The document discusses the connections between improvisational acting techniques and ethnographic research methods, noting that both involve examining users in context, interpreting findings to gain insights, and applying learnings to address business problems, with benefits including learning through doing, gaining new perspectives, and facilitating innovation.
2. This Talk
An (quick) exploration of the connections
between two very different tools (improv
and ethnography)
â Also available as a half-day workshop
â Google âportigal improv capstoneâ or âportigal
improv duxâ to read more about full workshop
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
3. About Portigal Consulting
We help companies discover and act on
new insights about themselves and their
customers
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
4. What is User Research?
Examine users (consumers, professionals, whoever) in their own
â˘
context
â What are they doing (âusageâ)
â What does it mean
Infer (interpret/synthesize/etc.)
â˘
â Find the connections
â We are not simply collecting data but are processing it to find the insights
Apply to business or design problems
â˘
â Use products, services, packaging, design to tell the right story
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
5. Examine Users?
Observation
1.
â Watching what people are doing, how they do it
Interviewing
2.
â Interacting directly with some people who can shed light on our problem,
(customers, users, former customers, future users, lead users)
â Asking questions, doing exercises, showing artifacts
â Listening to what they say, how they say it, what they don't say
â Paying attention to where what they say and what they do does not align
Understanding cultural context
3.
â Considering the culture within which our people are making decisions
â Looking at media, trends, advertising, and other symbols of cultural quot;normsquot;
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
6. Outcomes
Improvements to internal processes for innovation
â˘
Insights about people and their environments
â˘
Concepts for products, services, communications, etc. that support
â˘
new insights
Understanding of barriers to adoption
â˘
â Features, meaning, stories or other triggers that can overcome those barriers
Learning about the culture in a new market
â˘
Detailed, specific task-related needs
â˘
Evaluation and prioritization of features/concepts/solutions
â˘
Exposure to the details of the lives of âreal peopleâ
â˘
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
7. Recent Projects
Who/What we What was being Key Insight
studied designed
New mothers Infant formula packaging Lack of feedback when
preparing and following instructions led to
serving infant non-compliance
formula
Ritual of opening and Credit-card newsletter Consumers make rapid
sorting mail decisions to discard items
not perceived to be of
value; specific details cue
(lack of) value
Workflow and Next-generation interface Despite sharing most of the
environment of for trading software; market with one other
currency traders internal business player, startups were
processes; customer- capturing mindshare and
facing strategic initiatives deskshare
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
8. Recent Projects
Who/What we What was being Key Insight
studied designed
Construction workers High-value and high- To sell a high-end version
and their gear performance protective of an otherwise free product
headwear requires creating pull by
improving performance as
well as aesthetics
Communication and Digital tools for Leverage the âculture of
collaboration collaboration and celebrityâ by tagging
practices of knowledge management documents with human data
knowledge workers (name, image, etc.)
at large multinational
corporation
Music enthusiasts Online service for Users of apps other than
and their MP3 managing digital music iTunes had abandoned any
collections and ripping/distributing notion of managing and
existing music collections organizing digital collections
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
10. What it isnât
Improv is not stand-up comedy
â˘
(itâs the name of a chain of comedy clubs)
â˘
In contrast to improv, stand-up is
â˘
â Highly scripted
â Rehearsed with timing nailed down to the
nanosecond
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
11. What it is
A form of performance that is highly constrained but with several open
â˘
parameters
Unscripted
â˘
â Specifics assigned right before performance starts
â âYour first idea is often your best ideaâ
Emphasis on being âplayfulâ more than being funny
â˘
â âI could never do that, because Iâm not funnyâ
â It can be (at times) funny to watch, but not about trying to be funny
â âThe funny will comeâ
â âDonât let logic impede your fancyâ
Moving the body â connections to dance
â˘
Cheaper than therapy
â˘
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
12. Improv, Applied
Entertainment
â˘
Acting
â˘
Corporate training
â˘
â Meeting facilitation and brainstorming
â Help companies become more âcreativeâ
â Parallels with âDrawing on the right side of the brainâ
â Pixar: used improv to create âthe most trusting environment possible where
people can screw upââŚwhen someone suggests an idea, others should
respond with âYes, and ...,â
Product ideation
â˘
â âInformanceâ (from Interval) - give in to the urge to demonstrate
â Take personas and extend them
User research
â˘
â Users show what they can't talk about, free from constraints of what is (now
vs. the future)
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
13. Benefits
Learning by doing
â˘
â Collaboration (âthrow an ideaâ)
â Humor
â Timing
â Presentation
â Listening
Did I mention therapy?
