DESIGN RESEARCH | THE ETHNOGRAPHIC INTERVIEW :: 2011

 

Design Research is a discipline that concentrates greatly on the user. Therefore, the incorporation of ethnographic methods into it is expected, and it can produce rich results. Getting closer to people, groups, and societies, in order to understand their motivations and desires, is one of the most valuable outcomes.

 

With the Ethnographic Interview, we have the opportunity to investigate one issue openly. Based on open-ended questions, this method allows us to analyze a topic from different perspectives, without being attached to one expected outcome or predetermined answers. I started to develop this project after conversations with a former students. She is enrolled in Criminology at the University of Florida, but, at the beginning, she really wanted to be an Art Major. For several academic reasons, she couldn’t pursue both careers and had to decide on one. This conversation made me think on the reasons why people decide on one profession instead of another, and what kind of obstacles every one of us have to overcome in order to do so. Therefore, I decided to investigate why people study art, their motivations, and their decisions during that process.

 

I applied this interview method to random students from the School or Art and Art History of the University of Florida, during 2 days, one hour every day, in February 2011. To visualize the findings, I created a linear pathway that reflects both the spaces where the interviews were taken and the conversations I had with the people. I took photographs of the spaces where the interviews were made, to show how people’s natural academic environment looked like the day we talked.