Ok, so there have been some important HSC developments regarding the CHI 2008 design project. Normally, if you are conducting research for a course grade and not planning to publish the study it is alright to proceed with the project without HSC approval. This is UNLESS the target population being researched is a “vulnerable subject population,” which the homeless in fact are. SO, this means that researchers will not be able to directly gather data about homeless people. This stems from a student question to the HSC committee about getting a homeless shelter employee to deploy a cultural probe with one of their clientele (e.g. a homeless citizen). One of the major problems in this instance revolves around consent and the possibility that homeless citizens will feel pressured into taking part in the study even if they don’t want to (which alludes to broader concerns regarding power structure and intrusion of privacy). Additionally, it appears that most research methods to directly study the local homeless population will be problematic from a research ethics/human subjects research regulation point of view.
Archive for October, 2007
EPIC 2007
This year’s EPIC (Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference) covered a lot of topics relevant to I543 including, among other things, novel methods for probing user experience, the role of ethnography within the design process (and design research), distinctions between design ethnography and traditional anthropological ethnography, and translating ethnographic insights into valuable business considerations. I uploaded a variety of different papers from the EPIC 2007 proceedings preview to the I543 course resources on OnCourse. It’s evident that, now more than ever, understanding and designing for user experience is becoming the focal point of industry research. EPIC is growing quickly and will be an important venue for industry and academia alike to keep their finger on the pulse of ethnography’s shifting role within design research. For a more in depth description, I suggest you check Jeff’s perspective on EPIC 2007.
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