Ethnography Considered Harmful

Last in a series of "Considered Harmful" papers is Ethnography Considered Harmful by Andy Crabtree, Tom Rodden, Peter Tolmie from the University of Nottingham and Graham Button from Sheffield Hallam University. This paper argues that Computer Scientists have taken the ethnography to new and dangerous direction that skew the results of their analysis. I think that any analysis technique can be skewed, but as computers become more and more a part of everyday life, they become the same as any tools that any ethnographer has ever written about, and can then be used in many new ways of analysis. I do however agree with the paper in stating that design ethnographies should not jump to conclusions on rhetoric or deep analysis of actions to create a new design. Ethnographies should serve more of a purpose to find flaws in how people use computers today and how to fix them.