Words are Tricky: Creating shared understanding with Ethnography

©2016 Kevin Matheny
Words are Tricky
Creating shared understanding with Ethnography

Hello, world!
• I’m Kevin Matheny
• Agile coach, Web architect, recovering VP, bourbon dork
• Anthropologist

Today I want to
• Demonstrate why communication is hard
• Explain why that’s a problem
• Give you techniques for
 Discovering information
 Increasing understanding
 Documenting knowledge
(And maybe teach you a bit about Anthropology, the Simpsons and Whisk(e)y…)

We have a problem

Words do not
have fixed
meanings
Image © User:Bidgee / Wikimedia Commons

Language is complex
• Denotations
 Direct meaning
 Explicit
 Factual (?)
• Connotations
 Implied meanings
 Implicit
 Emotional
Image © User:SuHoGo / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0

The meaning of words is contextual
• Cultural context
• Social context
• Temporal context
• Physical context
• And lots of assumptions

Image © Brian Marick

Let’s go shopping!
• I am in the market for a new pickup
• I want to replace the one I have now
• I don’t use it too often
• I am open to new or used
• I don’t want to pay too much
• I want good quality
• What brands do you recommend?

This is what I mean
Image © joko471@hotmail.com, from wikipedia

Okay, so what’s the
big deal?

If you don’t
know what
they really
mean, how
do you
know you’re
building the
right thing?

Let’s learn some
techniques

Ethnographic
Interviewing
• Developed in the 70s
• Still in use today
• Powerful yet easy to learn

Topics
• Interviewing
• “Folk terms” and domains of meaning
• Structural questions
• Taxonomies
• Contrast questions
• Paradigms

Interviewing
How we start to learn

Why interviews?
• We want to understand someone’s perspective
• People know themselves best
• In-person, direct interviews generate the highest
information flow

#protip: Talk to actual
SMEs
• If you want to understand a bartender’s
life, talk to bartenders
• Salespeople, customer service, product
managers – these are NOT substitutes
for actual customers
• You are not a substitute for an actual
customer
Image © 20th Century Fox

#protip: Interviews are not
conversations
• More formal
• Repetition
• Question/answer
• Build rapport
 apprehension -> explanation -> cooperation -> participation

Getting started
• Ask Grand Tour questions to start – “Please tell me about
a typical night at Moe’s Tavern, from start to finish”
• Focus with the Mini-Tour – “Tell me about taking a big
order.”
• Ask about variations – “Tell me about a slow night” or
“Tell me about a really busy night”

#protip: Ask for use, not meaning
• Informants will use translation competence to explain –
you do NOT want this!
• Don’t ask “why”
• Ask for natural language – “How would you describe this
to another bartender?”

Folk Terms and
Domains
Capturing information

Folk Terms
• These are the words people use with specific meaning in
their culture
• Many of them are nouns
• Some are verbs
• A few are adjectives and adverbs
• “Homer is a regular” and “Marge usually orders some
kind of umbrella drink, like a Mai Tai”

Domains
• These are sets of things in the informant’s world
• Customers
• Drinks
• Parts of the bar
• They probably don’t categorize the same way you do!

Write it all down
• Take notes during interviews
• Write down key words and phrases
• Record sessions if you can (ask permission!)
• Don’t worry about structure or if you understand things,
focus on capturing the information

Structural Questions
Discovering how people organize information

Adding structure to information
• Structural questions…
 Reveal relationships between things
 Find gaps in information
 Validate what you’ve discovered

Sample structural questions
• “You said customers will order a Bloody Mary with a beer
chaser….”
 “Are there other kinds of chasers?”
 “Could someone order a chaser without a Bloody Mary?”
 “Is a Bloody Mary a kind of thing? What’s the name for that?”
• “You said Homer was a regular customer. Are there other
kinds of customers?”
• Ask about types or kinds, or pose hypotheticals

Taxonomies
Make pictures to understand structure

Visualizing relationships
• Taxonomies are all around us
 Web Navigation
 Dewey Decimal System
 Grocery store aisles
• Taxonomies are categorization systems
 How we categorize and organize tells us what we think is
important
 Inuit have 53 words for snow
 Sami have 1000 words for reindeer
 Things which are closer together are similar (for us)

Build a taxonomy for key domains
• Simple taxonomy
 Types/kinds of things
 Parts of things
• Complex taxonomy
 Cause/effect

A simple
taxonomy
of my
home bar
Blanton's
Booker's
Bulleit
Woodford Reserve
Four Roses
Elijah Craig
Koval
Evan Williams
Blended Whiskey Campfire
Joke beer
Cheap beer
Hoppy beer
Stuff I like
White
Dessert
Ruby
Red
Cabernet Sauvignon
FEW
Tawny
Shiraz/Syrah
Caymus
Other
Liqueur
Other
Gin
Beer
Brown Bourbon
Port
Clear
Liquor
Whisk(e)y
Vodka
Scotch Whisky
Irish Whiskey
Wine
Monkey 47
Cleaning
Drinking
Rum
Other

Contrast Questions
Discovering how we differentiate

Understanding decisions
• What differentiates the stuff within a category?
• How do people make decisions and judgments?
• We want insights about how people understand their
world
 Coke and Pepsi are both soft drinks, but I like Coke (because?)
 Chef and Puppet are both configuration management systems –
what differentiates them for this audience?

Finding dimensions of contrast
• Pile sort
 Write out the terms in a domain
 Ask the informant to make two or more piles
 For each pile, ask why
 Note that as a dimension of contrast
 Repeat
• Triadic sort
 Choose 3 terms at random
 Ask “Which two are the same, and how are they different from the
third?”
 Note and repeat

Discovering contrast values
• Use Directed Contrast questions to discover the values of
dimensions for each member of a domain
• “You said a Mint Julep is a seasonal drink. What other drinks are
seasonal drinks?”
• “Is a Mint Julep an umbrella drink?”

Paradigms
Adding dimension to taxonomy

Hierarchy is not enough
• Many decisions involve complex attributes
 Especially choices between types
 Chef vs. Puppet
 Coke vs. Pepsi
 Blanton’s vs. Booker’s
• Visualizing this helps us understand decision-making and
priorities

How to build one
• Simple grid showing dimensions of contrast
• Set of things on the left
• Dimensions across the top
• Values in each box
• #protip: use a reference key if the values get long to keep
the table easy to read

A simple paradigm of my bourbons
Intended
use
G
ift?
Special occasion
Location
Strength
Blanton's Sipping No Yes Office Regular
Booker's Mixing Yes No Cabinet Cask
Bulleit Sipping No No Cabinet Regular
Woodford Reserve Sipping No No Cabinet Regular
Four Roses Mixing No No Cabinet Regular
Elijah Craig Mixing No No Cabinet Regular
Koval TBD Yes No Cabinet Regular
Evan Williams Mixing No No Cabinet Regular

Putting it all together

It’s a process
Interviewing
Folk Terms &
Domains
Structural
Questions
Taxonomy
Contrast
Questions
Paradigm
• Interviews generate Folk Terms and Domains
• Taxonomies organize information
• Paradigms illuminate decision-making

Get your head in the right place
• It’s all about increasing understanding
• Understand someone’s language and perspective
• Increase your chance of building the right thing

To learn more…
• James Spradley,
The Ethnographic
Interview
• Stefan Gabányi,
Whisk(e)y
• Groening and
Richmond, The
Simpsons, A Complete
Guide to Our Favorite
Family

Questions?
@kevinmatheny on Twitter

Thank you!
• Kevin Matheny
• @kevinmatheny on Twitter

Words are Tricky: Creating shared understanding with Ethnography

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