ABSTRACT
One of the most central characteristics of the design anthropology presented here is also an enduring one, namely a direct emphasis on the utility, and indeed, the necessity of ethnographic methods for a humanist kind of design that accounts for the lived cultural worlds inhabited by designed things and their users. Ethnographic fieldwork is not what it used to be. The sites ethnographers visit are not configured as they were when anthropology first emerged as a discipline. There are many more ethnographic methods than note taking, transcription, and participant observation, of course, some that have come and gone and others that have more recently surfaced. The ethnocharrette is an augmentation of the charrette form tailored to the needs of ethnographers. Finally, design and ethnography are built upon and facilitated by different pedagogical infrastructures. Design education is highly structured, usually organized around completing specific projects, especially in a student’s later years.
