guerilla usability is a creative outlet for
david evans, currently consulting on
design and software development.
i suddenly feel better about my time spent contributing to wikipedia, after watching this excellent talk by clay shirky at the recent web 2.0 conference. in it he theorizes that participation is the post-television peace dividend. highly recommend:
wow, current tv nails it. they parody the different social networking sites and especially ape the personas of the particular sites:
hilarious. i think their friendster was more of a xanga really. thanks to laughingsquid for pointing this out.
i saw a clip of Theo Jansen’s beach creatures before but in his ted talk he demonstrates both how they’re getting more sophisticated and also how he views them as a form of life.
is life merely the organized movement of a structure? or is that just how it all started and then it evolved somehow into something more than that? what a central question. in his recent evolution the beach creatures can now detect when they enter the water and count steps from the water’s edge. we must have begun as well in such humble first steps. perhaps these beautiful creatures are alive?
perhaps life is already present in any form of structural discipline and integrity. i think alan watts thought so.
a grad student on an ethnography email list i’m following just asked this question:
The practice of using ethnographic methods in business has been around for decades. However, the use of this type of researcher has increased greatly over the past 20 years. Many of the members of this list have been part of that history. In your opinion, based on what you have seen or experienced directly, what have been the events/people which/who have propelled the field forward or have had far-reaching impacts? Alternatively, what do you see as being important in the history of this work?
I’m sure there are people and specific events that have had far-reaching impacts, but really what I’ve noticed is a slow march toward inclusion and incorporation into the development process.
I’m not sure what it’s like at most large companies, but based on my few years working with smaller companies, i have some opinion as to how the value of research generally has increased. most of this relates to user research for design and user testing, as opposed to a roll more strictly defined as ethnography, because of the size of my clients. but perhaps my view is also generally useful. this is what i’ve seen (continued below the fold).