing, making paper mock-up and prototyping would be needed at the stage of designing.

The motive for this project was my interest in the connection be-tween furniture and the value of space. I would like to know the link between them, the interaction and effect of them. After I understand them, I would apply the knowledge into making the own space for person. Because of feature of multifunctional furniture, it would help us reduce the amount of materials and space, and it means that this could be applied not only into solo-living but also different style of life such as family or sharing. The reason why I chose the ethno-graphic method is that I think that design activity would begin with understanding people to deduce their desire.

When people buy things, it is because of the desire for something. They are looking for something to meet their requirements; how-ever, they rarely find what they exactly want to have. It is because the designer’s intention and user’s thinking rarely match each other. (Norman 1988) said that product-based design even force user to get used to it. Consumers are struggling with gaps between desire and lack of satisfaction. From the designer’s standpoint, it is important

how they would find “gaps.” People are all different in this world and they have variety of demands. How can designer find hidden wish ef-ficiently? How can they extract unconscious real desire at the bottom of heart? To overcome those difficulties, I would try ethnographic research and approach in contextual design.

Through the whole process, there will two outcomes. The process of extracting human desire will be the skill of understanding users. This will be the part of learning human-centred design. The other is the understanding of necessity of living space will be the base for explo-ration and designing of functional objects in home.


0 2 . Pro j e c t S c h e d u l e

Timeline for 2010 Semester 1

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concept visualization

review review

refine refine refine and finalize

CAD drawing

manufacturing

prototype / scale model

evaluation

brief/brainstorming

historical and market research research research research

ethnographic research

make a plan of research

collect and sort results

affinity diagram

persona/scenario scenario scenario scenario

specification

design concept


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review review

refine refine refine and finalize

CAD drawing

manufacturing

prototype / scale model

evaluation

brief/brainstorming

historical and market research research research research

ethnographic research

make a plan of research

collect and sort results

affinity diagram

persona/scenario scenario scenario scenario

specification

design concept



Timeline for 2010 Semester 2

RESEARCH ANALYSIS DESIGN PRODUCTION

HISTORICAL RESEARCH

MARKET RESEACH

ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH - OBSERVATION - INTERVIEW

COLLECT & SORT RESEARCH

AFFINITY DIAGRAM - make a note of result from research - sort by making groups - refine the information

PERSONA with SCENARIO - make virtual users - imagine story behind the product - find development

EXTRACT requirement

IDEATION (define specification)

VISUALIZATION - sketch - mock-up - review - detailed

PROTOTYPE/SCALE MODEL - 1 to 1 model or scale model

IMPLEMENTATION - manufacturing

EVALUATION - feedback

BRIEF

BRAINSTORMING

TRIGGER FOR ACTIONPLAN for model

RESEARCHRESEARCH

SKETCH

MOCK-UP

REVIEW

REFINE


Flow chart of design process

The first stage is research. It is important to make an strong axis which the project centers on, and research is elements which define the axis. I will gain knowledge about objects from history and about user from ethnographic research.

The second stage is analysis. Even there are enough material, it is not good for nothing if it is not made use of effeciently. To avoid this happens, I will focus on using the method of utilizing all materials for understaing users and conceptualization.


RESEARCH ANALYSIS DESIGN PRODUCTION

HISTORICAL RESEARCH

MARKET RESEACH

ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH - OBSERVATION - INTERVIEW

COLLECT & SORT RESEARCH

AFFINITY DIAGRAM - make a note of result from research - sort by making groups - refine the information

PERSONA with SCENARIO - make virtual users - imagine story behind the product - find development

EXTRACT requirement

IDEATION (define specification)

VISUALIZATION - sketch - mock-up - review - detailed

PROTOTYPE/SCALE MODEL - 1 to 1 model or scale model

IMPLEMENTATION - manufacturing

EVALUATION - feedback

BRIEF

BRAINSTORMING

TRIGGER FOR ACTIONPLAN for model

RESEARCHRESEARCH

SKETCH

MOCK-UP

REVIEW

REFINE

The third stage is design, or concept. After analysing the material gained from research, there will be a strong axis and specification. Based on the specification, I will explore the form and material by sketching and making rough model, and review and refine them.

The final stage is production. Manufacturing takes time and costs money. Before starting this stage, I really need to finalize all details and clear vision of final product. Also, this process requires the knowledge of manufacturing before, so need to research about it as well.

