What is ethnography?

Ethnography has its roots in social anthropology. An ethnography is a way of doing research. It involves participating, observing and describing how people from particular cultural groups respond to the situations they find themselves in.

Ethnographic research helps clients see with their own eyes what people actually do, how they live their daily lives and crucially to better understand the role of products and services within this context. It needs this to inspire understanding, challenge assumptions within businesses and organisations.

  • As a process it involves:
  • Gaining understandings of people through 1st hand experience - through engagement in the real world
  • Uncovering people's habits, beliefs and motivations within the different contexts they encounter
  • Understanding the meanings people attach to the things that they do
  • Understanding and recording the way people live their lives, which are unlike the narratives they relate, which are usually tidy, logical and in truth constructions of their day
  • Bringing these perspectives back to clients in a way that will drive strategic thinking
  • Naked Eye ethnographers pack a bag and video camera and go out and live with individuals and families for 2-3 days in order to come to understand how they view the world and how these ways of being can inform service and product design.
  • Naked Eye are interested in collaborating and helping clients think in new ways, finding new possibilities based on real life scenarios.

Why ethnography?

Our ethnography provides clients with close-up, intimate portraits of people’s experiences. It helps clients understand the cultural factors that influence and shape people’s behaviours. There is a real tension between peoples’ accounts of what they imagine they do, and what they do in reality. Our work helps clients see with their own eyes this difference.

Why video? All our work is film based because we love working with film - it’s transparent, credible, and vivid. It tells a good story. To understand human behaviour you have to observe it and decode it. We have developed innovative techniques to gain close up intimate accounts of what people see themselves doing. This helps make sense of people’s behaviours, their motivations and provides us with a unique way of reframing and seeing the everyday.

Anyone can film and we think film in itself isn’t worth much. Film needs to be analysed, edited and integrated in ways which will create meaning, feeling and drive strategic thinking.

How we work

Ethnographic research relies heavily on up-close, personal experience, empathy and participation, not just observation. Its aim is always to collect different accounts of people's customs, beliefs, and behaviours. The focus of the research be it a product or service is always centred and understood within the complexity of day-to-day living. This enables us to see its role, relevance and use in both functional and emotional terms in the context of their lives as they move through the different environments they encounter throughout the day.

Naked Eye ethnographers record participant's behaviours using digital video cameras. Participants are invited to view segments of the recorded material and share opinion. Co-viewing film is a joy. The contrast between what we think participants are doing versus what participants see themselves doing inspires us to see events in completely new ways.