Rapid Ethnography- Uncovering trends and insights (undetected ROI)

Usability Web Seminar

• With Frank Spillers, MS
• Length: 60 minutes
• Date: Tuesday July 14th, 2009
• Time: 9:00 AM PST
• Cost: FREE 
• Format: Live web seminar
• Register to attend this seminar

Rapid Ethnography: Ethnography, Ethnographic Field Studies, User Needs Analysis, Personas, Task Analysis

Why has ethnography become one of the hottest research methods in the past five years? What is it and how does it apply to customer experience? Is ethnography an additional research technique or something you have to conduct to do 'real' customer experience? What yields higher ROI, a usability test or a field study?

Topic: 
Ethnography is a research technique used by anthropologists and behavioral scientists to understand and empathize with a local culture or population. At its core ethnography seeks to figure out what people actually do, versus what they say or what they think they do. Ethnography is used in usability research as a means to identify the context surrounding product use.

Increasingly, advertisers and marketers have understood that to identify the ‘difference that makes a difference’, it is necessary to use non-traditional approaches to research. To accomplish this goal, ethnographic research profiles user behavior in its native social, emotional and cultural environment.

Rapid Ethnography is the corporate application of the observational field study, conducted in real-time, with a mission to inject insights into new feature and functionality definition. Rapid Ethnography explores user tasks, goals, values, beliefs, perceptions and artifacts. Artifacts are examined, explored and mapped back to user requirements, design use scenarios and personas.

This seminar we will explore Rapid Ethnography and its benefits toward recovering hidden ROI opportunities. We will look at those aspects of your software, product or website that are missing ethnographic insights. In addition, we will discuss how to determine if you need to conduct an ethnographic study, and how to prepare for one if you do.

Agenda

1. Identifying the need (features vs desirability)
2. Change hunting- mapping trends, insights, opportunities
3. Context of Use beats Ease of Use any day: Why?
4. Inter-CEPTing user behavior: Cognition, Emotion, Place & Time
5. Tips for preparing for a field study
6. Q & A

Who should attend: 
Marketing managers, product managers, program managers, User Experience teams, anyone with an interest in field studies or personas.

When:

About the speaker:

Frank Spillers is a web and software usability expert and has been recognized by the U.S. Dept. of Labor as a subject matter expert. Frank holds a Masters of Science in Cognitive Science from Birmingham University (UK) and has ten years of practical experience with usability and user centered design techniques. He is a lead usability consultant with Experience Dynamics, a user centered design and usability consultancy based in Portland, Oregon USA. Frank has worked internationally with clients including Hewlett-Packard, Key Bank, Daimler-Chrysler, Intel, BankOne, IBM, Four Seasons, The Vanguard Group, Verizon and others.