Self ethnography for better user experience

QUALITATIVE 2012 Copyright © ESOMAR 2012
INTRODUCTION
In 2011, Nokia wanted to utilize new approaches to product concept development that could uncover consumer behaviours
in a more agile and cost effective way compared to traditional ethnographic methods, whilst still leading to the
development of rich insights.
Nokia already uses extensive online data for its tracking and analytics functions, but this was the first project to use online
methodologies to gather qualitative data and develop insights for generative concept development. The project was a pilot,
with a view to including the methodology on the future research agenda. This paper describes the exploration of concept
development techniques with online research methodologies, which has now informed Nokia Consumer Intelligence’s
approach to online qualitative research.
The project made possible a lower budget spend, compared with face-to-face qualitative research, and has generated re-
usable research assets, which communicate behaviours and activities in everyday consumer life. The user journeys
developed during analysis have provided business and design teams with immersion into behaviour in an efficient and time
saving way.
To illustrate the behavioural understanding and data from the project, ‘user journeys’ and mental models of the consumers
were created as outputs. This rich communication method not only visualized the research data, but also provided efficient
immersion for teams working in the concept area. In addition the user journeys provided clear assets for workshops in
order to generate insights and opportunities for concept development. With user journey illustrations from the research
analysis, the design team acquired key insights to take User experience concepting decisions. From a business
perspective, the User journeys and conclusions provide clear evidence to support decision-making.
BACKGROUND
Observational research has a strong place in Nokia’s understanding of consumers’ current daily activities. Ethnographic
research in thematic areas is often carried out across global regions. By analysing insights and opportunities for concept
development, briefs can be formulated for business buy-in, supported by consumer behavioural evidence.
With the exploration of consumer behaviours there are layers of engagement with Nokia team members (Designers,
Product managers, Planners) who need exposure to consumers in a time and cost efficient way. Nokia was looking for
ways to involve a greater number of team members in immersive consumer observations and data in more efficient ways.
In addition, Nokia places value on descriptive and engaging documentation of the consumer, in video, images and
soundbites. Therefore, the need for research observations and insights to be represented in a highly visual and immersive
way was critical in reducing cost and driving engagement with the data.
The project was also part of an initiative by the Concept development research team and Nokia Design to drive the
development of research ‘assets’. An asset describes a discrete observation, which captures part of the user experience,
and describes user activities. Assets become re-usable because they represent the behavior or activity a consumer is
trying to complete for common tasks in daily life. Depending on concept area, technology or strategic intention, assets can
be analysed in different contexts within research (Marketing, R&D, Design, Portfolio planning) in order to provide UX
development, analysis of needs and motivations, or technology investment.
SELF-ETHNOGRAPHY FOR BETTER USER EXPERIENCE
EMBEDDING USER BEHAVIOURS DIRECTLY INTO THE DESIGN PROCESS
Sharmila Subramanian • Katherine Gough

From a research perspective, Face had been looking to develop more agile and flexible ways of carrying out immersive
and observational research. As an agency focused on the ways in which we can a) empower consumers to be active
participants in the research process, and b) leverage the role of digital tools in facilitating research approaches, there was
a clear opportunity to see how we could move beyond traditional ethnography in answering research briefs focused on
understanding behaviours.
Whilst ethnography has a clear and valued role within qualitative research, Face had been pushing to see how we could
take ethnographic principles but ally these to a more user-generative approach.
Through working collaboratively with Nokia to define the brief and understand the business challenge and context, it was
clear that this project presented a great opportunity to put some of this thinking into practice.
INTERNAL RESEARCH TEAM, DESIGN TEAM AND AGENCY COLLABORATION FOR RESEARCH BRIEF AND
METHODOLOGY
A significant need, for Nokia, was emerging to develop rich behavioural observations at a low cost and in a short timescale,
together with outcomes for user experience planning and concept development.
In addition the thematic area of interest in consumer behaviour was in the activities involved in navigating locations outside
the home and examining on-the-go behaviours in a range of potentially complex situations.
The Nokia research and design teams felt the need to capture, analyse and immerse product development teams in core
user journeys within specific concepting streams. The design team identified key environments and mindsets for the
experiences they wanted to enable.
To enhance user experience concept development, the data needed to be presented immersively, and inform the teams on
the users’ mental models and the environmental infrastructure on which users relied upon in those environments.
The key implications of this upon the research process were to avoid delivering a set of findings in a PowerPoint debrief
presentation. The research team needed to ensure data and findings were presented so that the design team could live
with it, work through it, and therefore come to their own conclusions that could power the early design process.
This necessitated thinking of different ways to present data and findings – not only as a takeaway, but also as an
interactive process, where data could be looked at from different perspectives, and at different levels.
Moreover, this also required working in a close and collaborative manner, so that key stakeholders and the design team felt
part of the process, and could get as close as possible to the participant process of capturing data.
METHODOLOGY
Utilising a self-ethnographic approach to meet the business challenge
As outlined, being able to conduct an approach that could be time and cost efficient, embrace digital tools and still uncover
rich behaviours was of paramount importance.
As a result, utilising a traditional ethnographic approach was out of the question. Whilst this would definitely yield up rich
behavioural observations, it would also be time and cost intensive. This would also result in a significant amount of data
being filtered before it could be analysed and fed into the early design concepting process.
Rather than discarding the idea of ethnography altogether, Face developed a method that could leverage ethnographic
principles, but ally this to a more flexible, quick and participant-led approach: self-ethnography.
What do we mean by self-ethnography?
Central to the idea of self-ethnography is forging a greater sense of self-awareness on the part of research participants.
Just as cognitive therapy relies on training patients to be aware of, and understand their own behavioural patterns as a
means of combating depression, self-ethnography is most successful when it can apply the same principles of fostering
greater self-awareness on the part of participants.
Rather than necessitating the researcher observing the participant as in traditional face-to-face ethnographic methods,
self-ethnography relies upon the participant being aware enough of their own behaviours in order to capture and

