Advancing the Value of Ethnography

Tag: service design

The Transformative Power of Singular Stories: Making the Case for Qualitative Evidence in Healthcare Contexts in Colombia

The Transformative Power of Singular Stories: Making the Case for Qualitative Evidence in Healthcare Contexts in Colombia

Case Study—In this case study we describe how we collaborated with a Colombian healthcare provider company and enabled its decision makers to understand the power of stories and other types of qualitative evidence in healthcare contexts. The stories became a tool for recognizing singularities in a...

Midway Atoll

Midway Atoll

PechaKucha Presentation We live our lives in contexts of overlapping systems. Developing the skill to connect dots of evidence between social, ecological and economic evidence offers the potential for more effective interventions in complex challenges. Sarah Brooks, Sarah Brooks’ teaching and...

Working for Social Change

Working for Social Change

No matter the source of your employment, whether in the commercial sector or academia, we all want our work lives to add up to something positive. Yet it is easy to wonder how this or that project actually affected the world for better or worse. What can we do to make the next project better? How...

Human-Centered Research in Policymaking

Human-Centered Research in Policymaking

Article 5 in the series Data, Design and Civics: Ethnographic Perspectives "[Aims] such as unslumming slums, catalyzing diversity, nurturing lively streets, are unrecognized today as objectives of city planning. Therefore, planners and the agencies of action that carry out plans possess neither...

The Concierge Diaries: Research by Analogy

The Concierge Diaries: Research by Analogy

The Concierge has been a ubiquitous staple of the service industry for centuries. How has this industry stood the test of time, and what can we learn from the analog Concierge that might inform better digital experiences? Is there a ‘secret-sauce’ that can be applied to other channels? In today’s...

Service Designing the City

Service Designing the City

Abstract: From cataclysmic recessions to unprecedented climate disasters, our cities seem awash with unintended consequences borne of complex times. While city administrations grapple with developing systemic supports, our infrastructure, communities and individual wellbeing are increasingly...