Insight into Jan Chipchase's Field Study Masterclass
A masterclass with one of the world’s best ethnographic researchers for design is not quite the affair you would expect. We go deep into the key insights we took away from Jan Chipchase’s first ever New Zealand masterclass.
The day started with being dropped off at the bottom of a steep driveway, in a quiet residential street in Wellington. Picking our way up the hill, we were met by a few others looking slightly lost. We walk curiously around the corner, and the sight we see instantly envelopes us in the sense that this will be a workshop unlike any other.
To set the scene, Jan Chipchase was previously the Executive Creative Director of Global Insights at Frog Design. He is now the founder of Studio D Radiodurans, a studio that provides international research, design and strategy services to multinational clients. They are the global experts at international user and consumer ethnographic research. The masterclasses are designed for anyone creating products and services for an international audience. Two themes are interwoven through the masterclass; how humans make sense of the world, and the art and science of running international field studies.
Jan’s master-classes are rare, but have spanned the globe; for example Copenhagen, Helsinki, London, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Singapore, Shanghai. Past attendees have included Adidas, Airbnb, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Shopify, Twitch, Uber and most of the world’s major consultancies. This was Jan Chipchase’s first master-class in New Zealand, and was limited to only 20 attendees. It’s fair to say in the design and research field, Jan is a bit of a super hero, so we felt very privileged to attend.
Jumping back to the present, let me paint a picture for how the workshop commenced; you walk into a beautiful, modern house. The open plan kitchen and living space has about 20 people walking around in their socks, mug of coffee in hand, engaging in conversations with an undertone of excitement. It’s warm and instantly inviting, like arriving at a dinner party full of your friends. Jan is floating around in his socks and a casual hoodie, chatting to everyone and making sure they have a drink in hand.
Once everyone was equipped with their drink of choice, we moved into the living room. We squeezed onto couches shoulder to shoulder, sat on cushions on the floor, or pulled over dining chairs. This set the tone for the whole experience. A room with some of the brightest minds in New Zealand design, but everyone was on the same level, in our colourful socks, sitting squished together on the couch.
The day was a variety of focused talks, hands-on activities and group discussion. The workshop gave practical takeaways for how to organise and conduct international fieldwork, as well as specific tips for conducting sessions with participants. But a number of boarder insights also emerged, that could be beneficial for all, not just those involved in international fieldwork.
Let’s go through some of the insights that really stood out to us:
Using location to achieve the optimal state of flow
Jan explored a variety of techniques to overcome the challenges of working with a newly-formed, cross-cultural or any team and achieve a state of flow.
Firstly, visualise the accommodation of your typical business trip. The picture in your head is probably a hotel, and everyone has an individual room and bathroom. Jan rents a house. All members of the team co-exist together, cooking breakfast together, navigating shared bathrooms and even sharing bedrooms if they choose.
Traditionally, this sounds frankly pretty intimidating and unprofessional. There is something very vulnerable about seeing your boss and team members in their pyjamas. But Jan explained how in a few days, barriers break down, connections are formed, and the team has gelled.
I would be dubious if we had not all experienced this exact phenomena at the workshop. It is hard to articulate the level of connection that was built throughout the day and the immense benefit this bought to the learning environment.
The second part of this is Jan chooses a house in the environment of the research subjects. This could mean an apartment in suburban Shanghai, or a house in Myanmar. What better way to deeply learn and make sense of participants than living in their environment. How can one truly understand the lives of the community while staying in the comfort of a hotel chain? It’s one of those pieces of wisdom that seems like absolute common sense, of course you would, yet the norm remains in the comfort zone of ‘professionalism’ and hotels.
Cultural Norms and Biases
A common theme across the day was the relevance of cultural norms and how these are formed based on values and beliefs. It is very important to realise cultural norms before going into market, and to build in-market research teams with a variety of cultural norms to enable a high cultural dimension to surface in your research insight.
Any new environment you enter at first is always hard to decipher or make sense. Feelings of culture shock can mostly track back to a lack of personal understanding of cultural norms and why some places make you feel uncomfortable.