document these behaviours. Digital tools such as mobile usually provide the means of capturing behavioural data in the
moment of the behaviour occurring.
Why utilise a self-ethnographic approach?
On a basic level, self-ethnography can help us get to behaviours without having to spend extensive time and money being
in field.
There is a greater value to be gained from it, particularly in terms of utilising the data generated. Face-to-face
ethnography yields up a significant amount of data that takes time to filter and analyse. In contrast, self-ethnography,
when applied successfully, can generate much more discrete “units” of behavioural data that are filtered by the research
participant.
When dealing with a topic as broad as navigation behaviours, this becomes invaluable. A self-ethnographic approach could
help us cut to the heart of navigation points deemed significant by the participants themselves.
Central to how capture was carried out was the use of mobile phone cameras and SMS to capture key navigation
moments. Whilst these did not serve as the whole behavioural story on their own, they formed an integral part of the
process. This was in terms of generating discrete navigation moments in “the moment” that participants could reflect on
and commentate around after the event.
Leveraging the value of existing mobile tools
Capturing navigation behaviours requires tools that can document moments in as unobtrusive manner as possible. This
sets up a clear role for leveraging the applications people use every day, rather than forcing them to capture data using an
application alien to them. In the face of new mobile research applications, it can be easy to forget how much richness we
can gain from utilising phone cameras and SMS. In this instance, the simplicity and accessibility of these tools caused
them to be the most useful for capturing on-the-go behaviours.
Furthermore, when dealing with navigation behaviours, it is important to recognise that the experiences consumers have
throughout the day are different. Using basic tools such as phone cameras and SMS ensured we were not forcing
participants to “force fit” their experiences and behaviours into those elements that a self-ethnography app may prescribe
as those to be captured. This in itself could have resulted in participants failing to capture important mental states during
their navigation experiences. Photo and SMS present a level of openness to interpretation – one person may not take
exactly the same photographs to represent a navigation behaviour as another. This in itself could present a level of insight
that would prove illuminating in the analysis process.
So, we had our means of capture. However, we also needed a space for participants to feedback, analyse and provide a
commentary on what they had captured.
UTILISING AN ONLINE COMMUNITY: MARRYING FORM AND FUNCTION
The research team quickly realised that an online community platform presented the best way of documenting behaviours
– in terms of providing a hub to capture data streams, but also in providing a space for considered reflection – augmenting
navigation behaviours with further self-directed analysis. The platform did not just serve as a holding space for data. It
presented a forum that placed participants as active collaborators within the process.
We utilised Face’s proprietary online community platform, creating a private community for research participants. This
became the hub for the project, in terms of:
 Documenting instructions
 Uploading photographs
 The space where all SMS updates from navigation journeys came through to
 The space for participants to debrief on their journeys, using their photographs as the start point
 The space for other user generated content, such as hand drawn maps of journeys, and video
The online platform presented a highly successful marriage of form and function. The community platform allowed
participants to upload and document journeys. Beyond this, the tools available on the platform allowed participants to
upload their photographs in sequence with attached comments. This resulted in each journey being brought to life as a
photographic navigation storyboard. This helped participants to analyse their journeys step-by-step, resulting in a level of
depth and interrogation around each navigation moment that would prove invaluable for the analysis process.