This depends on whether participants allow me to observe their lifestyle or not. Probably, some people would mind it, so, in that case, I would ask them to do cultural probe. After the observation or cultural probe, I will have casual interviewing in order to confirm the information. All information will be documented to be analyzed. WEEK 8All the material which I gain in this process will be recorded like by taking a note or photography. At the end of this stage, I will collect all material and make a record of them.

WEEK 6 - 8The second stage “ANALYSIS“ is the time to examine the materials. In order to keep everything in order, I will make cards which all information are written on. WEEK 8 -10The cards will be used for affinity diagram. The cards will be collected and sorted, and divided into small groups and large group. By taking this method, I would like to find the common idea or issue or thinking which is extracted from research material because it might avoid from losing in researched information. WEEK 10 -12Imaginary user called persona will be born after all materials are ana-lyzed. Persona is people who will use my product. In the Scenario (storyboard), persona plays with the product and I can find development through the scenario. This is the way of simulating the idea.


RESEARCH

ANALYSIS

WEEK 1-2The first stage ”RESEACH” begins with making a brief, which is rough brief but based on the trigger for action such as issue which I would like to face to. This will be the first axis which the project centers on, and research is elements which define more detail of the axis. Brainstorming broadens my horizons about the brief. From the keyword gained in brainstorming, research will be started.

WEEK 3After I know what kind of area I have to look for, I will make a plan for research. There are two types of objects which I would like to research; one is product and the other is users. (Week3)

Historical research will be done with book, magazine, research paper and web in order to understand basic knowledge of product such as material and manufacturing. WEEK 3-7Market research will be done with magazine, catalogue, web and shop in order to understand the current trend and taste. This also may provide information about material and manufacturing. It is really important to have basic knowledge which will be the starting point.

WEEK 4-7It is difficult to understand users because people do not say what they really feel or do, so I will try to undertake ethnographic approach such as observation and interviewing. This method originally used in the anthropology, so it focuses on research about human by being close together. I would like to meet potential users and stay with them to observe their daily life.

The final stage “PRODUCTION“is the time to make the actual product. The whole process of production will take time and costs so it requires clear vision and plan.

WEEK 22 -24CAD detail drawing will be required at the beginning of production. Research about material and manufucturing might need to be taken to make sure all the details work. WEEK 24 - 271 to 1 model or scale model will be made to see how it sits in real in terms of size and how it fits in terms of ergonomics aspect.

Trying contact with manufacturing if it is necessary, otherwise I need to look for the supplier to get materials. WEEK 26 -31Constructing. WEEK 31 -32Once the final product is completed, it will be evaluated. (Week 15-16)

This method can be used at the stage of idea generation and concept visualization to simulate and test the product in the context. This also helps to keep the axis.

WEEK 12 - 13At the end of this stage, brief will be refined and detailed. This will be the refined strong axis to lead the next stage “DESIGN”.

WEEK 12 -14The third stage “DESIGN” is ideation - concept. I start drawing and making paper mock-up to explore and visualize the idea. CAD (especially, rhino at this stage) could be used as form and arrangement exploring tool.

WEEK 13- 20Visualization will be done by sketching and making mock-up to see idea in 2D and 3D form. WEEK 15 - 17 Every two weeks, I will review the idea and might get feedback from other students or potential users. (Week15, 17) By Week 22 in semester 2Persona and scenario could be applied at this stage to test the idea with virtual user in the context. From feedback and verification through scenario, the concept will be refined or finalized to be the final conceptThrough the stage “DESIGN“, research about manufacturing and material will be continued in order to define the detail.


DESIGN

PRODUCTION

0 3 . M e t h o d s a n d Pr a c t i c e s

1 . E t h n o g r a p h i c re s e a rc h

Ethnographic research is the qualitative and participative methodol-ogy to observe and analysis everyday life. There are two steps; one is doing field work, and the other is writing record of observation called field note. Designers enter the user’s life or workplace and stay with them to get to know the people and record it during the participat-ing. Ethnography is originally the scientific description of races and their culture with their customs, habits and mutual differences; so the target in the ethnographic research would be people called users and customers. Ethnographic research could be used to gather user information and deepen their understanding of people by writing and describing what they see and feel. It would help for creating per-sona or use cases as part of design process. Ethnographic research is important in exploring and discovering users’ unconscious desire and insights.

