Ethnography Process Book

E T H N O G R A P H Y
P R O C E S S
B O O K
Design Research + Methods
Gloria Condy
SOCS309-S003
Ethnography Process of a Publication
Hoda Hamouda

As a student of Emily Carr, I have had the opportunity to
use some of the great resources the facility provides. For
my Communications Design core, we were asked to use one of
the facilities the library provides - the research archive
portion.
We were given a prompt to research all things related to
Emily Carr The University as well as Emily Carr the artist.
Following that - a prompt to combine the knowledge of the
two in a cohesive manner by creating a series of posters and
booklets representing their dual identity.
This project is meant to push us to take advantage of the
resources provided to us, to teach us the basics of archival/
non-digital research methods, as well as design a publication
that is as educational as it is aesthetically pleasing.
INTRODUCTION

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Research Questions
Secondary Research
Empathy Map
Stakeholder Map
Ethnography Methods
Questionnaire
Ethnography Methods
Interview
Closing Statement
4
10
14
16
18
32
46

44
Q1EMILY & EMILY
Why is Emily Carr considered a Canadian Icon
and what influence did her art style have in
shaping the identity of following Canadian
artists?
In order to build a proper foundation on which to
base the Emily & Emily design core project on, I
created a list of research questions which addressed
issues and concerns for my topic.
RESEARCH QUESTION

55
Q1a
Q1b
What is the effectiveness of
competition as a motivational tool for
quality production amongst students?
What is more effective when it comes
to understanding and teaching subject
matter - illustrated booklets or online
archival material?
Following the creation of the main research
question, I created multiple narrowed down
sub-research questions to get into specifics
regarding the main research question.

66
QUESTION PROOFING
I wrote the first round of research questions
on a piece of paper and determined what
was working, what needed to be refined, and
what wasn’t working at all. Mapping out the
process allowed for a clearer vision of the
direction my project needed to head.
I also determined who the target audience
was, and how the answers to these questions
may vary depending on the different groups of
people.

88
After review, we then refined the
initial drafts of questions and made
them more concise and relevant to our
topic.
The initial main research question (P.4) was
more suitable as a sub-research question -
the new main research question better suited
the aim of the ethnography - to find out
people’s preferences of written material so I
could design a publication that more students
would be interested in picking up.
Q2EMILY & EMILY
How would you design booklets to reflect the
duality of Emily Carr as a school and as a
person?

99
Q2a
Q2b
Q2c
What do you know about Emily Carr the
artist?
What do you know about Emily Carr the
person?
What types of things interest you when
looking for a publication to read?
Q1d When reading to learn, reading material
in what format helps you remember
information the most?
The new sub-questions had more relevence to the content
of the booklet and the design of the publication than the
original sub-questions.
I asked myself what I needed to know to achieve my purpose
and came up with the following:

1010
SECONDARY RESEARCH
PAPER SHOES SURVEY
Paper Shoes Survey
How does the user want to feel in their new shoes?
__________________________________________________
What are the users needs for the new shoes?
__________________________________________________
Below is the only survey I’ve conducted
at Emily Carr. It was a project where we
had to design a pair of walkable shoes
for a partner in the class.

1111
Analysis of Survey Quality
To collect good quality survey data -
e.g what type of paper shoes a specific
client would be most interested in - the
right questions need to be asked. The
questions asked should be formulated
based on aims for the survey - through
the use of preliminary market and target
user research, and narrowing down goals
of the survey.
Our survey was written for us to conduct
on our users - and our only involvement
was to collect the replies from our
client - so there was no decision making
on our end on methods, question types,
or opportunity to explore research.
I was friends with my client so the
survey was very informal and not very
serious - we would laugh and joke about
the questions and I feel like this
altered her answers. The structure
of the interview should have been
different in the way that I should not
have been the one to conduct the survey
- a verbal presentation by a stranger
would give more accurate results, or
even giving her a questionnaire to fill
out in a private setting. There was
no consideration of how to get the
most truthful, engaged answers from my
client.
There was no consideration of how to
format the questionnaire in order for
it to be interesting or of any value to
the client - and no consideration of
presentation.

1212
“How does the user want to feel in their new shoes?”
There is no addressing of whether “feel” is
physical or emotional
There is no addressing of the capabilities
of movement in paper shoes
“What are the user’s needs for the new shoes?”
Lack of specificity - what is a need?
An open-ended,vague question

1313
The questions themselves - being
open-ended and vague questions
- are not formatted to receive
concise, strong answers.
A re-do of this questionnaire would
involve including more closed
questions and specific open ended
questions, and the consideration
of other response types and their
effectiveness - in terms of the
information needed in order to design
the shoes.
Questions were not numbered,
nor were they formatted to be
well designed visually (layout
& style).
There was no introduction
of the survey or any verbal
transitions.
Finally there was no testing of
the survey to detect any of its
flaws. We had no trial period
in which we could edit the
questions or get feedback from
an outsider.