FIGURE 1, THE ONLINE COMMUNITY ALLOWED USEFUL DISPLAY OF JOURNEY CAPTURE AS A
PHOTOGRAPHIC STORYBOARD
Moreover, being able to display data in this way further heightened self-awareness on the part of the participant, by clearly
focusing post-rationalisation of their navigation journey through each step, rather than presenting their journey just as a
whole.
FIGURE 2, PARTICIPANTS WERE ABLE TO ATTACH COMMENTS TO PHOTOGRAPHS, FURTHER HEIGHTENING
SELF-AWARENESS OF BEHAVIOURS
However, arming people with the tools to capture their behaviours was only one part of the success of this approach.
Whilst there are a proliferation of mobile ethnography apps and community tools out there, the piece of the puzzle often
missing is how we arm participants with the knowledge and awareness to capture the most useful behaviours, in the right
way, regardless of the tool they are using.
Giving participants the tools to capture are not enough: the role of training and feedback
Having the right tools to carry out the job will only get you so far. The knowledge of how best to use those tools, and what
you want to get out of the job itself, is the more significant part.
Similarly, with self-ethnography, we have to recognise the importance of briefing and training research participants so that
they are equipped to capture behaviours to a required standard. We would propose that training should be seen as a core
component of any self-ethnographic approach.
This presents a departure to the traditional idea of a research participant as an “unbiased” subject within the research
process. In this instance, we actively wanted our participants to become more knowing and almost experts on themselves.
Training was conducted in a number of ways:

 Researcher led detailed briefing
 Training missions
 Extensive feedback
THE NEED FOR RESEARCHER LED BRIEFINGS
Good briefing is essential to getting the information we require from research participants. However, it is often the case
that researchers do not pay enough attention to the role of briefing participants –and then we question why we don’t get
the results we want.
For the project, we recognised that setting participants off on their own data capture missions would require in-depth
briefing. Whilst we had a vision of how we wanted the navigation capture process to look, we needed to ensure our
participants could understand that vision. This necessitated the research team carrying out the process themselves. In
doing so, we were better able to understand how the process could work, the stumbling points our participants may face,
and as a result, the level of information they would require to carry out the process successfully.
As a result, a mission was set for the research team to document their own navigation behaviours within the British
Museum. The photographs captured and their resultant commentary was used to form the basis of the briefing given to
participants. By being able to see how we conducted the process, they had a clear understanding of what was required of
them. Moreover, this brought them closer to the research team themselves, fostering a human connection that helped to
drive project engagement.
Once we had given the briefing, there was a need to check that participants had fully understood. This created a role for
“training missions”.
CONDUCTING A DRY RUN: THE ROLE OF THE TRAINING MISSION
To ensure we were confident that our participants could successfully document their navigation journeys, we set up
training missions prior to the real task. This provided an invaluable opportunity to test out the approach and get
participants into the appropriate mindset.
Participants were tasked with heading to the nearest large building to them that would house a café or shop, purchase a
bottle of water and then exit through the same entrance they entered the building through. Through this process, they had
to document their navigation using their camera phone. Participants were briefed to pay close attention to the things they
utilised to find their way around a space and take a photo of these moments.
FIGURE 3, GIVING FEEDBACK ON TRAINING MISSIONS WAS INSTRUMENTAL TO SUCCESS OF THE
APPROACH

