Design Ethnography

This open access book describes methods for research on and research through design. It posits that ethnography is an appropriate method for design research because it constantly orients itself, like design projects, towards social realities. In research processes, designers acquire project-specific knowledge, which happens mostly intuitively in practice. When this knowledge becomes the subject of reflection and explication, it strengthens the discipline of design and makes it more open to interdisciplinary dialogue. Through the use of the ethnographic method in design, this book shows how design researchers can question the certainties of the everyday world, deconstruct reality into singular aesthetic and semantic phenomena, and reconfigure them into new contexts of signification. It shows that design ethnography is a process in which the epistemic and creative elements flow into one another in iterative loops. The goal of design ethnography is not to colonize the discipline of design with a positivist and objectivist scientific ethos, but rather to reinforce and reflect upon the explorative and searching methods that are inherent to it. This innovative book is of interest to design researchers and professionals, including graphic artists, ethnographers, visual anthropologists and others involved with creative arts/media.

First book to adapt the ethnographic method to the knowledge culture in design disciplines Underlines the epistemic quality of design practice and combines this with ethnographic methods Treats blind spots in our everyday lives and promotes various methods to pluralize perspectives

Auteur

Francis Müller works as lecturer for design ethnography and sociology in the Masters Product and Trends & Identity in the Design Department, Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), Switzerland. He also has lectureships in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of University St. Gallen (HSG) and is a visiting professor in the Universidad Pontificia Valparaíso in Chile. He is member of the editorial board of the journal DIS (Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City) and chief editor of the journal swissfuture, published by the Swiss Society for Future Studies.

Contenu
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. The Blind Spot.- Chapter 3. The Everyday World and Intersubjectivity.- Chapter 4. Design Research: Immersion and Intervention.- Chapter 5. Methods and Aspects of Field Research.- Chapter 6. Analysis.- Chapter 7. Representation and reporting.- Chapter 8. Epilogue.