{"id":430,"date":"2016-04-25T09:21:33","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T09:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/?p=430"},"modified":"2016-04-25T09:21:33","modified_gmt":"2016-04-25T09:21:33","slug":"design-ethnography-research-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/design\/430","title":{"rendered":"Design Ethnography Research Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my last post I wrote about Ethnography research methods,\u00a0It can be found here<\/a>, I am now looking at term two of Design.\u00a0We were set a Design Ethnography project, this was our second piece of course work that would consist of a group presentation and an individual report. It was the first time we would be working in close nit groups for the duration of the term.<\/span><\/p>\n

We were required to study a business or service in Lancaster city, and to conduct ethnography research for it, using methods which would help us to look at how a range of users experienced\u00a0 <\/span>our chosen business. <\/span><\/p>\n

My group and I chose the category of Night Life, this allowed us to pick from a range of services from pubs to clubs. We decided on a Bar called Dalton Rooms, which is in the centre of the city.\u00a0 <\/span>It is both a Bar and a club in one venue, this we felt would make for a interesting research topic as having both aspects in one building might attract a more varied range of users.<\/span><\/p>\n

To start off with we identified 4 different categories of user we wanted to base our ethnography research on. These were; Sober Users, Group Users, Impaired Users and Over 25s. We then picked four ethnography methods we would use; fly on the wall, shadowing, field notes, and do it yourself were the ones we decided upon. They would enable us to observe the users as well as take part and emulate them as well. <\/span><\/p>\n

I conducted the \u2018do it yourself\u2019 ethnography method for the sober user. This meant experiencing Dalton rooms as a sober user. The idea being that you not only get to see what it\u2019s like using the space in terms of layout, but also how you felt. This is important as when conducting methods such as fly on the wall, you are watching people.\u00a0 <\/span>This may not enable you to pick up on their emotions. Therefore, do it yourself was most vital, it allows you, from a designers point of view, to empathise with the user, and this may change the way you look at the design of the space. <\/span><\/p>\n

While doing this, I felt much more aware of my surroundings and picked up on things I would not have realised before doing this research, such as the logistics of moving through the bar when you are sober, in a group of people who are not, can be very intimidating. The design of the room inhibited movement of people to and from the club downstairs as they have a karaoke machine set up, this causes people to spill out onto the walk way. Having experienced trying to get through, I realised the problem could be easily solved if they simply moved it to the other end of the room. I believe if they did this it would not only improve the experience for\u00a0 <\/span>sober users but that of the impaired among others.<\/span><\/p>\n

I really enjoyed doing the research from a first-hand view as I did not expect to discover as much as we did.\u00a0 <\/span>You start to question and look at the way people interact with spaces much more and this fascinated me.<\/span><\/p>\n

The end result for our project consisted of us putting together all our research and identifying the user experiences throughout the night.<\/span><\/p>\n

We created a presentation which we presented to the group.\u00a0 <\/span>We were marked on not just our presentation skills, but the methods and results we found as well as the PowerPoint itself. This was a nerve wracking but overall positive experience.We had a good time working together. We then each completed a 3000 word individual report writing up our project.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In my last post I wrote about Ethnography research methods,\u00a0It can be found here, I am now looking at term two of Design.\u00a0We were set a Design Ethnography project, this was our second piece of course work that would consist of a group presentation and an individual report. It was the first time we would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":435,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,74,75],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","tag-design","tag-design-ethnography","tag-night-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5DvUs-6W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":436,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions\/436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}