Design Ethnography

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction: Design as a Discipline of Alternation

   • Francis Müller

   Pages 1-6Open Access

3. The Blind Spot

   • Francis Müller

   Pages 7-11Open Access

4. The Everyday World and Intersubjectivity

   • Francis Müller

   Pages 13-19Open Access

5. Design Research: Immersion and Intervention

   • Francis Müller

   Pages 21-29Open Access

6. Methods and Aspects of Field Research

   • Francis Müller

   Pages 31-76Open Access

7. Analysis

   • Francis Müller

   Pages 77-86Open Access

8. Representation and Reporting

   • Francis Müller

   Pages 87-89Open Access

9. Epilogue

   • Francis Müller

   Pages 91-93Open Access

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.  

• Blind Spot
• Design Ethnography
• Design Research
• Epistemology
• Ethnographic Interview
• Ethnographic Observation
• Intervention
• Participative Action Research
• Visual Ethnography
• Open Access

• Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland

  Francis Müller

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.

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