Design Studies

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IMAGE 1 / Design studies and
ethnographically-informed
studies of culture have been
ona path of convergence
and now continue to run on

technical practice are, in fact, intrinsic to design.”

“there are strong grounds for claiming that
ethnographic studies of culture, systems, and

Ethnographic Studies

My aim in this essay is to demonstrate that this
“thin” version is inadequate for understanding
the appropriate place of ethnographic research
in design education as well as the relevance

of cultural analysis to the actual issues and
problems that designers face in their daily
practice. My central argument is that—
whether or not they are academically trained
in ethnographic research—all designers are
“implicit ethnographers” in the sense that they
routinely employ methods of cultural analysis
and documentation in ways that inform the
design process, often in unseen ways.

Rather than conceiving ethnography as a set of
expert methods that are somehow separate from
design, I wish to claim that these methods are
always already present in the design process. As
a consequence, I want to advocate on behalf of
a fully integrated—or “thick”[11}—conception

of the relationship between ethnography and
design in which the ongoing cultivation of our
capacities for cultural analysis and ethnographic
understanding is a core element in the
education and practice of all designers.

In short, rather than merely being two fields
running on parallel tracks, | aim to demonstrate
that there are strong grounds for claiming that
ethnographic studies of culture, systems, and

technical practice are, in fact, intrinsic to design.

(IMAGE 3)

WE ARE ALL ETHNOGRAPHERS /

By saying all designers are “implicit
ethnographers” I do not mean to imply that
designers are alone in paying attention to the
cultural context of their work. On the contrary,
the argument I am making is that “attending
to cultural context” is a pervasive feature of
any socially organized activity, where what I
mean by “cultural context” is the local and
immediate conditions of “just what we are up
to” in some specific setting. How these local
analyses and shared understandings are made
available within the context of their production
is a matter of rather complex, if familiar,
ethnographic work. Here, an example will
perhaps be helpful.

Games and game structures are a fairly
universal feature of human societies. One
general thing that can be said about game
structures is that they consist minimally in a
set of conventions that mark certain actions

as part of the game and certain others as
peripheral or irrelevant to the state of play. So,
for instance, if 1 am playing chess and I move
my pawn one square forward, that is a move

in the game. If, alternatively, | move my coffee
cup to my mouth, that is something I am doing
“while playing chess,” but it is not part of the
game, at least not directly so. Further, games
have routine ways of beginning and ending,
and within these, typical cycles of play (“moves”
in chess, “innings” in baseball, etc.) Practically
speaking, this means that—from a player’s
perspective—a game consists in a kind of
alternation between periods of intense focus on
game relevant activities, punctuated by periods
of more relaxed focus, disengagement, or rest.
And typically these alternations between highly
focused and relatively disengaged periods are
well marked and monitored within the overall
conduct of the game.

Take, for instance, the case of card games, and
more specifically the game of bridge. Bridge

is a game typically played by four people, with
two people on each team. Team members sit
across from one another on opposite sides of a
square table. This physical design eliminates
the ability of team members to see each other’s
cards, but (interestingly) maximizes their
ability to see each other’s bodies and facial
expressions.

The play of bridge takes place in cycles, called
“hands.” Once a hand begins, it is inappropriate
for any player to say anything that would

allow other players to know what cards they
are holding or what they are thinking about

in terms of their strategy of play. And, indeed,
players monitor one another to ensure that

no one gives away information unfairly, and a
large part of the game of bridge is about being
able to figure out what people have in their
hands and what strategies they are following
solely with reference to the bids they make and
the cards they play.

It is in this sense that the mastery of the game
of bridge consists in a very specific, context-
sensitive form of cultural analysis: You need to
understand the rules of the game, but you also
need to understand how those rules play out in
specific game situations and specific strategies,