2 . Fi e l d n o t e

Field note is a note made by a person who is doing fieldwork as re-cords of observation and participation. It contains records of events such as literal transcript, paraphrases of conversation, examination of activities, and explanation of context such as descriptions, maps, diagram of setting, movement of people and objects in the environ-ment. Those recordings would be referred later, so it must contain when, where and who to be observed.

Field note could be used to analyse target audience and product with context at the stage of research in design process, and also help to re-visualize the context later. Making field notes is not just a method of record but also raising the quality of fieldwork research such as observation. It would be training to do both observation and interpretation of events. By the activity of recording, people could

keep the awareness of making use of observation for designing. The quality of observation would depend on whether researcher concern about recordings or not.

3 . Photographic ethnography

Photographic ethnography is the applied ethnography with camera as device for recording. Instead of researchers, users/subjects would explore their own lives and behavior by using camera. Camera would help to capture the image of participants’ activities and events hap-pened around them. This could be used at the stage of research in design process because it would collect information about users and products in context in a visual way. This would be useful when researcher might affect on users behavior and researcher would not want the influences of our selves. The visual record is helpful in de-sign process especially for group work because image shows actual condition which is not distorted. And visual record of research help designers to refer back to basis point of research.

4 . Cu l t u r a l p ro b e

Cultural probe is a way of gathering information about people and their activities to understand people. Researcher asks participants to observe their life, activity and events which happened around them. It’s like self-report. They will have some items like not only camera but also notes or voice recorder to record and note specific events. They are also asked to record feeling or interaction over the observation. This means that the information which is gathered by them would be drawn from their perspective. This activity could be used as method to gather information in order to analyze people and product in context. Because cultural probe kit has variety of tools, the outcome would not only be images but also writing, audio and


actual objects. It would be useful method to understand users from different perspective.

5 . V i d e o a n a l y s i s

Video analysis is the way of recording the human behavior and analyzing by using video cameras in ethnographic research. The video records would be the additional information, or might be main sources to analyze. This could be used as resources at the stage of research about users and products in contexts. Because it captures not only images but also movement, it will be helpful to understand the actual situation for people who are not in the field. Besides, if the video camera is set up and record without any researcher in that place, it allows participants to behave as usual as they do. This would be useful to observe without any influence by researchers. Even we gain field notes; it still useful because it can cover any missing points in notes.

6 . Co n t e x t u a l d e s i g n

Contextual design is a customer-centered design process which con-cern about the way of understanding users with ethnographic ap-proach and applying the information into design process, developed by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt. In order to understand users and use the information efficiently, contextual design is composed of six steps; contextual inquiry to understand users, work modeling to analyze workflow, consolidation to see work pattern, work redesign to improve existing design, user environment design to make each part of system clear and prototyping to test with users. This process is useful especially for computer system because it requires step by step process to do task with product.

7 . F l o w m o d e l

Flow model is one of five work models which are used at the stage of work modeling in contextual design. Flow model shows the flow of communication and interaction which is happened during opera-tion of task. Researchers see how people have communication to achieve the task during observation and interviewing in contextual inquiry, and flow model is the way of representing the flow of works which they see. This method is essential to understand the context of use and relationship between people. The outcome of this method would be diagram which shows flow of communication and task. It includes people who work on the task, place where each action is done, things which are used in the process. Each item is written in circle or square and connected to other items so that researchers can see the connection and interaction between people and tasks. This is the method of having a bird’s eye view of the whole system and surroundings.

8 . S e q u e n c e m o d e l

Sequence model is one of five work models which are used at the stage of work modeling in contextual design. Sequence model shows the steps which is required to achieve a task. This model aims to understand users’ intention during tasks. Every action has trigger, intent and outcome. By collecting detail of them from observation, designer can understand the requirements of each action and also relationship between actions. Sequence model shows those actions in series so that designer can analyze each step carefully in order. This does not only contain the expected steps but also hesitations and er-rors which are happened unexpectedly. These accidents would help designer to improve the product and system.

9 . A r t i f a c t m o d e l

Artifact model is one of five work models which are used at the stage of work modeling in contextual design. Artifact model is the record of the things they make or use in the process of task such as docu-ments and other products. This record includes the detail of artifacts such as structure and contents of artifacts because they are the solid trail of task. However, they do not tell by themselves so designers need to look into them to understand or ask users about the artifacts. From examination and inquiring, not only contents but also context of artifacts would be recorded to understand the role of artifacts in process.