Jan explored a ‘rapid calibration’ technique his teams use when they enter a new environment. This technique is based around finding the similarities, comparisons and consistencies across to a region you know well.
Take a McDonalds or long-distance train station around the world, sit down, write notes and simply ask why about everything. Initially they are all the same, yet subtly they are different - culturally. These multinationals spend millions on connecting a mass offering locally in a given market and all researchers can gain quick and invaluable insight in places like this. Why is this burger served ever-so-slightly different in Amsterdam to Indonesia? It’s different for key cultural reasons and these observations provide valuable cues for calibration.
Human behaviour as an anchor for thinking about the future
There was a key quote Jan made that, I think I can vouch for everyone, left us with an ‘aha’ moment.
“We don’t know what the future looks like, but we have a good idea for motivations that will drive behaviour in any given context, regardless of when they occur.”
We know that in 10 years we will be using products that did not exist today. It’s very easy to feel anxiety and a sense of powerlessness for what the future holds. But this piece of wisdom casts some light and certainty in an area which rarely has any. Because its true, there is a huge pool of wisdom most companies aren’t properly utalising: ethnographic data.
Although the future is a mystery, we can gain a good idea of motivations that will drive behaviour in any given context. Because the world around us may change, but fundamentally human behaviour does not.
Fuel your organisational metabolism
A key anecdote that resonated with us was how Jan compared data to food. Qualitative and analytical data is like fast food. It’s quick and easy to get, its cheap, but it’s not great quality. It explains the what and how, but not the why. It’s a quick fix, but in the long term it isn’t that beneficial for your body.
Comparatively, qualitative data is that nourishing dish that takes hours to create. It takes time and effort to prepare, and it is more costly. But it cuts no corners, offers an experience that lives on and is part of a wholesome diet for the future. Qualitative data is the only way to understand the ‘why’ and get true insight and wisdom from data.
Companies need to decide what type of data they want to consume. Is it okay to rely on the easily accessible what and how data? Or do they need to invest in a healthier diet of qualitative data to understand their why?
More key points of wisdom:
Decompression: At the end of the in-market time, Jan recommends setting aside 2-3 days in-market to decompress and bounce back to life before heading home. In-market research is intense and tiring so this is designed to give them a chance to recuperate before going back to their work/home roles and makes this form of work more sustainable long term.
Local researchers: Don’t use local researchers as researchers as they don’t understand the company context.
Forming connections: It’s actually very easy to form connections in a new environment, the biggest barrier is believing that it cannot be done.
The 1:5:2 Rule: For every eight hires of fixers and guides, approximately one gets fired, five will do a good job as expected, and two will be above and beyond and show you how naive you were. This is natural and expected!
Retrospective: Always do a retrospective looking at who were the best interviewees and go back to them and then form your own network.
Team alignment: When things are complex, challenging and uncertain, it’s often small rituals that help calm, connect and centre us, providing an ability to cope. For Jan it is finding out what each member of his team’s drink of choice is and making it for them in the morning.
Uncomfortable topics: Be open about the uncomfortable sides of research. Love to photograph something personal but scared to ask? Ask the participant if they would be comfortable of taking a photograph for you that they would be comfortable with. Been tasked to talk to the participant about a difficult/taboo topic? Be open about it and discuss a way to navigate the topic together. The easy option usually is to skirt around difficult areas and assume it’s better not to bring up. Indeed, it is always a matter of good judgement, but Jan emphasised the value in simply being transparent.
We left the workshop completely inspired. Ethnographic research is one of those innately interesting things for designers; it seems the whole world is bursting with insight. It is also absolutely an art form to conduct successful field studies, especially across cultures. If you’ve been inspired to improve your company’s data metabolism, we have put a number of links below to some awesome teams we know of.
Jan Chipchase: https://studiodradiodurans.com/
Launchsight (NZ based): https://www.launchsight.nz/
Nick Bowmast (NZ based): http://www.bowmast.com/
