CSE 510 -- Lab #2
Due: April 6
This quarter I'm going to try something different for this assignment: a
choice of either an ethnographic field
exercise or a mini-contextual
inquiry. (Just do one.)
I've used just the ethnographic field exercise in the past.
It's worked well, but I'm also interested in seeing what can be done with a
scaled-down version of contextual inquiry.
Purpose:
Practice some basic ethnographic field methods, emphasizing the "observer"
over the "participant" role. The emphasis in this part is on being
unobtrusive and getting a broad picture of a situation, setting, or human
practice.
Assignment:
Pick one of the below:
- Through observation and careful note taking investigate how space
is employed in some area of your building or home. Explore the extent
to which the area you study and the furniture within it keep people
apart or draw them together. How does the arrangement of walls,
doorways, hallways, furniture, machines, etc. effect the patterns of
interaction you observe.
- Construct a map of an office area. Your map should show where
people sit, their relationship to one another, the activities that go
on at various locations, where "significant" objects are located.
Describe how you gathered the information represented in your map
(through observation, interview, available documents, etc). Include a
key or legend to help others interpret your map.
- Locate an area where you can unobtrusively observe some activity.
Observe the activity for 30 minutes or so. Take detailed notes of
what is going on, including a sketch of the area, time of day,
movement in and out of the scene, participants' relation to on
another. You might want to develop a table to facilitate recording
your observations.
- Any other exercise from the end of "Ethnographic Field Methods,"
by Blomberg, et. al.
We want you to try watching, note taking, observing a group of people
or an overall situation at a distance. Attempt to get a feel for the
dynamics of the situation at a level of social/physical/historical
interactions. What can you learn by just observing? If you wish,
talk to people involved in the situation (after you've
observed them for a while -- remember, we want to be unobtrusive for
at least a portion of this assignment), and contrast what you learned
by watching to what you learned by interviewing.
Deliverables:
The deliverable is a poster, similar to that for Lab #1, paper describing
the experience. The paper should include any necessary tables, drawing,
photos, sketches, etc. How much did your presence interfere with the
situation you were observing? Please feel free to use drawings, photos, or
any non-verbal means to help portray the situation. If you made any audio
tapes, feel free to include transcripts of interesting portions, if you
wish.
As with Lab #1,
we'll have a mini-poster session toward the end of class on April 6 to
discuss the summaries - so please prepare your assignments in a form
suitable for posting on the wall, 2 pages or less if possible. For
students who would like to contribute their assignments to the class web
page, please also send Alan
a set of files to include in the web, or a URL.
(Files are preferable to a URL, since URL's tend to disappear after a while.)
(Also see results from past quarters on the class webs for ideas.)
In the same spirit as the ethnographic field exercise, try out the
contextual inquiry technique with one or two people, following the
principles described in the Beyer and Holtzblatt book. I expect this
version of the exercise will be appropriate mostly for students who have
picked out a course project, or potential project, and want to try using
contextual inquiry techniques. (It's fine to double-dip by working on your
project for this exercise.)
The deliverables are the same as for the ethnographic field exercise.
Lab 2