1 0 . Cu l t u r a l m o d e l

Cultural model is one of five work models which are used at the stage of work modeling in contextual design. Work is done in a context which is kind of culture. Culture outlines what is expected and re-quired, and it contains specific rules about policy and value. Those elements would affect on the task. This model shows the relation-ship and interaction between users and those elements which create work environment. It reveals how and how much the surroundings affect on users. This would help designer to expect what might be happened during the task. This method is useful to guess what would happen, and to prepare solution for the accidents.

1 1 . P hy s i c a l m o d e l

Physical model is one of five work models which are used at the stage of work modeling in contextual design. This shows physical en-vironment and tools such as rooms, buildings or cars which is physi-cally used during tasks. Looking at the physical environment is useful

to understand how users would like to work in their environment be-cause they somehow modify their surroundings which suits to their working style. This interaction between people and environment would tell us what affects on their works. The outcome of this model could be diagram like floor plan to show how people and all things are located in the working place and flow of people movement. This would reveal the problems in work envrionment in physical ways.

1 2 . A f f i n i t y d i a g r a m

Affinity diagram, was devised by Jiro Kawakita, is the method of gathering large amount of various data by sorting and grouping in order to generate new ideas. All information gained in research is written on the cards. Those cards are sorted by grouping based on the relationship between items in order to create diagrams. The diagram helps researchers to visually understand the relationship between items. Originally used as business tool to organized ideas, but is also used to understand users and context of use in contextual design. Affinity diagram is useful in extracting main idea from large range of data.

1 3 . Vu j a d e

Vuja de, which was coined by Tom Kelly, means the feeling that you find new point of view in something which has happened before. This is the way of observing people, objects and surroundings in familiar environments in order to find new aspect of things. Having this feeling or the way of seeing something familiar would help us to reveal the hidden things such as desire or problem. This skill could be used in field work, observation or even in the conversation, and use-ful in developing existing things. Keep having vuja de is useful at the


stage of research in design process because it would give us different sources from different aspect of one thing.

1 4 . R e f r a m i n g

Reframing is a tool of understanding and finding something differ-ent in unmanageable problem. There are various ways to try to see something different such as transforming known objects, applying different metaphor, finding similar things to what you face to, apply-ing another method or way of thinking which is originally used in dif-ferent area, being in stakeholders’ situation to see things from their perspective and changing things into different form. Those ways of capturing something differently would keep designers to have fresh eyes. This idea could be used in research or concept generation es-pecially when people get stuck because of narrow point of view. This would help designer to get out of own world by keeping the impor-tance of changing in mind.

1 5 . G o a l - d i re c t e d d e s i g n

Goal-directed design, was devised by Alan cooper, is one of design methods for interaction design. This is the way of producing the solution which meets users’ needs and goal based on the data from research about users. The feature of this method is the way of under-standing users such as field work, interviewing, persona and scenar-io. This method aims to create solution in terms of human-centered design, which focuses on goal of users who use products. In order to understand the goal of users, goal-directed design put a stress on persona and scenario because persona shows the view of users and what users require and scenario tells interaction between products and users creatively.


0 4 . L i t e r a t u re R e v i e w

I n t ro d u c t i o nFurniture is one of components which create a space called home. It does not only surve function but also alter the meaning of space. It is like a set of properties on the stage as a device that governs the flow of the playing at the theatre. However, living space where furniture should exist has been getting small and small because of overpopulation and centralization of urban population. At home, there might be not enough space where furniture can fully carry out its function.

As Ken (cited in Margolin, 2002) believes that having self-governing space to bring up individuality is important for creative life, people need own space to manage their own life in their way. So, human needs enough space to fulfill the requirement of living even if the size is limited. Furniture could be offered as a solution to this issue like Ken’s multifunctional furniture unit which has facility for cooking, sleep-ing and sitting become a solution to create desired-space for small urban apartment.

With change in lifestyle and culture, living re-quirements has been also changed. How could designer find out the de-tailed requirements? Ken (2002) said “true learning comes from a total im-mersion in experience.” Having same experiences

to understand is the similar way of research which is employed by anthropologists. This practical research need to be undertaken in the life contexts rather than in a classroom or lab. This method might help designer to learn about users.

I would like to emphasize “total immersion experience” which means having a relationship with users as the base idea. With this idea, I would like to explore how to relate to users. There are three different ways to have communication with users; ethnographic research such as observation, interviewing and persona with scenario.

