Would you risk your life?

I recently read Jennifer Toth’s The Mole People. The following are some of my own thoughts. Please enjoy.

In class, we have been discussing user studies and ethnographies. Both are essentially the observation of people. Traditionally, studies conducted by computer scientist are very short, half-hour to a full hour. There is a lot of information that may be missed by using such short observation periods. The end result is an inferior product. While The Mole People may not be directly related to computer science, it is an ethnography. The book allowed me to see the results of a longer observation period. She stayed long enough to get to know the individual people and the way that they lived. If she had only gone underground for a half-hour, then there is no way that she could have found out near as much as she did. Actually, I think that we would have been presented with a very different view. Without time to get to know people, here findings would have had to be based upon her initial impressions alone. I have a new found respect for people that are willing to put there lives on the line in order to pursue knowledge. While I am convinced that longer observation periods are necessary, I am still not ready to risk my life to find out how people use products. Luckily for me most user/product studies don’t involve life threatening danger.