1414
EMPATHY MAP
Hand-drawn Empathy Map

1515
EMPATHY MAPPING
In order to understand my target audience,
I created an empathy map highlighting their
thoughts, words, things they see, their fears,
and their pains and gains. This map helped me
understand the needs of the users and frame my
research accordingly.
Stepping into the shoes of the
target audience I gathered several new insights
- that they hardly had time to read for fun
because school is so busy, and for that reason
were not interested in reading anything related
to the school on their own time.
I think this kind of mapping is important to
do as designers, as sometimes we tend to get
so carried away with a concept or idea that we
forget to consider the needs of the customer.

1616
STAKEHOLDER MAP
Hand-drawn Stakeholder’s Map

1717
STAKEHOLDER’S MAP
This mapping exercise helped increase my
understanding of the relationships between
those directly involved in my project, and
those affected as a byproduct.
Previous to the Stakeholder’s map, I’d only
looked at three main groups - the students, the
singular client, and art historians.
By writing their counterparts and sub-groups,
this allowed me to view those involved
holistically - determining the commonalities
of the groups, as well as to identify any
diverse or conflicting interests.

1818
ETHNOGRAPHY METHODS
QUESTIONNAIRE
Using my main research question and sub-
research questions as a guide, I drafted
several questions for a survey to conduct
amongst fellow students.
All of my questions had to either do
with publication design, Emily Carr the
University, Emily Carr the school, or reading
in general.
I wanted to determine what types of
publications students were interested in, and
to figure out exactly how much they knew of
Emily Carr the school and the artist - and if
their knowledge changed after attending Emily
Carr University.

2020
QUESTIONNAIRE
The initial draft of the survey asks the taker for the
following information:
Whether their knowledge of Emily Carr the University
increases after attending the University
Whether their knowledge of Emily Carr the artist
increases after attending the University
- To quantify that knowledge by rating it
To determine the taker’s interest in reading a
publication educating them on the school/person
How much they read for fun
Whether they get their information online or at the
library
How they absorb information the best

2323
CRITIQUE
Upon getting my questionnaire proofread - I
received the following critiques:
Some questions were confusingly worded and
needed simplifying.
Scales needed to be reworded and the layout
reworked.
Needed more open ended questions to hear user’s
opinion and find out what they know about the
topic.
Follow up questions to sub-questions needed to
be added to figure out more detail.
When dealing with multiple choice - add more
options as well as an “other” and blank option.
To use visuals to help guide the test taker.

2424
QUESTIONNAIRE
Keeping the feedback in mind, I redesigned my
questionnaire to have completed by students
of Emily Carr. (pictured on P.26,27)
I conducted a short 10 minute survey amongst
a sample of 5 different students in class.

2525
FINDINGS
Upon receiving the completed surveys, I
analyzed and compiled the data by marking
down who had what answer, and how many
answers or “votes” there were for each
question.
Using that data, I wrote a comprehensive
analysis or my findings. (P.28)
Analysis of findings

2828
All of the people who took my questionnaire
were students from Emily Carr University.
My findings read that the majority of these
students did not learn any more about Emily
Carr the artist nor the school whilst
attending. Their knowledge on the subject
matter - whether they knew nothing, or a
little bit about her - for the most part
stayed the same.
Those who did have knowledge only knew of
her style as an artist, and her title as
a painter. Only the minority knew a bit
about her personal life - and even so, very
minuscule amounts.
I found that the average person read around
1-5 hours per week on their own time - but
everyone read different types of books. In
terms of publication design, I found that
all were more interested in reading material
that included some form of visuals along
with the text.
All found most of their material and
research information through the internet.
FINDINGS

2929
None of the people who knew nothing about Emily
Carr the artist/school were interested in
reading a publication to educate them on both
topics - however, those who knew a little about
her were interested in knowing more. Therefore,
my target audience will be narrowed to those
with an interest in art history.
Following up the findings of the questionnaire,
I will add more sub-questions to pinpoint
exactly who is interested, and how to design a
publication they’ll be interested in. With more
questions like “I absorb information best when
reading material with”, as well as questions
on the subject matter itself - and determining
areas of interest in Emily Carr’s life. I will
remove any questions pertaining to topics of
the school Emily Carr, to simplify the hands-on
research, and even further refine my findings.