In this review, I would like to take and analyze those effective ways to reveal real needs of people for user-centered design, and shows specific case studies as examples.

M e t h o d s a n d p r a c t i c e sAt the beginning of design process, designers would arouse one question. What do users really need? There are some methods which are useful to reveal the true requirements; observation, interview-ing and persona. The observation could be the method for finding requirement in terms of function and usability of product by under-standing and analysing human behaviour. Interviewing is the most direct way to understand what people think. The last is the way of making use of information efficiently which is given from observa-tion and interviewing to create imaginary users called persona.

O b s e r v a t i o nObservation is the way of analysing human behaviour in a context, and this is called one of ethnographic approach. Ethnographic re-search is the method to understand users’ insight, and observation is part of exploring methods. It includes two activities; one is filed work and the other is making field note. Observation will be undertaken

Figure.3 Living structure 1954 designed by Ken IsaacsSource: Margolin, Victor (2002). The Politics of the Artificial


in natural environment. In design process, this field means the environ-ment where designers would like to research, so fieldwork means do-ing research in subjects’ local environment and field notes refers to re-cordings of observation.

The reason why design-ers need to observe

for understanding users’ demand is because what they say and what they do are different (Blomberg, Jean G, Andrea M, and and Swenton-wall 1993). That is why designers are recommended to find users’ desire by watching their unconscious activity. Besides, design is rooted in life context (Press and Cooper 2003). So, designers need to focus on users who are in natural ordinal everyday environment. Staying at the same environment with users and being involved in activity to understand them is similar way of how anthropologists research people and culture.

There are two ways of staying in the environment; one is “being fly on the wall” and the other is participate observer (Blomberg, Jean G, Andrea M et al. 1993). The former is silent observer who is not obstructive for users’ ordinal activity. The latter is a full participant who is involved in the environment and activity with others. There is both positive and negative aspect of being a full participant. Active participation is effective way to have real experience though activity and understand deeply. Kuckhohn said that this cannot be achieved by being silent observer (cited in (Blomberg, Jean G, Andrea M et al. 1993). However, negative aspect of a full participant is difficulty

of doing two activities such as participating and writing at the same time. Besides, the existence of researchers would affect on the par-ticipant’s usual activity.

How to choose the way of observer depends on what, when and where to observe. There are different subjects to observe such as event, person, place and object. This decision might affect on the choice of way of being observer, and how to take a note.

C A S E . 1 I D E OThere are some organizations which have used observation as design tools, and one of them is IDEO which is a design firm based on Palo Alto, California, U.S. Observational approach aims to understand the interaction between human and products.

Kelly(2001) said that when Ideo had to design a shopping cart, they run outside to approach relevant places and people such as glos-sary shop, buyers of shopping carts, local bike shop and cart repair-man. At the glossary shop, they observed not only shopping carts but also shoppers. What they found out was safety issue, interaction between children and carts, and traffic jams. This was result of focus on looking at how it was used and affected on surroundings such as system of shopping. From interviewing a cart buyer, they could know the compromise between plastic and metal in terms of cost and strength. This would impact on the safety issue. In the local bike shop, new design and materials were found. This would be prepara-tion for making model. At last, a cart repairman told them what he had to do, and it showed the weakness of basket and wheels (Kelly 2001).

As you can see, they started with understanding of products and surroundings which they would improve. By going to the field where the products were actually used, they tried to understand the con-

Figure.4 Observation as ethnographic approache (Source: website http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/05/ethnography/source/1.htm

text of use. As a result, those activities defined their goal which is to make a child-friendly cart, work out efficient shopping system, and solve safety issue.

Observation was trigger to gain all elements which was related to the objects. They use this method in flexible way such as choosing observation and interviewing. The important thing is ”get out” to outside. What I consider about observation is amount of time. As Alexander (2009) said that It is difficult to find out many new require-ments only from observation because important event does not happen often, it might take times to use this method. It just needs to have enough time to undertake.

I N T E R V I E W I N GAlthough observation and recording of experiment are main part of ethnographic research, interviewing is also part of ethnographic research. This is part of activity which might be achieved by being a full participant. As compared with silent observation, interview-ing allows researcher to give attention to the people (Alexander and Ljerka 2009). The interviewee is an expert in the environment, so the researcher has to be nice to them so that there will be unexpected information gained. In order to get useful information, observers as listeners have to show that interviewees are listened and their com-ments become source of products and services. After the first inter-viewing, interviewers have to do another session to make sure about what they said.

