Digital ethnography

A RT I C L E R E P R I N T
Design
Management
Journal

Digital ethnography: The
next wave in understanding
the consumer experience

Davis Masten, Principal, Cheskin

Tim Plowman, Design Anthropologist, Cheskin

Reprint # 03142MAS75
This article will be published in DMI Journal Vol. 14, No. 2, Spring 2003
Fusing Design, Strategy, and Technology

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Digital ethnography:
The next wave in
understanding the
consumer experience
by Davis L. Masten and Tim M. P. Plowman

n the search for market insights, Tim Plowman and Davis Masten maintain that
I the pathways to information should include PCs, cell phones, Webcams, global
positioning equipment, digital cameras, and a growing number of other technologies.
Structured creatively for self-reporting, passive observation, and participant
observation, these media can yield facts businesses can analyze to shape individual
and strategic design decisions.

The increasingly rapid migration of broadband revolution, and the devel-
technology across geographic and opment of new protocols, a new
socioeconomic boundaries is a funda- domain for the elaboration of self and
mental constituent of the times in culture has emerged, and it is worth
which we live. It is a process that takes studying. There has been considerable
subtle and numerous forms. Parents research on the social aspects of digital
can check in on their kids at daycare communication, online consumption,
Davis Masten, Principal, over the Internet by using X10 technol- and the Web as a social phenomenon.
Cheskin ogy. Russian teenagers organize roving Social scientists, marketing profession-
raves through globally oriented blogs. als, and product designers, however,
American teens use Pringle’s potato have paid less attention to the opportu-
chip cans to enhance the range of their nities presented by digital technology
wi-fi-enabled PCs and warchalk the for understanding the lives of users and
location (that is, mark on walls and consumers.
sidewalks to indicate wireless access We propose using the digital and
areas). Students everywhere are learn- wireless communication revolutions as
ing to surreptitiously text-message each platforms for rethinking ethnographic
other in class using their cell phones. principles, methodologies, and analysis.
Tim Plowman, Design With the ever-lower prices of chips, Our goal is to produce new, deep, con-
Anthropologist, Cheskin disks, and memory, the continuing tinuing, and rapid insights into people’s

Design Management Journal Spring 2003 75


lives and needs. We call this convergence and countries will be the ones with the fastest-grow-
updating of traditional methods with digital ing and most-productive economies. What this
technology Digital Ethno. The tools on the cus- means is that many of the products and devices
tomer side are as ubiquitous as cell phones, that we think of as stand-alone will achieve new
PDAs, email, Webcams, SMS, GPS, and digital functionality and utility by being connected to a
cameras. For anthropologists and, specifically, network.
for ethnographers, all these tools can fall into the We are only just starting to see examples of
class of remote sensing devices. this networked world. These days, you can email
the pictures you take to anyone with an email
Remote sensing address. In Hong Kong, your cell phone will
According to Paul Saffo, the director of the notify you when you are within range of a
Institute of the Future, in Menlo Park, Starbucks and offer you a discount on a cup of
California, this is the coffee. In this case, your phone is tracked by the
decade of remote sens- cellular ground station antennas, which
We propose using the ing. Computers and triangulate on your location. In a striking and
sensors are being recent example, T-Mobile Sidekick users are
digital and wireless embedded in many sharing their daily experiences via their hip-top
communication durable goods as a devices and the Web site, Hiptop Nation
matter of course. (www.hiptop.bedope.com). As the Web and
revolutions as platforms Appliance manufactur- broadband capabilities become increasingly like
ers are embedding the water and power utilities of today, remote
for rethinking computers into refrig- devices and similar technologies will be built
ethnographic principles, erators and ovens and, and connected into more and more commodi-
with the imminent ties. And, as the world becomes increasingly
methodologies, and adoption of new wired, it will become ever easier to conduct the
Internet protocols such type of research we are proposing. There are
analysis as IPv6, many of these already at least 35 million Japanese using cell
will be Web-enabled phones that are Web-enabled.1 Imagine if just
and connected. As more and more of these tools one percent of them were participating in a
are produced and used, the price inevitably sponsored contest to uncover the “next big
plummets. Only a few years ago, the basic chip thing” in street fashion, and as a result were
set for a hand-held GPS (global positioning sys- engaged in collective trend-watching. Or imag-
tem) receiver cost $3,000 or more. Now, it’s just ine if another one percent emailed pictures from
a fraction of that price. With manufacturing their camera phones to the local government
costs this low, GPS systems are being built into and local media, visually and powerfully illus-
many devices that we consider everyday tools, trating a safety complaint plaguing their neigh-
such as wrist watches and cell phones. borhood while they were currently describing it
This cost/volume relationship holds true for a over the phone. The paring away of institutional
range of personal technology and sensing and social distance and abstraction might have
devices. Ubiquity and affordability make these very positive effects in a variety of contexts.
technologies more realistic as research tools.
Business discovers ethnography
The Internet connection During the past five years or so, ethnography has
Many of these devices have been designed for been widely embraced (and to a degree uncriti-
stand-alone and single-task purposes—meaning cally co-opted) by the business world, and vari-
that when a motion-sensing plastic frog, ous attempts have been made to reconfigure its
designed in the US and built in Taiwan, calls out techniques to suit business purposes. But
to you as you near the backyard pool, it is not because these reconfigurations are still based
connected to anything. However, many nations upon the ethnographic methods of anthropolo-
are moving into the deeply connected world of gists like Franz Boas, Bronislaw Malinowski,
the global, networked economy. According to
John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, the “wired” 1. Source: www.nttdocomo.com