Through focusing participants on all of those moments where they may stop or take a look around, we were able to
emphasise to them that they were navigating and orientating themselves during these moments. As a result, they saw the
importance of these and therefore recognise they should take a photo. This was already ensuring participants were
becoming more self-aware when it came to their navigation behaviours.
As a result, the training mission was crucial in terms of driving participant self-awareness. However, it was also important
in giving the research team an understanding of what participants struggled with, and where we needed greater depth
from participants. Feedback was essential to ensuring success of the process.
CLOSING THE FEEDBACK LOOP: FURTHER DRIVING SELF-AWARENESS AND GETTING THE DEPTH REQUIRED
Once participants had documented their training missions, the research team analysed responses and came together to
identify where participants needed further prompting, clarification of instructions and above all, motivation and
encouragement. Feedback was delivered and encouraged a dialogue to ensure everyone felt part of the process and that
participants had the chance to feedback themselves.
From here, we were in a place to start getting some great behavioural capture.
THE MISSION: CAPTURING NAVIGATION MOMENTS VIA MOBILE
Participants were then sent on their “real” missions: to document their navigation moments through a set of potentially
complex navigational environments. As all participants had gone through the process of briefing, training and feedback,
they were now well able to understand what constituted a navigation moment for them. At any given point within their
journey to and from the environment in question where they felt themselves stop, look around and think, they were asked
to capture this by taking a photograph with their mobile phone. In situations where taking a photograph may have aroused
suspicion, they were instead asked to send a short SMS to the online community, detailing the navigation moment in
question.
The documentation of each navigation experience in this way formed the basis of the user journeys created during the
analysis process.
OUTPUTS
The results: high engagement, great in-depth content
Over the process of 10 days, a wealth of incredibly rich, targeted behavioural data was generated. Moreover, it was clear
that participants were highly engaged. This was exemplified by the sheer amount of photographs uploaded and the level of
detail participants went into in order to fully document their navigation journeys.
It was apparent that the in-depth briefing, training and feedback had paid off. Participants were able to capture those
specific navigation points they had been briefed to consistently across their journeys. This resulted in 14 different user
journeys composed of very specific, rich data points and steps that already had extraneous data stripped out.
This reduced analysis time required to cut down data and allowed the team to move straight into immersing themselves in
the information that counted.
To facilitate immersion, there was a need to present the user journeys in a format that would allow them to be viewed in
their totality, as well as specific navigation points within the journey.
In addition to this, the team was aware of the desire on Nokia’s part to have a set of assets that could live beyond the
analysis, and be utilised over time by the design team.

FIGURE 4, LEVEL OF CONTENT REFLECTS THE HIGH ENGAGEMENT SEEN ON THE PART OF PARTICIPANTS
CREATING TANGIBLE ASSETS WITHIN ANALYSIS MATERIALS: THE ROLE OF PREZI
Out of potential tools to utilise within analysis, it quickly became clear that Prezi would be the best format to map journeys
in a way that could aid analysis, and provide tangible assets to take away.
The benefits of Prezi that proved so significant were:
 The ability to layer up levels and sets of information into steps of a journey whilst still remaining navigable;
 The ability to easily zoom in and out of information – seeing journeys in totality or as broken down steps;
 The ability to jump between steps in a non-linear fashion – not being forced into a chronological representation of
journeys.
MAPPING JOURNEYS IN PREZI
The first step to representing the data was to take photographs and narrative of each participant’s journey and transfer
these to a Prezi canvas, so that each photograph or piece of relevant text represented a step within that journey. At this
point, there was no extrapolation of what was said on the part of the research team.
Once these basic journeys were mapped out, we could start to focus on each step of the journey. In looking at each
discrete step, we could start to understand the different issues, helps and hindrances that participants faced. In order to
represent these factors, a key was developed that could be applied to each step of the journey.
From this, we could start to identify commonalities and differences across different journeys and types of user.
It was clear that the way in which the journeys were mapped out was highly advantageous in presenting multiple ways in
which journeys could be cut – from showcasing a whole journey, to a number of steps, to a specific part of the journey
(e.g. arrival, or finding an entrance) or even one discrete step on its own. The malleability of mapping user journeys
through Prezi was significant in getting to strong research findings.
FIGURE 5, A KEY WAS DEVELOPED TO IDENTIFY SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS WITHIN USER JOURNEYS

FIGURE 6, PREZI ENABLED EASY VIEWING OF USER JOURNEYS IN THEIR TOTALITY
FIGURE 7, A KEY BENEFIT OF PREZI WAS BEING ABLE TO LAYER UP INFORMATION WITHIN EACH STEP OF
THE JOURNEY
WORKSHOPPING DATA WITH THE BUSINESS
Communicating meaningful data and insights, as stated before, typically involves immersing designers and business
planners in the consumer behaviours and needs – and is critical to supporting consumer-centred decision making in
product development.
The workshop immersion process replaced the need for team members to attend week long fieldwork and attend lengthy
debriefs. The workshop presented an opportunity for an audience of UX designers, developers, product planners and
product marketing to become familiar and confident with targeted observations and data in a short, productive period of
time and in addition to this, there was scope to develop insights relevant across design, development and planning needs.
The aim of the workshop was to familiarise the team with the data in an engaging and collaborative way and then cluster
relevant insights for the specific concept development teams going forward.

