Photo Ethnography

“Design Ethnography explicitly aims to generate materials that communicate the insights from the research to a wide group of stakeholders, to make sure that the foundations for the designs are well understood and accepted.”

Geke Van Dijk. Design Ethnography: Taking Inspiration From Everyday Life. In Stickdorn & Schneider. 2011. This is Service Thinking.

Definition

Photo ethnography uses photography as a medium to discover, analyze, and communicate the context of a design space.

Context

Ethnography

Use Case

At the start of a design project, I used photo ethnography to understand and illustrate the predispositions I had for the homeless population. One of my predispositions (featured above) was that the media does not cover the plight of the homeless. Similarly, my other photos captured moments that relate to my predispositions.

Procedure

Photo ethnography isn’t just about taking pictures. It needs to be tied down with a focus on a particular space.

1. The first step is to decide what the objective of the photo ethnography is. What is the purpose of the study?

2. A plan for when, where, and how the photography will be conducted needs to be decided before shooting.

3. Make sure to organize the photos and share them with any interested parties.

4. Analyze the photos and consider what insights they reveal. What do they say or don’t say? How can these insights be linked to actionable design goals?

5. Use the photos to communicate ideas which build empathy and drive the design process forward. Try to break down the photos to show their meaning.

Data Analysis

To analyze my photos, I broke them down into the different elements and how they relate to each other. For instance, in my photo above two homeless people sit in front of a cinema. However, all forms of media outlined in the photo do not address the needs of the homeless.