| Ethnography comes from social research and anthropology. Instead of asking consumers what they believe or what they have done as we do in survey research, we watch what consumers do.
Ethnography is a popular technique for the study of consumer-computer interaction (HCI). There are variations in how data is collected: 1)sending a consumer observer-researcher into stores, work place, and homes to observe real behavior; 2) giving subjects a video camera to record consumer interactions with the target product; or 3) having consumers record their behavior in a diary. As with any marketing research technique, ethnography has its measurement validity problems. Properly used however, it can yield exceptional insights to consumer behavior and attitudes useful for product redesign, new product concepts, discovering alternate product uses, and profiling true customer satisfaction. For more on this topic, see our Market Research FAQ on Photo ethnography
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