Auto-Ethnography: Problems, Pitfalls and Promise

The teaching and perhaps more importantly the practice of ethnographic techniques has become increasing important within Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). But ethnography is also synonymous with in situ data collection over extended periods of time making it difficult to teach. This paper reports a study of the use of auto-ethnography by a group of undergraduate interaction design students. Auto-ethnography has the potential to expose these students to ethnographic concepts in a manageable fashion. The auto-ethnography required them to create a ‘video-diary’ of their use of an item of everyday interactive technology and then to write an analysis of their behaviour and their thoughts on how this might be used (while having fun). We identify problems and pitfalls, and offer advice for those who wish to repeat our endeavour.


INTRODUCTION
Ethnography is now recognised as being central to the practice of human-computer interaction (HCI) and there is a corresponding need to enable students to understand and engage in ethnographic practice. Ethnography, despite its origins in sociology and anthropology, has come to be something of a portmanteau term covering many, if not all, forms of data gathering with respect to 'user requirements' through to the naturalistic study of people using interactive technology. And although there are a number of unresolved questions as to what to do with ethnographic data, it is the method of choice for the contemporary HCI practitioner.
However, from a teaching perspective it is also recognised that ethnography is time consuming and presents a number of practical difficulties for the practitioner (e.g. issues concerning privacy and so forth). Our solution to this is auto-ethnography (also known as personal ethnography). So rather than unleashing HCI students on an unprepared world, they were required to create an autoethnography of their own everyday use of interactive technology. Instead of 'hanging around the workplace' students sat at home and talked to a camera about how they used their Xbox, MP3 player, mobile phone and so on, and how (if so) the appliances influence their everyday life.
Our aim is to write the paper we wish we could have read before embarking on this process.

ETHNOGRAPHY
Ethnography exists in many different forms which have been derived from its initial use in sociology and anthropology. The term "ethnography" means writing about the people (ethnos = people; graphien = writing), or in more illustrative words "portrait of a people". Ethnography consists of a methodology for studies of cultures and peoples, with the assumption that they have something in common -the experience of shared territory, religion and so on. It is descriptive, so the output from an ethnographic study is an ethnography which is a written account. The classic studies of adolescents in Samoa by Margaret Mead and exchange system of the Trobriand Islands by Bronisław Malinowski in the 1920 are famous examples of ethnographies [1,2].
Ethno-methodological and ethnographic studies ( [2,3,4,5,6) do not rest upon a generic model of work, but rather share an underlying philosophical approach to the study or work in context. They typically produce richly descriptive accounts, reflecting their sociological and anthropological lineages (respectively), whose contents and structure will vary from study to study depending on what is observed. Indeed, a strongly ethnographic approach is fundamentally incompatible with preconceived structures or models. Similarly, ethnographers generally have little to say about systems design, although there is now one study which proposes a bridge from rich ethnographic data to the systems design language UML [7] and others have suggested a role for the ethnographer as a facilitator for the designer [8].

Design ethnography
Design ethnography is a particular flavour of ethnography which has been developed with the intention of understanding how people use, interact and co-exist with technology. The design ethnographer typically being a social scientist who helps (technologists and designers) inform the design of new and existing products. The aim of design ethnography is to acquire a deep understanding of who the intended end users of your design are, what they do and what they want, and to understand the possible gaps (missing functionality or issues concerning aesthetics) in the current technology they use. In short, to recognize: − the characteristics of the user − patterns in their longitudinal use of the technology − specific detail on how the technology is used in everyday life

Playing with our Education
In all, to acquire a deep familiarity with other peoples' use of technology. For example, it has been reported [9] that Microsoft has recently hired a group of anthropologists to conduct ethnographic investigations. They have been reported as "showing up at 5 in the morning to observe a small businessman at close range, arriving as soon as he stepped out of the shower, then shadowing him until his workday ended at 10:30 p.m". Called "Dawn to Dusk" the study documents the work habits and thought processes. They discovered that small companies kept vital information in disconnected places --what she called "data silos" --from scribbled notes on scraps of paper to files on a PC that could be accessed by only one employee.
This account is typical. So, ethnography can be seen as fieldwork with an emphasis on the naturalistic observation of people but in practice any kind of data collection which sheds light on people and their use of interactive technology (inc. questionnaire surveys, focus groups, in depth interviews). And ethnography also involves prolonged contact with 'a field'. It is this defining characteristic which provides a serious obstacle to the educator.

A Diversity of Ethnographical Approaches
As true ethnography takes a great deal of time and money "quick and dirty" ethnography has appeared. Of course, "quick and dirty" is the antithesis of traditional ethnography but there are many who would argue that it is better than nothing. One such ethnographic 'short cut' that has become a popular tool is the 'cultural probe' [10]. Originally, cultural probes were packages of maps, postcards, and other materials designed to provoke inspirational responses from elderly people in diverse communities. Probes were given to these elderly people who then provided (typically via post) post, fragmentary data over time.
The probes were part of a strategy of pursuing understanding of local cultures so that new designs wouldn't seem irrelevant or arrogant to those communities. Each probe contained: postcards, maps, a disposable camera, a photo album and a diary. The maps, for example, were accompanied by an inquiry exploring the elders' attitudes toward their environment. Participants were also asked to mark zones on local maps, showing where, for instance, they would go to meet people and where they would go to be alone.
In all, ethnography is invaluable, de rigueur for the modern interaction designer but since in practice it involves a considerable investment in terms of time and resources, this is a significant problem for those of us trying to teach it.