FIGURE 8, PREZI USER JOURNEYS WERE BLOWN UP AND UTILISED AS WORKSHOP MATERIALS
The Prezi visualization of the data was key to enabling the cohort to become immersed in data in a short period of time.
A pre-task for the team, took them through the same training mission that the participants received. The team was asked
to capture their experience in exactly the same way using photos, hand-drawn maps and annotation. The team received
similar prompts from the researchers as the participants had online.
By completing the task, and sharing their experiences, this enabled the team to take a clearer ‘reading’ on the immersive
data assets that were then presented in Prezi. By placing team members in the position of a consumer, they were primed
to examine the data in greater detail.
User journeys were printed in poster format and discussed and compared throughout the workshop. The format enabled
easy comparison of User journeys during workshop discussions and allowed clear exposition of the user’s mental model.
Insights generated benefited from not just examining the experience but also understanding the consumer’s mental model
and semantic influences on their decisions in the journey.
IMPACT
Using the workshop to collaborate on identifying insights and opportunities harnessed designer’s and planner’s knowledge
of business context and available technologies as they worked with researchers to identify the most relevant insights.
Insights delivered through user journey documentation contributed consumer needs and motivations to UX concept briefs
for design teams, in sympathy with the team explorations rather than as a separate research activity.
By mapping the activities that people perform in their everyday lives, and documenting the usage of the tools that assist
them (through devices or aspects of the environment) it was possible to analyse the key points in the User journey which
make the biggest impact on a user’s experience.
In addition to mapping the behaviour, being able to analyse the participant's mental model for the current experience
enables deeper insight in analysis.
Through the workshop and visual documentation of user journeys, elements of the journey can be identified, UX design
briefs created, and parameters for decisions set in order to assist design leads and planners in decisions that facilitate
seamless, delightful or effortless experiences.
Assets from user journey mapping are also re-usable. When strategic direction changes, consumer behaviour doesn’t but
the way in which it is examined can be revisited or revised according to focus areas.

CONCLUSION
The success of this project highlights how self-ethnography combined with use of digital tools presents a fertile approach
for research briefs that require elements of observation and immersion in peoples’ behaviours.
Whilst time is necessary to fully train participants to become self-aware, the overall value and time saved in doing so are
highly significant. This presents a faster and much more agile way of getting to understanding of consumer behaviours
versus traditional ethnographic approaches.
From looking at how the process worked, it is readily apparent how such an approach can be successfully utilised for
other types of challenges and environments, such as: product usage, purchase decision making journeys, and interaction
with retail environments.
Moreover, this case study illustrates that in a world where mobile research apps are becoming commonplace, we should
not forget how useful and rich basic mobile applications such as photo and SMS are. The simple and unobtrusive nature
of these applications is crucial when we are looking to participants to document their behaviour in as natural a way as
possible.
On a research participant level, this case study also demonstrates that with the right structures in place, we gain much
richer information from consumers than we often think. Rather than looking to view consumers as “neutral respondents”,
we should think about how we can leverage their role as “experts on themselves”, and therefore work with them to
become more active collaborators in ethnographic approaches.
Developing highly visual assets which communicate daily behaviours by consumers contributes to Nokia’s growing library
of observational assets and provides research team members with a resource to access as new strategic or tactical
thematic areas for concept development emerge, thus facilitating timely and more cost effective analysis as business and
design needs arise.
Even more, using material captured by consumers themselves to describe their user journey through experiences has
contributed to descriptive and compelling data.
The original objective to introduce methodologies which reduce cost and time involvement from the wider team was met,
and demonstrated the immersive value of data can be maintained or even augmented if the thematic area for observation
can be crafted to online self-ethnographic methods and tools.
THE POTENTIAL
This case study showcases how there is a real role for immersive research approaches that do not wholly rely on pure in-
situ observation. Whilst ethnography can be invaluable in helping to get to the “truth” of people’s real behaviour, it does not
have to be the only way in which we can uncover nuanced behaviours. Moreover, it cannot be ignored that there are
always inherent issues within ethnography, specifically around the role of the observer.
By turning this idea on its head, and actively training research participants to be more aware of their own behaviours and
actions, it is possible to get in-depth, but clear and targeted data that, with careful transposition and analysis, can feed
almost directly into the design process. This can result in a more agile, less time intensive means of getting to the heart of
consumer behaviours, and one which can elevate the role of the consumer in development.
User journey representation has been used as a design tool for many years. The introduction of user journey
representation as research visualization and communication allows for the opportunity to convey large amounts of data in
ways that resonate not only with designers, but can help form stronger evidential material for communication across a
wider organization.
THE AUTHORS
Sharmila Subramanian is Research Director, Face, United Kingdom.
Katherine Gough is Head of Ethnographic Resarch, Nokia Design, United Kingdom.

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