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EverydayLives: An iPhone app for ethnography

By Kara Pecknold - December 22, 2009

in Tech

EverydayLives is a UK-based research agency that focuses their attention on ethnographic research. This week they released "a sophisticated research tool designed by ethnographic researchers for ethnographic researchers, field anthropologists, agency planners, marketers and research respondents" and it comes in the form of a convenient iPhone app. We think designers could benefit from this tool, as it would complement our research activities perfectly. And it reduces all that cumbersome equipment often required for in depth inquiry. Using this tool, you can capture video, photos, text and audio and then immediately share any outcomes with clients, colleagues or participants while in the field. We stumbled across a preview video that shows the app in action. And if you aren't an iPhone user, word on the street is that a Blackberry version is in the works.

Available now at the iTunes store.

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Dan Rockwell

15 years ago

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This is an interesting app. Its actually set up more from a research participant vs researcher frame of mind. I'm a bit puzzled on how the actual use of it would play out. In some ways it appears pretty tied to whatever methodology that Everyday Lives uses for ethnography based gigs. Like themes, you need to explain that, here a real detailed use case would be hugely beneficial in understanding how this app should be used. It may be perfect for them but not highly flexible for me.

This app really focuses around getting participants to document their experiences and send the data to the researcher. The problem is pretty obvious though- your participants either A- have to have iphones and buy this app to participate in your study or B- you send them the iPhone with the App on it. I suppose you could even do C- research fills in all the specifics about the family on the app so that the family doesn't have to get too lost in laying out the groundwork and just focuses on capturing good data.

For $11 its pricey given that right outa the gate I'm at a loss as to how to tie this app to my methodologies. Its telling me how to structure my gigs which is where the app sorta falls on its face for me, if your a tool in my tool box you need to bend to my will not me bending to yours. The other problem is the data collection on the back end, its simple email- every moment is just emailed to a researcher. Its not processed and organized into any real detail.. which to me screams unfinished. I'll give Everyday Lives props for pushing out the first supposed "ethnography" app but it falls short on where it needs to be for my work and my research team.

Also while it may be the first app to use the term "ethnography" on its descriptive label, its definitely not the first ethno type app on the iPhone. Lately I've been using StoryRobe to document experiences, and its really geared at story telling for kids apparently. Soon I hope to release my own twist on ethno data collection apps on the iPhone.
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