76 Design Management Journal Spring 2003

Digital ethnography: The next wave in understanding the consumer experience

Alfred Kroeber, and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown— observation, beyond geographic, as well as tem-
practitioners whose work is nearly a century poral, boundaries. This method is ideally suited
old—innovation within commercial ethnogra- to documenting the fluidity and flexibility
phy is limited to its application in novel con- already distinguishing contemporary cultures
texts. Moreover, commercial ethnography as it is and communities. Participants communicate
traditionally practiced means large-scale, com- their experience via the Internet and other digi-
plex projects, usually involving a multidiscipli- tal technologies. Digital ethnographers gather
nary team made up of ethnographers, these details, whether they’re in the form of
technologists, psychologists, and the like. These words, images, or audio files, and determine
projects are typically done for short periods of their significance as they are played out in the
time, given that it is very costly to establish context of participants’ lives.
behaviors and accompanying analyses over peri- Despite the fact that there is now a growing
ods of much longer duration. Although Cheskin academic literature and practice of what has
and a few other firms are fortunate enough to be been called hypermedia ethnography or cyberso-
involved in large-scale, global ethnographies, ciology, we have largely had to forge our own
these studies, often done simultaneously in way in developing Digital Ethno.2 Much of this
numerous countries, are frequently impractical previous work concerns online ethnography
for the industry at large. using data-gathering methods such as site perus-
After developing a thorough inventory of al and online interviewing. These are generally
ethnographic techniques appropriate to busi- text-based techniques transplanted on to the
ness-based ethnography, Cheskin divided them Internet. They are not inherently digital.
into three categories of data-gathering: self- Digital Ethno concentrates more on how
reporting, passive observation, and participant ethnographic data gathering can be extended to
observation. We then developed digital equiva- the Internet and wireless communication
lents to these traditional methods, as well as devices in new and creative ways, especially in
entirely new methods of data capture. light of recent software, hardware, and protocol
adoption. An extranet and WLAN can be key
Introduction to Digital Ethnography components in the task of data gathering and
In essence, Digital Ethno is the modern, digital analysis. An extranet, for example, can serve as a
equivalent of traditional, Malinowskian ethno- place to download and upload data quickly and
graphic forms. The critical distinction is that easily and provide a virtual locale and repository
while traditional ethnographers physically
immerse themselves in distinct places and their 2. Notable exceptions do exist—for example, the Digital
cultures, digital ethnographers capitalize on Ethnography Workshop at the University of California at
wired and wireless technologies to extend classic San Diego, run by Edwin Hutchins (see
ethnographic methods, like participant http://hci.ucsd.edu/dew/html/index.htm).

