Ethnography: Ellen Isaacs at TEDxBroadway

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40 years ago if you sat in front of a

computer this is what you would see a

blinking cursor waiting patiently for

you to tell it what to do if you wanted

to see your files you would type LS for

list and then it would show you your

files like this they'd all look the same

even though some might be text some

might be

images and but now if you want to see

your files you just open up the folder

and you look and you can see some are

text some are images because they look

that way if you wanted to move a file

from one folder to another you would

type MV for move the name of the file

Isaac bio. do and then something like

dot do do do talks which is the location

of the destination folder local relative

to the current

folder now you drag the file from one

folder to

another we take this visual display of

our files and folders for granted but

somebody had to think of that at a time

when everybody who used computers typed

those kinds of cryptic commands somebody

had to First notice that this wasn't so

easy and second think of a better way to

do it someone had to think that you

could draw little pictures of files and

folders on the screen and manipulate

them by dragging a little box around on

the tabletop well those people were deg

angelart and Alan Kay angelart invented

the mouse and K invented what's called

graphical user interfaces at the time

Alan Kay worked at Xerox Park in

California which is where I work work

today and in 1971 he said the best way

to predict the future is to invent it

and that's what he did so this is at a

time when computers look like this giant

boxes of technology and big rooms hooked

up to these terminals which is where you

type those commands they were very

expensive so you had to share them and

people would sign up for time on the

computer so it's not surprising that at

a time like this Ken Olen the head of a

very big computer company called digital

said there's no way any would want a

computer in the

home somebody had to think that you

could take all that technology and

compress it into a little box that would

sit on the desktop and it would be

dedicated to just one person's use so

that's something we all take for granted

now but at the time that would be

extravagant well those people worked at

Xerox Park and they in 1973 they

invented the alto the first graphical

personal computer and that led to the

Apple Macintosh the IBM PC and now all

the Slick desktop laptop and tablet

computers that we all use

today so we're here today talking about

the best of what Broadway can be and I

think that the reason that I was invited

here is that the organizers were hoping

that some of that magic from the early

Park scientist is still lingering in the

Halls where I

work revealing to me a vision of where

you will be in 20 years well I'm afraid

that hasn't happened but there is one

bit of Park magic that I can share with

you and it has to do with a method that

you can use to figure it out called

ethnography so let's go back to the

1980s when a Xerox copier took up an

entire

room there was another Park scientist

Lucy suchman and she had the idea that

maybe if you're Building Technology for

people you should watch them using it so

she decided to watch some people using a

Z's copy or she grabbed a couple of her

colleagues from down the hall and she

asked them to make copies so I'm going

to show you a short clip of a video from

this historic video of these two people

making copies

Place 1 to 50 Originals well wait a

minute I have 100

Originals face

up place all Originals against the left

wall we want two-sided copies unload top

paper tray now do we want them collated

what reverse order the originals got to

be

kidding this is definitely a bug press

this

start does that relate to that unad Pap

that's not this that's not the paper

tray it doesn't say what the paper tray

is H so our first batch our

first it's

so what is that out

of well we sure did come up with a lot

of

paper so it's hard turn that that those

two people from down the hall are

world-renowned computer scientists one

of them went on to win the equivalent of

the Nobel Prize in computer

science so clearly the problem is not

that the people are dumb the problem was

with the design of The copier today it

is now common practice for companies to

do what's called usability testing but

back then it wasn't done Lucy suchman

had to think of it and she went further

she realized that you could use observe

people not just to figure out how to

make their products easier to use but

also to figure out what products to

build in in the first place so this

practice of observing people in their

natural environments to understand their

needs is called ethnography at the time

it was an academic practice it grew out

of anthropology musy suchman was the

first one to apply it to

Industry so even today not everybody

uses ethnography most companies will try

to understand their customers needs by

asking them directly using tools like

focus groups or surveys but asking

people to tell you what they want gets

you only so far as the anthropologist

marget need said what people say what

people do and what people say they do

are entirely different things when

people do their jobs or just any

ordinary activity much of what you do

just becomes invisible to you it's just

what you do but if you watch people you

start to realize a lot of times people

are working around their tools and it's

these gaps or problems people work

people work around that are

opportunities for Innovation the thing

is a lot of times when you point them

out to people they'll say well sure it's

obvious that's a problem but they don't

think to tell you about it when you ask

to notice it you have to get out and

watch so I like to think of my job as an

ethnographer like this you sit and you