There are other recommendations about planning of interviewing. To divide roles, two interviewers, asker and writer, would be effi-cient. Asking and writing is hard to do at the same time like being a participant observer. To avoid getting unfair or narrow perspective, more than one interviewee would give us different idea and view.

This means that two people are required for interviewing or separat-ing two activities which are observing and interviewing need to be undertaken at the different times.

Although interviewing is effective way of having strong communica-tion with people, it has couple of disadvantage. As (Blomberg, Jean G, Andrea M et al. 1993) said, what people say and what people do are different. So the answer from them might be distorted and dif-ferent from what they want. However, from different perspective, it could be said that interviewing might give us “how they recognize and understanding surroundings.” Besides, they only can say some-thing from what they know. They would not be able to think up new way. Even they know something, it is hard to put it into word because people sometimes know by doing such as skill of riding a bicycle, and people just know it but cannot tell exactly.

C A S E . 2 C L A R I SCompare with observation, interviewing is the most direct way of having contact with users. Claris Corporation, which is a PC software vendor, is the one that applied ethnographic field methods to collect information about their target users. When they had to search for new ideas, they decided to use condensed ethnographic interview and interactive feature conceptualization (Bauersfeld and Halgren 1996).

Their purpose of research was to understand users’ processes for tasks, to check the proposed product, and to see the users’ concep-tual model of their work. Firstly, they visited customers’ site and set up video cameras with explanation about the reason of using a video camera. After setting up, they started to ask questions about envi-ronment and detailed process of their tasks. During interviewing, another researcher wrote down everything such as process, artefact,


tools, software feature that interviewee talked about on sticky notes. After the interviewing, the user was asked to rate items which are sticky note, make groups of items and add a label to every group. That information from sticky notes was brought to a database to be used for making summary. To make summary, they looked at groups and compared similarities and differences. This analysis was com-bined with interview notes, which is dictated products requirement from interview in order to put a process flow model (Bauersfeld and Halgren 1996).

Interviewing is not a simple way of recording true informa-tion. It is because” what people say and what they do are not the same thing.” It might cause erroneous conclusion to rely on the interviews(Blomberg, Jean G, Andrea M et al. 1993); however, I think it would be good to combine interviewing with observation because having communication with users would help designers to be close together in order to achieve user-centred design. What designers have to be careful is to make sure that aim is having communication not gaining information.

P E R S O N AAfter designers gain all materials, it is important to make use of them efficiently. To show example of product or situation, persona would be effective way for imagining and finding potential aspect of products or services. Persona is the imaginary user extracted from research. It helps designers to imagine how real people use the products and services which designers are creating, and develops the scenario of way in which the product will be used (Pruitt and Adlin 2006). In order to create persona, all the material and informa-tion gained from research would be collected, sorted and analysed in order to make use of them efficiently. The persona includes name, picture, age, gender, job, purpose, skills and knowledge, environ-

ment and personality.(MITSUE-LINKS 2009)

To create effective persona, there are couple of phases called life-cycle; research and analysis, extracting only important information and building persona, development though interactions with other people, finalizing and assessing.

The most important stage is “finalising called adulthood” because it is the time to put persona to be used through product planning, design and development. It will be used by being representative of users, giv-ing constancy with showing reference point (Pruitt and Adlin 2006). There are different ways of using persona for each stage to activate persona which includes plan, design, evaluate and release.

For plan which creates a vision, persona is used as references because it will tell its needs, goals and contexts. After planning, persona will help designers to design which need to make decision about spe-cific ideas. To integrate persona into this activity, there are couple of methods; scenario and visual exploration. Scenario is like a storyboard which tells how user might use the product, and persona will be part of the story. To complete the product process, it could be evaluated by persona. There are methods to evaluate which are heuristic evalu-ation and cognitive walkthrough. Those methods show that someone has to step though the product to review (Pruitt and Adlin 2006). At the end, instruction or manuals needs to be produce in order to help users when products or services are released. Persona and its scenario would help writers to understand what needs to be written (Pruitt and Adlin 2006).

C A S E . 3 MAYA D E S I G NIn order to make use of information from observation and interview-ing, it has to be transformed into effective form in design process. One


possible way of creating the form is making persona. Maya Design, which is design consultancy and technology research lab, made use of persona to achieve redesigning the Carnegie library of Pittsburgh. Their aim was to change the preconceived idea of library which was dark and forbidden places filled with dusty books (Heather and Goel 2006).

