Inviting Ethnographic Conversations to Inspire Design: Towards a Design Research Method

Abstract

In this study, we explore how designers made sense of user narratives that are generated through casual conversations in the context of discursively informed design. Our aim is to propose a method for utilizing these narratives in idea generation process. To do this, we designed a special process at which 13 designers voluntarily participated: First, we provided the designers with user narratives and gave them a design task we previously formulated. Then, we asked them to read and identify the contents that stimulated any design ideas accordingly. After that, we had conversations with the designers on the narratives, the design ideas they generated and how they related them altogether. Finally, we conducted a qualitative content analysis on the outcomes of this process and developed a method to help designers in systematically interpreting user narratives through four different categories of design implications.