Digital ethnography: The next wave in understanding the consumer experience

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

Finally, Digital Ethno brings the participant back into the research process. Rather than simply acting as sources of data, participants actively share their findings and their insights on the topic at hand. They become invested in the outcome and, as a result, become more-active contributors to the project.

There are some drawbacks to Digital Ethno. Until consumer digital technology products like cellular phones, faxes, and digital cameras become common household items, we will tackle a steeper learning and logistics curve bringing the participants into the research process. Likewise, by putting the tools into the hands of the participants, critical privacy issues must be tackled as they arise in each distinct context (see sidebar).

In an era in which mass production is giving way to mass customization and personalization, the benefits of Digital Ethno are evident. Increased consumer input into the design, product development, branding, and marketing processes will lead to greater production efficiency, more frequent innovation, competitive advantage, and perhaps even more responsible consumer, as well as corporate, behavior. The sooner the inevitable merging of citizenship, politics, and consumption is recognized, the better off we will all be -in our personal, as well as our professional, lives. Digital Ethno will only enhance the process whereby people vote with their dollars for designs and products they like. Those not listening to these new, more-relevant polls will be left behind in the marketplace.

1. Source: www.nttdocomo.com.

2. Notable exceptions do exist-for example, the Digital Ethnography Workshop at the University of California at San Diego, run by Edwin Hutchins (see http://hci.ucsd.edu/dew/html/index.htm).

3. Bruce Mason and Bella Dicks, "The Production of Hypermedia Ethnography." Retrieved from http://www.wordcircuits.com/htww/dicks1.htm.>Suggested readings

Correll, S. "The Ethnography of an Electronic Bar: The Lesbian Cafe." Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, vol. 24, no. 3 (1995), pp. 270-298.

Marcus, G.E. "Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography." Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 24 (1995), pp. 95-117.

Nunes, M. "Baudrillard in Cyberspace: Internet, Virtuality, and Postmodernity." In Style, vol. 29 (1995), pp. 314-327.

Paccagnella, L. "Getting the Seats of Your Pants Dirty: Strategies for Ethnographic Research on Virtual Communities." Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication [On-line], vol. 3 (1997), no. 1. Available at: www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol3/issuel/paccagnella.html#rcroft.

Turkle, S. "Virtuality and its discontents: Searching for community in Cyberspace" [40 paragraphs]. The American Prospect [Online serial], vol. 24 (1996), no. 4. Available at: http://epn.org/ prospect/24/24turk.html.

Davis Masten, Principal, Cheskin

Tim M.P. Plowman, Design Anthropologist, Cheskin

Davis Masten is a principal at Cheskin, a strategic consultancy with a strong legacy in marketing and design research and innovation. Holding degrees in business and psychology, he joined Cheskin Associates Inc. in 1975, working closely with founder and market research pioneer Louis Cheskin. Masten pioneered the ethnography practice at Cheskin in 1986, and since then the company has completed hundreds of ethnographic studies. For more than 25 years, Masten has created customer-inspired breakthroughs for leading companies, from Hewlett-Packard to Microsoft and The Home Depot, applying his expertise to projects in retail, packaging, interactive environments, corporate positioning, branding, and industrial design. Most recently, he has helped bring trust to the forefront of business, spearheading one of the first studies of eCommerce Trust in 1999 and continuing with further explorations, articles, and presentations. Masten speaks internationally, and has been quoted or published in many business and trade publications, including the Design Management Journal. He has also lectured at Stanford, Berkeley, and Oxford, among other schools. He is a founding member of The Standard for Internet Commerce and was a board member of TRUSTe. He currently chairs the AIGA Center for Brand Experience.