Digital ethnography: The next wave in understanding the consumer experience

Design Management Journal, Spring 2003 by Masten, Davis L, Plowman, Tim M P

Ethnography participants were required to have access to email, a desktop computer, and a cell phone. At the outset of the project, each was given a digital camera to help gather critical visual data. All these tools were used by Cheskin to relay project-related tasks to the participants and for the participants to submit their findings, visual and textual. At no point did the researchers meet face-to-face with participants. All interactions were conducted via email, telephone, or cell phone. The study proceeded as follows:

Day 1

* Online Web survey of attitudes regarding common Valentine's Day symbols and icons

* Email prompt for participants to locate and digitally photograph (or download from the Web) their ideal versions of the Valentine's Day icons and email them back, with brief descriptions, to Cheskin

Day 2

* Impromptu telephone interview via cell phone asking participants to share memories of Valentine's Days past and the roles of the Valentine's Day icons

Day 3

* Email prompt to photograph the Valentine's Day icons in their common contexts and email these back with descriptions to Cheskin

Day 6-Valentine's Day

* Email to prompt participants to phone in a verbal description of their Valentine's Day experience and any Valentine's Day icons they used or observed

Day 7

* Repeat of the original online survey to tally attitude change

* Online chatroom to discuss findings and insights on Valentine's Day practices and icons

After Day 7

* Email survey asking each participant to reflect on his or her experiences of the study

Summarized results

One noteworthy aspect of this study was the extent to which the respondents engaged in their own analyses of Valentine's Day. Participating in the study forced them to think perhaps more deeply than usual about the significance of the holiday. Accordingly, the study not only captured respondents' ideas about Valentine's Day, it also influenced their observations of the holiday. Moreover, the use of Digital Ethno techniques made the respondents true partners in the data collection process-more consultants than respondents. While respondent partnership was a clear goal in this particular project, digital ethnographers will need to manage for this type of interaction in the future. It is easy to imagine people using their digital camera/cell phone at the behest of a permission-based, randomized digital prompt, without knowing why they are taking the pictures, thereby avoiding the respondent bias.

Despite the small number of respondents and the experimental nature of the methodology, Digital Ethno was able to provide rich insights into people's experience, allowing the team to form notable conclusions. In brief, Valentine's Day is a paradox. It is seen as offering a means by which we may demonstrate affection and true sentiment, but the very symbolic tools with which we are provided generally undercut any meaning to our sentiments by virtue of their cliched and commercial character. Thus Valentine's may be regarded as simultaneously trivializing love and enabling it.