This document discusses challenges with traditional qualitative research methods and proposes participatory approaches. It notes that traditional methods often rely on artificial settings and manufactured data, ignoring mundane interactions where social order emerges. Additionally, a focus on single data modes and lack of contextual or non-verbal data in transcripts can be misleading. The document proposes participatory qualitative approaches that focus on naturally occurring situated interactions, center users in the design/investigation, capture multiple realities interactively with participants, and employ methods like user-centered design scenarios, self-documentation, sensory ethnography, and photo elicitation to better understand lived experiences and needs.

1. Unspoken
phenomena
Using innovative qualitative
methods to research the lived
experiences of digital
communities
Dr Jenine Beekhuyzen

2. Discovery consists of
looking at the same thing
as everyone else and
thinking something
different.”
Attributed to Albert Szent Gyorgyi (1937 Nobel Prize Winner)

3. Why qualitative?
• counting vs what counts
• only way to study certain phenomena
• locate the interactional sequences (‘how’) in which
participants’ meanings (‘what’) are deployed.
• answer ‘why’ questions - not causal
/predictive in nature but deals with human reasoning
and explanations

4. Current challenges in
qualitative research
• artificial settings and the collection of
“manufactured data” - considerably limiting
the range of phenomena we can discover
• journalistic commentaries are common
• ignoring the mundane - “social order can be
found in even the tiniest activities”

6. Current challenges in
qualitative research
• focus on one mode of data collection at the
expense of others
• how are meanings constructed? non verbal data
which is often said to be 80% of communication -
therefore transcriptions without contextual and
non verbal data may be misleading
• need for transparency in data analysis
• lack of situatedness of the researcher
• minimal time spent understanding phenomena

7. Participatory qualitative
approaches
• focus on naturally occurring situated
interaction in which local meanings are
created and sustained
• user is at the centre of the design and/or
investigation
• capture multiple realities and accounts
• construct meanings interactively (i.e. with
participants)

8. • user-centred design - scenarios, personas
and use cases + expert panel
• self-documentation - photovoice
• sensory ethnography
• photo elicitation
• “go along” interview
capture needs and
emotions
lived experiences
narratives

9. Questions?

10. Questions?