Using ethnographic methods to strengthen your strategy
Old-school CX/UX approaches are solution-first: companies launch solutions into the world and then create customer and employee "feedback" programs so that they can discover how their solution has been received.
In contrast, modern CX/UX and product strategies start with exploration: companies start by learning deeply about their customers and identifying the root problems and needs that people have. Only after they’ve done their best learning will organizations launch solutions and the feedback programs to go with them.
How might organizations identify their customers’ root problems and needs?
By using ethnographic research.
What is ethnographic research?
Ethnographic research is a qualitative method for learning how people live and act in their day-t0-day environments. It focuses on understanding behavioral patterns of groups of people, sometimes called subcultures.
A subculture, as understood for business purposes, can be a customer segment—a group of people who have specific needs or problems that your business is interested in solving. For example, if you’re in the business of offering healthcare solutions, the subculture you’d serve might include the patients, doctors, families, and other care providers who share an understanding of what it’s like to live with a certain medical condition.
As a methodology, ethnographic research falls into the bucket of “field research” or “contextual research.” It’s research that takes place right there with people, in their worlds.
Researchers can use a blend of methods when conducting an ethnographic study:
Contextual interviewing (e.g., asking people how they do their work while they demonstrate what they do)
Observation of certain activities or flows
Artifact analysis (e.g., looking at what people use as tools and workarounds)
Spatial mapping
Relationship and hierarchy mapping
Listening for language patterns (e.g., jargon or slang that a group uses to describe what they do)
How ethnographic methods feed strategy
Ethnographic research (and similar forms of “field research”) is one of the best ways to dive into problem spaces. When you observe people in action—in the spaces where they normally live and work—you can see first-hand what, how, and why they experience what they do.
Ethnography thus helps teams understand the underlying mental models, patterns, and barriers that people experience. When you understand root causes of why people do what they do, you have the best opportunity to design businesses, products, and services that fulfill genuine needs.
Rather than launching an assumption-based solution and then waiting for customer feedback, you can put your very best, evidence-based solution into the world.
Additionally, ethnographic methods help you serve people who might not have access to traditional customer feedback mechanisms, such as surveys and other digital tools. They can also help you learn from people who aren’t yet your customers. Talking to people who are outside of your customer base but still in your target market can help you better understand the gaps in experience that your company can evolve to fulfill.
A case study: Improving employee communications
I once worked for a retail company that was trying to improve its internal communication systems for employees. Their goal was to ensure field employees—those who worked in retail stores, distribution centers, and the call center—knew about the latest initiatives and benefits.
The company had hired a PR consulting firm to help them figure out what to do. Aiming for an employee-centered experience, the PR firm sent out surveys to ask employees what they wanted.
The employees who responded to the surveys reported that communications weren’t streamlined, so the PR firm assumed that communication software would solve the company’s problems. The PR firm then advised the the company to license a digital tool that promised to improve employee communications.
I later joined the company as a design strategist. As part of my onboarding, I met with a few employee groups and outreach coordinators. Although I hadn’t started any formal research yet, my early get-to-know-you meetings heightened my awareness of the many employee subcultures that existed at the company. I knew that their working environments, schedules, and access to technology varied greatly by role and department.
So when I joined the team that was launching the digital communications tool, I knew that there was more learning we still needed to do.
I crafted a research plan that included ethnographic research among employee groups. We’d pursue a few areas of inquiry:
What were the major employee roles in the field, and how did they differ?
What were the working relationships among the employees as patterns of interaction? What communication pathways were currently in place?
What hardware did each employee group and role have access to in their day-to-day? What software, if any, did they use?
How much time did they have during their daily workflows to access any digital communication?
What workarounds had they created?
We met with a few employee groups in each field area and watched them work. We asked some “show me” questions: “Would you mind showing me how you…?” We walked around the various facilities and studied the artifacts: notes on the wall, billboards that were used with frequency, computers in the corners that were dusty, unused, and ignored. We mapped out physical spaces where employees worked and where hardware was stationed.
What we learned from this research were a few important takeaways: many of the employee groups that the PR firm thought could be reached through new software didn’t even have access to hardware. They were a deskless workforce that used their hands. Some other subgroups had hardware but no time. Policies were the barrier.
This research taught us that the company would require a robust and cohesive EX strategy—one that moved into the realms of company policy, manager communication training, signage, and hardware procurement—in order to solve its communication problems. A software solution alone wasn’t the answer, just as the original employee survey had not uncovered the true needs.
Ethnographic research—meeting people in their own contexts—was the key to unlocking genuine value for both employees and the business.