The Motherload is a look at the realities of contemporary motherhood in the time of post-pandemic pressures,...
Tag: COVID-19
How a Government Organisation Evolved to Embrace Ethnographic Methods for Service (and Team) Resilience: The Case of the Canadian Digital Service
Government websites and online services are often built with limited input from the people they serve. This approach limits their ability to respond to ever changing needs and contexts. This case study describes...
Anticipating the Unanticipated: Ethnography and Crisis Response in the Public Sector
This case study emphasizes the importance of ethnographic research in the public sector, specifically regarding emergency preparedness and crisis-response. In the summer of 2020, Surrey County Council in England commissioned a mixed-method Community Impact Assessment to better assist and serve...
Jobs Not To Be Done: Anti-Work Theory and the Resilience of Mutual Aid
This paper explores recent developments in anti-work theory to identify key learnings for ethnographers in industry. It focuses in particular on how anti-work perspectives allow us to rethink the managerial...
Architecture Can Heal: Spatial Literacy to Protect COVID-19 Healthcare Workers
In April 2020, a study of The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City was conducted to better understand the challenge of adapting idealized infection control design guides to site-specific conditions during a pandemic. The study aimed to capture quick interventions that are working, offer a new...
Harnessing Empathy To Scale A Healthtech Startup During The COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study Of myICUvoice, A Communication Tool Designed For Critical Care
This case study explores the scaling experience of an early-stage healthtech startup company called myICUvoice. During the Covid-19 pandemic, myICUvoice rapidly scaled from a single intensive care environment to being widely used nationally (UK) as well as globally. We explore why and how so many...
Debugging Distributed Teamwork: New Research
An EPIC2020 Sponsored Panel presented by Atlassian The Atlassian Research & Insights team commissioned a research study that involved thousands of workers across the globe to see how COVID-19 and the sudden shift to working from home has affected them. Atlassian looked inward, too, to find out...
Anticipating the Arrival of a Clean-Sensitive Driving Future
A leading automaker needed to safely study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic upon driver and passenger experience to effectively prioritize future in-vehicle features related to cleanliness. In this case study, we'll share our approach and retrospective learnings on how to understand,...
From the Space Station to the Sofa: Scales of Isolation at Work
Since March 2020, many employees around the world have been forced to work from home due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have experience in working in isolation and confinement. This paper focuses on a comparison of astronauts on the ISS and...
Resilience: Lessons from a Period of Disruption
What happens when the research lens is turned inward? As a Strategic Designer, I spend most of time planning for research to engage with people so I can better understand their needs and behaviors and turn...