At the stage of research, Maya design began to understand context of library by interviewing librarians, observing customers and be-ing customers. Being customer is not just pretending and walking around but performing the same activity such as finding and bor-rowing books. From the experimental research, some information was appeared such as process, frustration and fun aspect of process of using library. Besides, this experimental activity was record in or-der to make storyboard. Storyboard shows the main components of library and it helped researchers to understand of users.

As the result of these processes, nine personas were created. Each persona concludes detailed information and goals to would like to achieve in the library. From nine, four personas are chosen to do walk-through one of their possible goals. To imagine their process to achieve the goal, narrative like scenario was made. From the narrative, there was the lack of system required by the necessity from her action. For example, she entered the library but not sure where to find the catalogue, or she needed to ask librarian but she did not want so walked around. From the story, researcher drew the personas experience. After analysing all stories, there were patterns of problem and next step is to look for the solution of the problem(Heather and Goel 2006). Persona is helpful because it makes us imagine possible use of product more easily. It is like being a director who let move persona in their narrative and try to fix any lack of set which make smooth story about persona.

As Chi and Cheng (2006) said persona does not always succeed. It could be failed if there were lack of understanding about persona, or if it was built by unreliable and non methodological data, or if it did not communicate well. To avoid those issues, what designers probably need to consider is not to rely on methodology too much because it is a tool not a solution-maker. Also, it means that design-ers need to understand role of personal and the system of persona before applying it into process.

Design process is not about having fun with drawing imaginative idea on the paper because the idea will affect on users’ life and there is responsibility of producing products. The three methods which I considered make an emphasis on users, and this is what I would like to care in my project. Ethnographic approach such as observa-tion, interviewing and persona would be fit to my intention, and they could be used at the stage of researching about requirements. Through the research, I would like to be closed together with users and try to transform desire into real products.


Beyer, H. and H. Karen (1998). Contextual Design. Emerson, M. R., I. R. Fretz, et al. (1995). Writing Ethnographic fieldnotes. Norman, D. A. (1988). Psychology of Evryday things, BasicBooks. Press, M. and R. Cooper (2003). The design experience: the role of design and de-signers in the twenty-first century, Ashgate Publishing. Pruitt, J. and T. Adlin (2006). The Persona Lifecycle. Vink, P. (2005). Comfort and Design, CRC Press.

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Alexander, Ian and Beus-Dukic Ljerka (2009). Requirements from individuals. Dis covering requirements : How to Specify Products and Services, Wiley. This chapter discusses about the way of gaining requirements from indi-viduals. There are two ways; one is interviewing and the other is observation. Interviewing is one of the common ways to do and it requires planning. Planning includes time, questions, devises to record if necessary. Observation is not so com-mon but efficient and quick way to discover. Both has advantage and disadvan-tages. Interviewing gives researcher a relationship with interviewee and a chance to have feedback during conversation; however, it brings only what they know and what they say might be different from what they do. Observation is effective way to see unconscious action; however, it requires skills of being not affective during observation.

Bauersfeld, Kristin and Shannon Halgren (1996). “You’ve Got Three Days!” Case Studies in Field Techniques for the TIme-Challenged. Field Methods Casebook for Software Design. D. Wixon and J. Ramey, Wiley Computer Publishing p177-195. This case study shows that how interview, observation and conceptualiza-tion work as the field investigation skills for research in short time. They tried three different techniques which are condensed ethnographic interview, passive video observation and interactive feature conceptualization. The first technique gives understanding of a culture by focusing on person’s daily tasks and asking them to show how to do it. The passive video observation is using video camera to record person’s activity so that researcher can see hidden frustration and problems. The last technique is interactive feature conceptualization. This technique is the way of visualizing what user thinks. They tried those three techniques in two case stud-ies. The purpose of the case studies is to gather information about target users in order to make quality designs, and the techniques aims to use as methods to see user’s insight during work. From the outcome of case studies, they finalized that interview and conceptualization succeed in terms of depth of understating of users; however, passive observation was not suitable for research in short time because it was time-consuming.