Privacy
Many people with access to the Internet are already engaged in elaborating their identity through new media: putting their lives on display
in both textual and visual terms. This combination of cultural and identity politics and new media has produced some interesting new cultur-
al forms. Extreme examples include performance-art Webcasts of surgeries, births, and other intimate moments of people’s lives. A more
mundane example might be pictures of a wedding. Digital photos from family vacations are published on the Web every day.
On a more dubious note, the spread of “reality-based” entertainment, such as “Survivor” and “American Idol,” as well as the
continuing proliferation of confessional and sensationalistic talk shows, coincides with the advent of technology adept at documenting and
disseminating people’s most intimate life details.
Amid the confessional and identity-constructing activities occurring through digital media, the question of privacy forcefully emerges.
There are still many issues to be sorted out with these new technologies, not the least of which is the question of the protection of our
privacy. In using and advancing Digital Ethno, it is clear that the respondents have the rights to data outside our very limited uses. Their
lives are their own; we are only visiting with their permission. However, we are just at the beginning stages of determining what is appro-
priate around the world, and issues concerning respondent privacy are being formally worked out, with reference to guidelines set forth by
privacy organizations.



for the project at hand.
One complaint frequently heard about the “A basket full of socks, given to
potential of Digital Ethno is that the bandwidth me by my girlfriend: a practical, if
is too narrow and thus, researchers miss the crit- last minute, gift. I think she must
ical aural, gestural, and kinesthetic cues of face- have been wrapped up in some
to-face interaction. As the price of remote
Valentine’s Day survey and forgot
sensing devices has fallen, so too will the barriers
to getting at content-rich data. And this will
about Valentine’s Day.”
happen sooner in commercial ethnography than
in academic ethnography. The innovations that
are occurring on the data-gathering end are
equally present in terms of deliverables: hearts, candy, flowers, and kisses.
The potential for integrating visual and written The team included two ethnographers. We
media within the same technological environ- used a wide variety of techniques including
ment carries significant implications. It allows email, cell phones, digital cameras, chatrooms,
ethnographers to make the step from thinking online questionnaires, and digitized audio
of the visual merely as illustrative of argumenta- diaries, among others to gather the data. While
tion spelled out through the printed word, to such a study would have been highly appropriate
seeing it as itself constitutive of meaning. This is for Tokyo or Rio de Janeiro, where distance and
an observation that visual ethnographers have time differences are major components, we
been trying to press home for years…. In fact, decided to keep the complexity to a minimum
we need to consider seriously what hypermedia and scaled the project accordingly. A week
can do that a well-illustrated book or a well- before Valentine’s Day, we asked the respondents
produced film cannot. There are potential gains to fill out an online questionnaire gauging their
to be derived from exploring how ethnographic reactions to the four icons. We then sent them
representation can simultaneously be a verbal prompts via email over the course of the next
and a pictorial, a visual and an aural activity.3 week that asked them to engage in numerous
activities documenting their Valentine’s Day
While the above paragraph focuses on academic experience.
ethnography as product, there is no reason why Ethnography participants were required to
similar innovations cannot take place with regard have access to email, a desktop computer, and a
to data gathering for commercial purposes. The cell phone. At the outset of the project, each was
market is awash with software and shareware given a digital camera to help gather critical visu-
that lends itself to the process (MacroMedia, al data. All these tools were used by Cheskin to
NVivo, Shockwave, PhotoShop, Media Maker, relay project-related tasks to the participants and
Director, iMovie, CoolEdit, and so forth). for the participants to submit their findings, visu-

Valentine’s Day: A case study 3. Bruce Mason and Bella Dicks, “The Production of
In February 2000, Cheskin piloted the first non- Hypermedia Ethnography.” Retrieved from
proprietary Digital Ethno project that was done http://www.wordcircuits.com/htww/dicks1.htm.
for public consumption. The project focused on
Valentine’s Day—a common cultural event, one
shared by North Americans throughout the
United States and yet often hotly contested in its
cultural meanings and personal significance. In
order to test the method, we selected eight people
from the San Francisco Bay Area—six involved in
“I found a cupcake and a box of heart-shaped
relationships and two unattached—in order to
digitally observe their Valentine’s Day prepara-
chocolates on my desk when I arrived at
tions and practices. In particular, we focused on work. The cupcake was from a co-worker
participants’ attitudes toward and behaviors asso- who bakes something for every holiday;
ciated with contemporary Valentine’s Day icons: the chocolate came from my manager.”