To whom it was taught
The auto-ethnographical assessment was part of a level 8 (undergraduate) module entitled Practical Interaction Design. The assessment was assigned to a group of 69 students, 78% of whom were on the Interactive Media Design programme, with the remaining 22% of students being registered on Business Information Systems and Information Technology programmes with a smattering of students who had decided to take the module as an option. The assessment was also a component of a level 11 (postgraduate) module entitled Interaction Design, taken by a group of 20 students. Eight of these students were registered on a related 'specialist' programme of study (MSc Interaction Design the User Experience), where the Interaction Design module was a core element. This was a diverse group of students in terms of age and experience, a mix of recent graduates and people seeking either fresh impetus to their career or else a career change, They were mainly UK domiciled with two from overseas (US and Eastern Europe). The remaining 12 students were registered on a generic postgraduate computing programme, 'Applied Informatics'. This group largely comprised students who had recently completed an Undergraduate degree in computing in their own country, and were seeking a UK postgraduate qualification before entering the job market. The majority of this group were non-native English speakers from the Indian sub-continent.

The assessment
Students were required to create a video diary (an "autoethnography") of their use of some form of interactive media (e.g. the camera on their phone, MP3 player, TIVO etc.) and submit a written commentary with it. The requirements of the video diary were as follows: -It must be created using the Apple iMovie application (chosen for its apparent ease of use) -It should be between 30 -45 minutes in length and cover a 3 week period of the use of technology. We suggested a minimum of three segments . - The video diary should be professionally prepared and presented.
The written commentary was to be 500 words long and submitted as a Word document along with the movie file on a DVD. It should comprise analysis of the use of technology, and the recommendations, how these findings may be used to improve on the design of the technology involved or how it might be evaluated more effectively.
Students were marked for the professionally presented video diary, completeness and thoughtfulness of the commentary comprising the written analysis of the auto-ethnography and the thoughts as to how this analysis might be used.
Practical classes in support of the auto-ethnography were held over the period of six weeks, each lasting one hour in a Macintosh Laboratory. The first three weeks were utilised with learning to use iMovie, followed by three weeks dedicated to gathering the footage and editing it.
During the first two weeks, students received in-depth (2 hour) lectures. on ethnography and auto -ethnography. These covered the origins of ethnography, the use of auto -ethnography and its role in the design process.
The video-diary was chosen as a quite simple, yet engaging tool. The emphasis was placed on the fact that it was supposed to be fun and enjoyable -without strict rules. The students were encouraged to be playful and to get pleasure from playing with the technology and editing the movies.

The technology
Students were given freedom over the choice of technology used to record their auto -ethnographies. A number of mini-DVD camcorders were made available, to ensure that everyone had 'base-line' access to a recording device. They were encouraged to use any other recording device which they already had access to or had experience with, and many chose to use the camera on their mobile phones, This was particularly interesting in those cases where students also chose the use of their phone as the focus for the diary. Similarly, a number of students who decided to focus on their use of a digital camera in their diaries also used these as the recording device. Other novel choices included the built-in camera in their laptop or desktop computer (e.g. iSight in Macs), and web cams. The videos were edited in iMovie™ or iMovie HD™, available in dedicated Macintosh Laboratory with 24 machines running Mac OS X. The undergraduate students were divided into four groups, and each group had close support from a tutor (first author) when help was required. This was important especially for students on non-IMD programmes, many of whom were being exposed to digital media (using Macs) for the first time. The postgraduate students were taught as one group and supervised by a dedicated tutor.

THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE
Our first observation for all groups was that despite autoethnography being an individual perspective on their own technology use: a) We noted significant cooperation between / among the students in handling both technical issues and matters of content too.
Students who started their projects early, encountered a variety of problems, particularly in mastering the iMovie software, (described below) and learned how to resolve them. They were all willing to share their experiences and offer help to other students who encountered similar obstacles. Many students preferred to seek peer assistance rather than consult their tutor. In some cases this could be attributed to the apparent simplicity of the iMovie application, and embarrassment at having difficulty in mastering it. In the case of the postgraduate students the homogenous group from South Asia were notable for their reluctance to call on assistance from their tutor, especially when in front of one another.
There were also instances of students helping each other with recording footage, especially if the clips were gathered in the field. 1 The students' initials 2 That is, what would the students put in a time capsule which would be buried and dug up in a hundred years time.
As to content, we noted cooperation between those students who had chosen to focus on similar interactive devices for their ethnographies. Some viewed the content of each others' videos to avoid repetition, some to gain other perspectives on the task, and others and to ensure they have not 'omitted' anything interesting.
b) In the written commentaries accompanying the video diary a number of students referred to themselves in the third person as 'the user' while discussing their own experiences,. This is evident in the extract below:

SO'R
In these written commentaries, some students stated that they found the interactive device itself more interesting than their own appearance on the video. Perplexingly, these students reported that they had decided to discard clips featuring their own reflections, focussing instead of footage illustrating the device. IO Students were directed to choose an interactive technology that they use in their everyday life as the subject of their diaries, and all followed this instruction. Video diaries were produced focussing on their use of laptops or mobile phones (which included 'ordinary' mobiles, PDA phones and iPhones); some of them produced diaries about the software they used in school or for the work purposes, e.g. Adobe Photoshop™ and website development software. Some students talked about their digital cameras, others not unexpectedly shared their passion for their games consoles.

KMM
Of course very often those two categories were overlapping.
-In 3 cases the files were wrongly exported and therefore unable to be watched.
The form of video produced also related to the form of students' on-screen appearance. Those who provided work in a diary format tended to record footage of themselves actually using the technology for almost the full length of the movie. 'Show and tells' and tutorials were recorded differently -the person and the technology were shown alternately on the screen, but almost never together. And while 'show and tell' movies had at least some footage of the student actually using the device, tutorials were less successful here. In the case of the 'Gadget show' style of presentation, the student tended not to appear in the recordings at all. The footage usually comprised a view of the device, the users' hands and a voiceover. Most of the submissions met the base-line coursework requirements -they were of appropriate length, and they were professionally edited in iMovie. However, despite the fact that the software offers quite a wide range of transitions and effects that can enhance the movie, students neglected these, with few exceptions. At most, some students took advantage of the capabilities of the application to produce videos that had simple transitions, separate chapters, a title page and end credits.
The form of the movie was also reflected in the form of the written commentaries provided. Students who demonstrated a good understanding of the concept of a video diary also produced very detailed, deep and meaningful analyses in their written commentaries, reflecting both on the data gathered, it's meaning, and often its utility. As an additional task, we offered students the option of publishing their movies on the www.youtube.com. This idea met with a range of reactions from the students, which can be grouped into two main categories: a) Students who constructed their work as tutorials about a game, about software, or about the physical usage of a technology (e.g. upgrading a graphics card), were keen on presenting their work to the wider audience. They gladly agreed to put their clips online to get more feedback from other gamers/designers/technicians b) Students who were uncomfortable with the idea of exposing their work to a wider audience. Some of these students intentionally delayed the production of their work so as to avoid the whole issue, even though uploading their project was not compulsory. In this category we could place those students who provided submissions in a proper diary format, and who were uncomfortable at airing their personal reflections. The 'avoidance' attitude was also characteristic of those students who lacked confidence in the task.
The patterns apparent in the work of the undergraduate students are echoed, to some extent, in the work of the Postgraduates. Twenty submissions were received from the Postgraduate cohort. A minority of these videos, (albeit a large minority of 8) submitted work which adhered to the required diary format. However, an additional characteristic is apparent with some of the work in this group, which could be characterised as 'analysis incamera'. Four of these eight submissions were affected by this.
Students were requested to produce a reflective video diary of their use of an interactive technology, over time. The intention was that students would take the opportunity to reflect on their usage and the meaning of the technology for them, in a fairly spontaneous manner. 'Analysis in-camera' became apparent when students submitted diaries containing carefully measured, almost scripted analyses of their usage. The extent to which these reflections were spontaneous or else a result of careful crafting, is a moot point. It is certainly the case that the first-time viewer would have difficulty in believing they were watching an edited package of 'first take' material. In these cases, the written commentary, intended as the main vehicle for 'over-arching' analysis of the diary and the exercise as whole, was used to 'backup' analytical comments contained in the videos.
The remaining 12 submissions from the Postgraduate cohort were either 'show and tell', that illustrated the functionality and it's benefits from the user, or else 'gadget show', with sole focus on the device and it's capabilities.

PROBLEMS, PITFALLS AND PROMISE
The key question that has to be answered is, simply, , did this work? Almost inevitably, the reply has to be qualified. It worked for some. The non-media students were unexpectedly very engaged by the use of cameras and 'movie' making; for them it was interesting novelty, a great deal of fun, and a chance to change everyday routines. The specialist media students were a little 'sniffy' regarding iMovie (despite their problems using it) as being a little beneath them, especially as they had already used more professional editing software namely, Final Cut Pro.
Did it teach ethnography/ did the student learn something about ethnography? -more qualification. It is our suspicion that the many practical problems which the students faced (created for themselves is more accurate) masked, in part, our attempt for them to experience ethnography from the perspective of the interaction designer. That being said, it will be better next delivery.
At the outset of this paper we said that it was our intention to write the paper we would have liked to have read before we set out on this path. And rather than crying, 'don't do it' we offer three most frequently asked questions, followed by some practical advice.
The three most frequently asked questions were: ---Style of presentation ---