watch the chaos that is human behavior

and if you're patient and you watch for

a while and you have a naive State of

Mind you start to notice insights that

are obvious after you point them out you

start to notice the hidden obvious well

how does this work what is ethnography

like well let me give you two examples

from my work so the last couple of years

I've been studying parking now I realize

parking is an odd place to go looking

for technology opportunities uh but we

all know New York is especially the

parking is an area where there's a lot

of problems and a lot of needs not being

met so to study parking my colleagues

and I have spent a lot of times hanging

around on street corners watching cars

parking trucks

unloading Enforcement Officers giving

tickets and we've seen a lot of things

you might expect and some that you might

not

so one of the things that we started to

notice gradually was the parking signs

and how difficult it can be to tell the

one thing you want to know quickly can I

park here now in the few seconds you

have as your driving by so I'm going to

show you a sign for about that amount of

time and I want you to figure out can

you park here now let's say it's

Wednesday early in the morning at 700

a.m. can you park here now

okay let's look again okay this is hard

not just because there's so much going

on but you'll notice that Wednesday is

not mentioned and 7: a.m. is not in any

of the time ranges so you have to infer

that because it's not covered you can

park here at least to the left of the

signs okay here's another one it's 3

p.m. can you stop here

now okay let's look again so the bottom

sign says no parking at 3 p.m. so that

implies that you can stop and the top no

stopping sign doesn't cover 3 p.m. so

that implies again you can you have to

figure out that you can stop here okay

and here's one more where I challenge

you to figure out what you can do here

at any

[Laughter]

time so the problem here is that parking

signs focus on restrictions know this

know that when what you want to know is

what you can do now when I say it like

this it seems obvious but when you go

and you ask people to tell you what are

some of your problems you have with

parking they generally don't go

complaining and saying you know parking

signs are difficult to read quickly as

you drive by because they focus on

restrictions to really understand this

you have to get out and watch and it can

take a while we because we were looking

at so many different aspects of parking

the signs didn't really come into Focus

for us until the fourth city and over a

thousand photos and videos once we

noticed it it was obvious so what could

you do about this well one thing you

could do is redesign the signs and so

here's there's one possible way you

could design that second sign and it's

on the right you see it's organized by

time of day from morning through night

so at any time you can find now and then

you can just look to the right and see

can I park green Yes red no orange

there's some kind of restriction like

here it's deliveries only and if you

want to be kind to Internationals you

could include

symbols okay so that's one example of

how ethnography found an unmet need let

me give you another one so we noticed a

lot of times when we were out looking

that there were a lot of loading zones

marked by yellow curbs that weren't

being used here we are looking for a

parking spot and it's just loading as

far as the eye can see and not very many

trucks using it and yet we can't park on

the other hand we saw a lot of times

when trucks were trying to make

deliveries and couldn't find a loading

zone and since they have to park near

where they're going to be delivering

they get creative so they double Park

and they Block in cars both diagonal and

parallel they Park in the median

blocking cars from turning left they

Park in the cross cross walk blocking

people from crossing the street and they

park on the

sidewalk so the problem here is that

loading zones take up precious parking

resources and yet they don't really meet

the need again I point this out seems

obvious but when we talk to people about

their parking problems they don't say

loading zones are inefficient they say

there's not enough parking so what can

you do about this well what you really

like to do is to have the spots for

loading when they're needed and then

make them available to everyone else

when they're not so this is something

we're doing right now we have built a

prototype parking meter that can change

its state from parking to loading no

parking in other states and since trucks

have GPS's oops so they have GPS's and

they know uh where they're going um we

can take a spot and change it from

parking to loading and then when they

come and they Park they can put it back

to

parking okay so what does all this have

to do with

Broadway well what I'm trying to say is

that well I don't know what you need to

do to make Broadway the best it can be

you can get some ideas by using

ethnography it's a very general tool

we've used it in many different domains

hospitals nursing call centers retail

stores young people using mobile devices

lots more and you could use it on

Broadway so you could accompany a family

as they're spending a day out on

Broadway or you could watch someone is

they're planning a day for or an evening

for a night out and a show or you could

just hang out at the tickets booth and

watch people buying tickets or people

checking into hotels or people choosing

a restaurant or window shopping or going

to a show all those things and maybe if

you're patient and you do it for a while

and you keep a naive state of mind maybe

you will discover the hidden obvious

maybe you'll be the one to think of a

novel idea that people will take for

granted in 20 years thank you

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