3030
Having compiled all the findings into textual data -
or the open code stage of qualitative data analysis -
I then extracted common themes and insights from the
text, labelled users anonymously, and compiled them
into clusters - organized through categories.
The categories are:
ECUAD
EMILY CARR THE ARTIST
RESEARCH METHOD
READING
DESIGN
This allowed for a clarification of my findings as
well as allowed me to narrow my target audience to
a specific group (students from ECUAD interested in
learning more about Emily Carr).
After clustering the information, I created a
visual map of the data. This included hand-drawn
illustrations of the categories, and the findings
written in the speech bubbles of the groups.
QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS

3131
Qualitative Research Map
Qualitative analysis

3232
ETHNOGRAPHY METHODS
SEMI-FORMAL INTERVIEW
Keeping the results of my questionnaire in
mind, I created an informal interview as a
secondary ethnography. (P.33,34)
The purpose was to find out what kind of
publications my narrowed target audience were
interested in reading, and what they’d be
most interested in seeing from my series of
booklets on Emily & Emily.
I chose a semi-formal approach to the
interview as I wanted to be able to diverge
from the script and dive into other topics if
need be.
The questions pertain to different types of
publications - magazines, story books, etc
- the content of the 4 booklets, and the
aesthetics.

3333
Semi-formal Interview (Books, Publication Design)
• Just a little bit of background on the project I’m doing - for our COMD core we were tasked
with creating a series of booklets on the dual identity of Emily Carr the school and Emily Carr
the artist. I’m mostly interested in ﬁnding out what you’d be most interested in seeing or reading
in these publications.
Do you currently follow or read any magazines or publications? (Favourite kind - what do you
gravitate towards)
Have you ever bought or picked a magazine just because you liked the cover?
What do you look for in magazines? (interesting articles, news, games like sudoku, opinion
articles
How about comic books? Storybooks?
Would you prefer stories with illustrations or photographs - and why?
Would you be interested in reading excerpts of fellow student’s experiences at Emily Carr?
Interview Questions PG.1

3434
Would you rather read a bibliography about Emily Carr’s art practices or read anecdotes about
her life?
Would you rather learn about Emily Carr through an illustration/story approach or
straightforward facts and history?
Would you prefer stories with illustrations or photographs?
What other kind of things would you be interested in learning about? (Emily Carr the person/
school)
(Family life, art career, origin of school, anecdotes, animals, etc)
What aesthetic (clothing style, what colours, art styles) do you associate with Emily Carr the
school?
What aesthetic do you associate with Emily Carr the person?
Interview Questions PG.2

3535
I = Interviewer
A = Participant A
I: Do you currently follow or read any magazines or publications?
A: Mostly I look through the different publications the school has to offer, like Woo’s a good one.
Sometimes I read Popular Science, I used to read reader’s digest.
I: Do you gravitate towards any kinds of publications?
A: If a magazine has cool or interesting graphics on the front I’m more likely to pick it up.
I: What do you mean by cool or interesting graphics? Like bright and colourful or interesting
content wise?
A: Graphic and aesthetically interesting to look at. Yeah, I guess colourful too.
I: Have you ever bought or picked a magazine just because you liked the cover?
A: I haven’t bought a magazine since I was 12.
I: Can you explain why?
A: Everything’s on the internet now, for free.
I: Do you read?
A: Sometimes.
I: Have you ever rented a book from the library based on the cover?
A: Yes, I have.
I: What do you look for in a magazine? Articles, news, games like Sudoku, opinion articles, or
other?
A: Sometimes I read the funny columns but mostly articles of stuff that’s interesting, art, new
inventions, stuff about famous ﬁgures.
I: Do you ever read comic books or storybooks? If so, what do you look for?
A: I usually only read comic books if I’m watching a T.V. series based off of a manga or comic
and the TV show doesn’t have as many episodes as there are comics or manga. If I pick up a
comic usually it’s end of the world dystopian future type stuff.
I conducted the interview with a classmate who suited the target
audience group (interested in the publication concept, enjoyed
reading). I recorded the conversation and transcribed it into text.
Interview Transcription PG.1

3636
I: Would you prefer stories with illustrations or photographs and why? 
A: I prefer to look at stuff with illustrations more than photographs. It’s just more visually
interesting to me.
I: Would you be interested in reading excerpts of fellow student’s experiences at Emily Carr?
A: Sure, why not.
I: Would you rather read a bibliography about Emily Carr’s art practices or read about her life?
A: I’d rather read about her life.
I: Can you expand on that?
A: I’m more drawn towards stories on people’s lives and who they were. Hearing about
techniques or school studies doesn’t really interest me that much.
I: Would you rather learn about Emily Carr through an illustration/story approach or
straightforward facts about her life?
A: Illustration and story.
I: Is there anything else you’d be interested in reading about Emily Carr the artist?
A: Not that I can think of.
I: What aesthetic do you associate with ECUAD - be it clothing style or art style
A: Lots of colour blocking and hipster aesthetics. Black jazz musicians with slick tied back
ponytails. People dressing like they’re huge 5 year olds. Colours of the rainbow.
I: What aesthetic do you associate with Emily Carr the person?
A: The colours of her paintings mostly, very earthy, bright tones.
Interview Transcription PG.2

