Digital ethnographies involve participants recording aspects of their daily lives using tools like cameras and mobile devices to provide insights into behaviors and processes. This allows observations over longer periods than traditional in-person ethnographies. Participants are more comfortable recording sensitive activities themselves than discussing them with strangers. Digital ethnographies provide flexibility in recruitment, participation, and study duration at a lower cost than traditional methods.

1. Intro to Digital Ethnographies

2. Similar to traditional in-person ethnographies with both
methods focusing on the observation of behaviors in the
participant’s natural environment.
Valuable for capturing and observing participant behavior
while in the process of doing certain things like shopping at
the mall, booking tickets online, visiting different
destinations, shipping a package, going through the steps of
buying a home and more.
Leverages the participant’s use of tools such as an online
platform, cameras and mobile devices to record themselves
as they go through their day-to-day life where traditional
ethnographies rely on a researcher being present and
observing a participant’s behavior first-hand.
Self-recorded events provide rich insights - and often we
are able to gain access to otherwise inaccessible aspects of
a participants’ life.
What is a Digital
Ethnography?
Digital Ethnography refers
to ethnographic research
that is facilitated by online
tools or in a digital “space”
rather than traditional
in-person observation.

3. What are the
Benefits?
Engaging with your target
audience is always
valuable. The flexibility of
Digital Ethnography
approaches often make it a
more effective choice than
traditional techniques
Eliminates typical dependencies such as geographic
location and scheduled appointments allowing broader
recruiting and participation at a more cost-effective price
point.
Allows for observations over a longer time period with
studies typically lasting 1 week. This longer duration is
particularly well suited to studying multi-step processes and
more complex or nuanced behaviors.
Reduces the effect of ‘observer influence’ as participant is
left to complete the study exercises as they would naturally
- capturing the experience with any combination of text,
photos, video or screen recording that is required.
Puts participants at ease when discussing
sensitive/personal topics or demonstrating these types of
activities as their ‘relationship with the camera’ is often
more comfortable than having multiple strangers in their
home or workplace.

4. At Clearworks, we use our
asynchronous online
platform to conduct Digital
Ethnography studies. The
platform provides a
balance of flexibility,
features and ease-of-use
for both researchers and
participants.
Our Platform

5. How Does it Work?
The study exercises are developed according to the project
objectives. Each study is unique and we believe that getting
creative in the study approach is important and helps
ensure that participants are engaged and happy to
participate.
Once the study is designed the platform is programmed,
tested and then launched. Screened participants are invited
to participate in the study and a community manager tracks
progress and engages with participants throughout the
study.
The platform can be deployed on all device types,
including Blackberry. Being able to use all of their devices
makes it easy for participants to respond to exercises and
capture observations anywhere. These mixed-media
responses include video, photo, text, audio, images and
screen capture.

6. Target Participants
You can use digital
ethnographies with nearly
any type of consumer,
customer or prospect to
gain insights more quickly
and cost-effectively than
traditional methods.

7. Sample Exercises
The sample exercises shown here are merely high-level
descriptions to illustrate the types of activities that can be
used to elicit responses from participants.
Day in the Life: Participants record themselves and their
surroundings throughout the course of an entire day or
while performing a certain activity of interest.
Show and Tell: Participants show and narrate their step-by-
step process for performing a particular task including the
tools and resources that are used.
Home Tour: Participants record their environment and can
be directed to comment on or highlight areas of particular
interest to the study.
Online Shopping: Participants use the screen recording
capability to capture their process for making a particular
online purchase. They are asked to show the steps they take
as well as narrate the rationale behind their personal
process.

8. The Output
Responses allow you to see and hear first-hand from
participants how they view things, what matters to them,
why they make the decisions they do and their processes
for accomplishing any type of task.
You are able to get a view into parts of participants lives
that are not traditionally available to researchers. The
platform is with them during their day to day life and they
are able to capture their observations as they happen in real
time.
Powerful dashboard and coding tools within the platform
make it easier to categorize responses, develop key findings
and interpret results.

9. Engage in Customer Insights
We would love to chat with you
about how you can use Digital
Ethnographies to get into your
customer’s world and capture deep
insights. Shoot us a quick email to
info@clearworks.net.