Blomberg, Jeanette, G Jean, M Andrea and Swenton-wall Pat (1993). Ethnographic Field Methods and Their Relation to Design. Participatory design : principles and practices. D. Schuler and A. Namioka, Erlbaum Associates. This chapter explores how ethnographic methods could be applied into the design practices. It includes the principles of ethnography and the reason of rela-tionship between ethnography and design, also explains about detail of ethno-

graphic field activities such as observation, note taking, interviewing, and using video tape. Also, other traditional methods are explained in order to compare. At the beginning, there is examination about the nature of ethnography, and this proves effectiveness of characteristic of ethnography. Observation is one of main activity, but it has weakness as well. It depends on how to make use of it. Interviewing is also part of ethnographic research. The difference from other interviewing is the place where the interviewing is undertaken because it is field-work based approach, so the place is the local environment of interviewee.

Heather, McQuaid L and Aradhana Goel (2006). Personas help redesign the carnegie library through storyboards and narratives. The Persona Lifecycle. J. Pruitt and T. Adlin. San Flancisco, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. This article describes how personas could be used at the analysis phase. The project was renovation of old library. At the research phase, researchers researched the library by using ethnographic filed methods such as interviews, observation and performing like users. Base on the understanding of users from field research, nine personas were created. Each persona has different character-istic and play in the storyboard. Through the storyboard, designers checked what problem the persona might face to when he or she would like to use the library. From this process, the pattern of problems was revealed and became the thing which had to be improved.

Kelly, Tom (2001). The Art of Innovation. New York, Doubleday. This book shows that how the design firm IDEO, founded by Thomas Kelley and David, has innovated and improved productivity and met users’ require-ment. The design process which this company has is composed of five steps; understand, observe, visualize, refine and implementation. In the chapter three, they made an emphasis on observation. Observing user with product is one of IDEO’s methods to find a trigger in design process. Because the hidden relation-ship could be revealed when users use products, it is efficient to see the moment when the interaction occurred. The interaction provides the effect of product and effect of users.

Margolin, Victor (2002). Ken Isaacs: matrix designer, The Politics of the Artificial. This article tells about Ken Isaacs who is an architect and also a designer, and the idea of how living space could be modified by grids. This idea is based on his interest in the idea of unitary space that specific requirements can divide space. He had worked on furniture as well. His idea of furniture is not one func-

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tion item but aggregated units of furniture. At his time, although there was a trend which was modularity and interchangeability, his work was not accepted by leading modern furniture company. But, he had continued to explore his interests in the different form such as experimental furniture or small house. Through the project, it could be seen that his thinking is about relationship between space and human. He mentions that it requires consciousness of autonomy to have creative life. This idea proves the importance of hav-ing individual space.

MITSUE-LINKS. (2009). “Design User Experience by Developing a Complete User image!” Retrieved 26th August, 2009, from http://www.mitsue.co.jp/english/service/design/ persona_scenario.html. This article describes how the persona-and-scenario method could be used in de-sign process, especially for websites, marketing communication, and also used for testing the user experience. There is the step by step instruction which tells how to make per-sona. The first step is the understanding of market and users. The second step is observ-ing users and collecting data. The third step is classifying as preparation. The fourth step is creating the base of persona. The whole process is ended up with making scenario.

Press, M and R Cooper (2003). The design experience: the role of design and designers in the twenty-first century, Ashgate Publishing. This chapter describes how important the research is in order to make less risk in design process. There are competitor researches, market research, lifestyle research and trend research. Besides, there is new trend of method which called ethnographic ap-proach. Compared with traditional method, ethnographic research focuses on users and context. It means that this method is the way of finding requirements from users’ activi-ties. In order to find the hidden desire, there are some techniques such as participating, observation and making a note about people and events.

Pruitt, J and T Adlin (2006). The Persona Lifecycle. This book explains how effective personas could be born and used in design process. Persona is imaginary users, so there is their life like human. Each stage of life requires research or examination to exist as effective persona and be at correct position. It is started with family planning, and continued to conception, birth, adulthood and retirement. There is the way of making a plan, creating the persona, communicating with persona and using persona in design process. This book shows that designer should not focus too much on the process of making persona because persona itself is also a tool.

* Tu t o r i a l Pa r t i c i p a t i o n Ta s k s : R e a d i n g s a n d p e e r re v i e w

LINK

- READINGS (http://mayukoyoshida.wordpress.com/5-tutorial-participation-tasks-readings-and-peer-review/)

- REVIEW (http://blogaught.com/harris/tutorail-participation-tasks/)

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