ABSTRACT
This chapter will inform the reader on the use of ethnography and other qualitative methodology used in contemporary applied social sciences, such as anthropology1 to facilitate the collection of qualitative data from sport participants in their real “playground” environments to build the requirements in sport design. What’s the value of ethnography for the sport designer? It is obvious that a better understanding of the user in terms of behavior, needs, expectations, and other “soft” issues such as motivation, goals, angst, cultural and religious barriers, and so on, will help designers to have a more accurate definition of users’ requirements and therefore they will have the possibility of making a bigger impact on the users’ experience related to sport. The qualitative data complements quantitative user data gathered through other methods such as biomechanical data (see Chapter 9).