â˘
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
14. Letâs Play
Storytelling Circle
1.
Broken Telephone, v2.0
2.
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15. Exercises
What did we see?
â˘
Molotch on change and conformity in balance in
â˘
product usage
âFolks pick up on the surrounding cultures in at least
somewhat idiosyncratic waysâŚEven with a world of
conformers, each conformer thus acts differently. With each
striving to emulate the other, there will be a never-ending
chain of adoptions and adaptations that, as they move
throughout the network, change the substance.â
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
17. Ethnography?
Ethnographic interviews
â˘
Video ethnography
â˘
Depth-interviews
â˘
Contextual research
â˘
Home visits
â˘
Experience modeling
â˘
Design research
â˘
User-centered design
â˘
Observational research
â˘
Camera studies
â˘
User safaris
â˘
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
18. Ethnography?
Ethnographic interviews
â˘
Video ethnography
â˘
Depth-interviews
â˘
What-ever!
Contextual research
â˘
Home visits
â˘
Experience modeling
â˘
Design research
â˘
User-centered design
â˘
Observational research
â˘
Camera studies
â˘
User safaris
â˘
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
19. Ethnography
Examine users (consumers or other) in their own context
â˘
â What are they doing
â What does it mean
Infer (interpret/synthesize/etc.)
â˘
â Find the connections
â The ethnographer is the âapparatusâ
Apply to business problems
â˘
â Use products, services, packaging, design to tell the right story
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
20. Benefits
Learning about yourself and your own culture by having an opportunity
â˘
to reflect it against things you didn't know
â Understand âsocial normsâ â i.e., how messy your house is
â Your own reaction is data
Human beings are judging beings
â˘
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
21. Techniques
Listening
â˘
Listening
â˘
Listening
â˘
â Listening
â Listening
Note: most people actually canât do this without extensive training and
â˘
practice
Listening is more than simply not talking when the other person talks
â˘
â How is what you do next, after they finish talking, influenced by what they just said,
or have said previously?
â Looks and feels like ordinary conversation â but isnât
Theater of interviewing â the video camera is an example of a quot;propquot;
â˘
(Goffman)
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
23. The Overlaps
Balancing a âplanâ with being in the moment
â˘
â In ethnography, an interview guide is used to anticipate the flow of the discussion,
but it can go in new directions â thatâs the surprise you are looking for â the
connections the user makes
â In improv, the basics of the game give structure, we have a beginning, and then we
âlook for the endingâ
âYes, andâ
â˘
â âIâm a crabâ â âNo, youâre a lobster with an attitude problemâ
â TiVo interview
â No wrong answers â suspending judgment
Make your best contribution by not talking
â˘
â Giving space to others
â Multiple interviewers
â Allow learning to happen
â Let there be silence interviewing technique
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
24. Learning By Doing
Things have meaning
â˘
â ClichĂŠs and other cultural shorthand
â Populate a scene with âspace propsâ â but everyone recognizes them!
Improv is a form of prototyping
â˘
â We don't know what it is until we play it out
New insights from being inside the experience
â˘
â Getting to another perspective requires being open and surrendering some of your
own perspective
â But also a process for getting there â these discoveries donât happen without work
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
25. A-ha
In interviews we experience âsynthesis in placeâ
â˘
â Not data collection for it's own sake, but to create and
achieve new insights and see new patterns
â Experiential, flow-like moments
â Silence the inner critic (or âgatekeeperâ) - get past the
âstackedâ ideas
â By bringing in energy and spontaneity
â By slowing down and bringing in silence (!)
â âHow do you know when itâs an important storyâ
â Spider-sense, camera zooming
In improv, weâre performers without a script
â˘
â âLook for the endingâ
â Know when the scene has hit its high point
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com
26. So What?
For our purposes, consider improv and ethno as
â˘
similar flipsides of the same coin â tools that
drive and inform innovation
Without being preachy, our list includes
â˘
â Listening
â Participatory learning
â Open-ended exploration (balanced with an agenda)
â Acting out/prototyping
â Yes, andâŚ
â Getting outside of your zone
â Understand the environment
â The learner facilitates the teacher (bottom-up vs. top-
down)
â Others?
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Š2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com