Putting ethnography to work: the case for a cognitive ethnography of design

The methods of ethnography and cognitive psychology are frequently set in o pposition to each other. Whilst such a view may be appropriate in defining pure, or prototypical, classes of each activity, the value and necessity of such a distinction is broken down when researchers are goal-directed to st udy complex work domains in order to foster technological change. In this p aper, we outline a rapprochement of these methods, which we term cognitive ethnography. The value of qualifying ethnography in this way is to emphasiz e systematically the differences between ethnography as a radial category a nd the kinds of legitimate method used to study work practices which are of ten referred to as ethnographic, but which in practice differ in important ways from prototypical ethnographic studies. Features of cognitive ethnogra phy such as observational specificity, verifiability and purposivenes chall enge many of the tenets of a pure ethnographic method, yet they are essenti al for studies that are undertaken to inform technological change. We illus trate our arguments with reference to a project to develop a tool for suppo rting design re-use in innovative design environments. (C) 2000 Academic Pr ess.