7 Ethnographic Research Techniques for Gaining Meaningful Insight
Taking an ethnographic approach to research ensures we’re seeing the experience through the eyes of the many individuals that contribute to it and are impacted by it - deeply immersing ourselves in the ”lived” consumer experience, rather than the assumed consumer experience.
Below are seven techniques we use that apply the principles of ethnography to short-form qualitative research:
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Walk a mile on their shoes.
As a project team, we walk through the experience in all of its facets, ensuring we have first-hand experience that we can inject into the insights, to validate or challenge consumer observations and pre-existing hunches.
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Be a fly on the wall.
We immerse ourselves in the consumer’s context, being present and observant in the context in which the experience occurs over extended periods of time. This allows us to build a more complete and nuanced view of the experience, picking up on behavioural patterns and the ‘reality’ of the customer journey at different occasions.
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Watch don’t tell.
We begin by asking consumers to self-guide through the experience, without interference, to ensure that we don’t influence their behaviours or decision making. This allows us to get an honest, impartial response from consumers.
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Reflect & compare.
We playback what we observed of the consumers actions and behaviours and ask them to reflect on their experience, walking us through their journey, prompting them with observations. This allows us to uncover contradictions between reality and perception.
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Know your neighbours.
Once consumers are familiar with the experience, we take them to alternative and comparable experiences for them to make an immediate comparison between competitors through lived experience. This allows them to compare both offerings with greater awareness.
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Turn the tables.
It’s vital we speak with team members to build an understanding of the customer experience from their perspective. This allows us to understand the interaction and implication of customer experience on the employee experience, and vice versa.
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Bring the experience to life.
We leverage illustration and multimedia to bring the consumer experience to life for internal teams and broader socialisation. This allows us to build a compelling narrative for change that's told through the thoughts, actions, and behaviours of those going through the experience.
We believe that it’s important to evolve and adapt your research approach to the context of the problem you’re trying to solve. These 7 techniques can be used in any combination, and can be tackled in any number of ways, but each brings our teams and clients closer to the humans at the heart of an experience.