“I chose this heart picture because of the Summarized results
One noteworthy aspect of this study was the
temporal nature of the hearts presented—
extent to which the respondents engaged in their
not because of the larger temporal nature of own analyses of Valentine’s Day. Participating in
romantic love, but because if I found myself the study forced them to think perhaps more
celebrating Valentine’s Day, it would be deeply than usual about the significance of the
with just such a gesture, and not by holiday. Accordingly, the study not only captured
buying things.” respondents’ ideas about Valentine’s Day, it also
influenced their observations of the holiday.
Moreover, the use of Digital Ethno techniques
al and textual. At no point did the researchers made the respondents true partners in the data
meet face-to-face with participants. All interac- collection process—more consultants than
tions were conducted via email, telephone, or cell respondents. While respondent partnership was
phone. The study proceeded as follows: a clear goal in this particular project, digital
ethnographers will need to manage for this type
Day 1 of interaction in the future. It is easy to imagine
• Online Web survey of attitudes regarding people using their digital camera/cell phone at
common Valentine’s Day symbols and icons the behest of a permission-based, randomized
• Email prompt for participants to locate and digital prompt, without knowing why they are
digitally photograph (or download from the taking the pictures, thereby avoiding the respon-
Web) their ideal versions of the Valentine’s dent bias.
Day icons and email them back, with brief Despite the small number of respondents and
descriptions, to Cheskin the experimental nature of the methodology,
Digital Ethno was able to provide rich insights
Day 2 into people’s experience, allowing the team to
• Impromptu telephone interview via cell form notable conclusions. In brief, Valentine’s
phone asking participants to share memories Day is a paradox. It is seen as offering a means
of Valentine’s Days past and the roles of the by which we may demonstrate affection and true
Valentine’s Day icons sentiment, but the very symbolic tools with
which we are provided generally undercut any
Day 3 meaning to our sentiments by virtue of their
• Email prompt to photograph the Valentine’s clichéd and commercial character. Thus
Day icons in their common contexts and Valentine’s may be regarded as simultaneously
email these back with descriptions to trivializing love and enabling it.
Cheskin Those who celebrated the holiday generally
found creative ways to circumvent the holiday’s
Day 6—Valentine’s Day
• Email to prompt participants to phone in a
verbal description of their Valentine’s Day “… the heart-shaped cookie
experience and any Valentine’s Day icons
[Rich’s] wife made. He gave us all
they used or observed
these adorable cookies with pink
Day 7 frosting. He said he tried to help
• Repeat of the original online survey to tally out but he botched them up and
attitude change she asked him to leave the
• Online chatroom to discuss findings and kitchen. It’s probably a way for his
insights on Valentine’s Day practices and
wife to stay in touch with his
icons
career/workplace while also doing
After Day 7 something out of the ordinary.
• Email survey asking each participant to They looked cute, but I didn’t
reflect on his or her experiences of the study think they tasted really good.”



scaleable, even to transnational proportions.
“As it stands, I work in a very creative Time and place, not research constraints,
environment. This picture refers to the first identify the opportunities.
Valentine card I received from one of my The opportunity for scaleability should be
co-workers. She made some cards by hand and underscored here. While immediacy and contex-
tually fueled reporting is a clear result of the
gave them out. I won’t throw this one out.”
technology and methodology, it can also provide
ongoing deep behavioral observation that was
not efficient or even possible before due to the
“over-commercialized” sensibility. They made physical constraints of the research observers.
their own objects or gave unusual ones. They For example, highly-focused, longitudinal stud-
essentially reinvented the holiday for their own ies might be designed around regular product
purposes and to some extent ended up taking innovation cycles for a relatively low investment.
ownership of the holiday. Thus, those who In other words, the digital nature of the data col-
rejected the celebration of the holiday did so on lected can allow for deeper and richer analysis.
two levels: they rejected the commercial version, Companies can develop Digital Ethno databases
and they also refused to reinvent the holiday. for their consumers, which can provide wonder-
Those who were inventive in their celebrations ful guidance for innovation over the long term.
(for example, “I hide candy in my boyfriend’s In addition, Digital Ethno has the capacity to
sock drawer”) were regarded by others as pro- inform strategy and design decisions at a more
viding tips on how to take control of the holiday fundamental level. Companies routinely find
and make it their own. The chatroom discussion ethnography useful because it provides context-
allowed “rejectors” to see how the holiday might sensitive insights regarding existing processes,
be made more meaningful through small acts products, or services. One advantage of Digital
not usually associated with Valentine’s Day. Ethno is that it further enhances the benefits of
those insights by allowing a company to invest
Benefits of Digital Ethno in comprehensive research further back in the
By putting the power of participant observation product development process. Beyond an initial
in the participants’ hands, Digital Ethno enables project investment and equipment costs, Digital
participants to convey the real-time richness of Ethno allows for radical expansion of scope with
their own lives and environments. In the prototypes and stimuli at varying levels of fideli-
Valentine’s Day study, we saw how a broken ty. Typically, ethnography is expensive and labor-
bowl of oatmeal soured one respondent’s subse- intensive. Digital Ethno enables a broader
quent Valentine’s Day experience, which he understanding of factors such as culture, geogra-
recounted the next day in a long, tragic digitized phy, and life-stage differences because of reduced
voicemail. To capture the meaning of a kiss, field costs. A company can use Digital Ethno to
another respondent photographed herself kiss-
ing her cat, Buster, which, she explained, “…is “Interpretation: There’s something about
more relevant than any other nonfamilial kiss as flowers in a steel washtub that appeals
he has outlasted many relationships.” Two days
to my sense of the absurd. Maybe peo-
later, we learned she had just parted with her
boyfriend.
ple grow flowers in steel washtubs. I
Digital Ethno also realizes the possibility of don’t know. I like hokey combinations
remote and simultaneous research. Researchers like this. What does it say about human
can conduct the projects from a centralized loca- beings/love/Valentine’s Day? Perhaps
tion while the participants fan out into their this arrangement appeals to people
environments to observe their own practices, as seeking a “down home” look for
well as the practices of those surrounding them.
Valentine’s Day, something that’s not
Likewise, researchers can remotely observe all
participants at essentially the same time, in the too pretentious. Homely, like a stray
case of our project, during the week prior to dog? A little bit of class, a little bit of
Valentine’s Day. In this way, Digital Ethno is “Hee-Haw”?”