3737
Afterwards I made several notes about my first impression while
listening to the transcription. That version is below.
I = Interviewer
A = Participant A
content wise?
I: Do you read?
A: Sometimes.
A: Yes, I have.
other?
Participant A
Reads school magazines and publications
Interested in Science and Lifestyle magazines
Aesthetics matter
as much as content
Not an avid reader
Cover of book is just as
important as what’s on the
inside
Subject interested in science,
arts, comedy, famous people
Watches T.V, reads comics
and manga
Interview Notes PG.1
QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS

3838
interesting to me.
A: Sure, why not.
Drawn towards hand drawn
visuals
More interested in ﬁction
Again interested in illustrations and storyline.
Helpful for cover design/combination of
Emily + Emily
Interview Notes PG.2

3939
I = Interviewer
A = Participant A
content wise?
I: Do you read?
A: Sometimes.
A: Yes, I have.
other?
Participant A
Reads school magazines and publications
Interested in Science and Lifestyle magazines
Aesthetics matter
as much as content
Not an avid reader
Cover of book is just as
important as what’s on the
inside
Subject interested in science,
arts, comedy, famous people
Watches T.V, reads comics
and manga
After my first impressions, I began to code
the information. I did that by reading it
several more times and then highlighting
words I thought were important.
Interview Coding PG.1

4040
interesting to me.
A: Sure, why not.
Drawn towards hand drawn
visuals
More interested in ﬁction
Again interested in illustrations and storyline.
Helpful for cover design/combination of
Emily + Emily
Interview Coding PG.2

4141
I then started to code all of
the highlight information.
I pulled repeated phrases,
superficial descriptive words,
ideology, and other words I
thought were relevant to my
research.
After coding into words and
phrases, I clustered them
into different categories
to begin conceptualizing my
data.
illustrations
school
hipster
woo
cool
interesting graphics
graphic
aesthetically
interesting
colourful
internet
art
famous figures
life
people’s
lives
story
colour blocking
colours of the rainbow
paintings
warm
earthy
bright
tones
read
cover
illustrations
aesthetically
colourful
colour blocking
tones
bright
warm
read
school
woo
people’s
life
lives
story
hipster
famous figures
life
story
paintings
read
cover
story

4242
After coding into words and phrases, I
clustered them into different categories
to begin conceptualizing my data.
illustrations
aesthetically
colourful
colour blocking
tones
bright
warm
read
school
woo
people’s
life
lives
story
hipster
famous figures
life
story
paintings
read
cover
story

4343
AESTHETICS
illustrations
aesthetically
colourful
colour blocking
tones
bright
warm
read
ECUAD
school
woo
people’s
life
lives
story
hipster
EMILY
CARR
famous
figures
life
story
paintings
BOOK
CONTENT
read
cover
story
Then, I labelled the categories according
to common themes.

4444
AESTHETICS
ECUAD
EMILY CARR
I then organized the clusters hierarchically - from
the information I consider most valuable to the least
valuable. I valued aesthetics over content the most as
the brief for the design had very specific instructions
as to what I should include.
For my final step, I summarized my results into two
categories:
Results, and Discussion.
I tried to be as unbiased, and neutral as possible.

4545
RESULTS
The categories I created from my interview were:
Aesthetics, Emily Carr, And ECUAD.
My research question was “How would you design booklets
to reflect the duality of Emily Carr as a school and
as a person?” - so I created categories to represent
different portions of the book. Aesthetics relates to
the external portion of the book - the illustrations,
colour scheme, and general feel of the book. It includes
text from the interview both describing ECUAD and Emily
Carr the artist. Emily Carr relates to the artist, and
some of the sub-themes that could be included in the
book. Finally, ECUAD relates to the school and the lives
inside of it.
DISCUSSION
My findings determine that my subject would be most
interested in a publication that has a storybook-esque
feel. Their preference of fiction, illustration, comics,
and stories lead me to believe they are more concerned
with being entertained than learning hard facts about
Emily Carr/ECUAD.

4646
As designers, we sometimes get so caught up in an idea
that we forget about who we’re creating for. Conducting
different ethnographies helped me get out of that
headspace - and enabled me to put myself into the
perspective of my audience. It allowed me to figure out
not only how to design a product to fulfil my creative
goals as a designer, but also to fulfil my audience’s
needs and wants.
Design research is not only critical because it allows
you to be empathetic, but also allows you to gain new
perspectives and come up with new solutions to ideas you
may be stuck on.
CLOSING STATEMENT
CLOSING STATEMENT

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