processes will lead to greater production effi-
“I found it difficult to capture kiss- ciency, more frequent innovation, competitive
es. They are very intimate in gener- advantage, and perhaps even more responsible
al. This is a picture of me kissing consumer, as well as corporate, behavior. The
sooner the inevitable merging of citizenship,
my cat Buster. I must kiss him at
politics, and consumption is recognized, the bet-
least three times a day, and we’ve ter off we will all be in our personal, as well as
been together 10 years. This is a our professional, lives. Digital Ethno will only
whole lot of kissing! My kissing enhance the process whereby people vote with
him is more relevant than any other their dollars for designs and products they like.
nonfamilial kiss, as [he has] out- Those not listening to these new, more-relevant
lasted many relationships. And I polls will be left behind in the marketplace.
Reprint # 03142MAS75
love him a bunch, so it’s definitely
appropriate.” Find related articles on www.dmi.org with
these keywords:
robustly refine segmentations or even develop a
powerful segmentation from scratch around a
low-fi prototype in order to inform design strat-
egy at a point well prior to commercialization. Suggested readings
For example, embedded sensors and other Correll, S. “The Ethnography of an Electronic
unobtrusive data-gathering tools could be used Bar: The Lesbian Cafe.” Journal of Contemporary
for a very large group of life-stage-differentiated Ethnography, vol. 24, no. 3 (1995), pp. 270-298.
alpha testers to see how people are interacting
with a “product” on a continuous basis. This Marcus, G.E. “Ethnography in/of the World
means deeper insights sooner rather than later. System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited
Finally, Digital Ethno brings the participant Ethnography.” Annual Review of Anthropology,
back into the research process. Rather than vol. 24 (1995), pp. 95-117.
simply acting as sources of data, participants
actively share their findings and their insights on Nunes, M. “Baudrillard in Cyberspace: Internet,
the topic at hand. They become invested in the Virtuality, and Postmodernity.” In Style, vol. 29
outcome and, as a result, become more-active (1995), pp. 314-327.
contributors to the project.
There are some drawbacks to Digital Ethno. Paccagnella, L. “Getting the Seats of Your Pants
Until consumer digital technology products like Dirty: Strategies for Ethnographic Research on
cellular phones, faxes, and digital cameras Virtual Communities.” Journal of Computer-
become common household items, we will tackle Mediated Communication [On-line], vol. 3
a steeper learning and logistics curve bringing the (1997), no. 1. Available at: www.ascusc.org/jcmc
participants into the research process. Likewise, /vol3/issue1/paccagnella.html#rcroft.
by putting the tools into the hands of the partici-
pants, critical privacy issues must be tackled as Turkle, S. “Virtuality and its discontents:
they arise in each distinct context (see sidebar). Searching for community in cyberspace” [40
In an era in which mass production is giving paragraphs]. The American Prospect [Online
way to mass customization and personalization, serial], vol. 24 (1996), no. 4. Available at:
the benefits of Digital Ethno are evident. http://epn.org/ prospect/24/24turk.html.
Increased consumer input into the design,
product development, branding, and marketing


Digital ethnography

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