Ethnography for Design introduces students to a worldview and series of actions that ethnographers and many anthropologists use to understand human experiences. In this course, design will be viewed broadly, in terms of what we need to know to shape multiple aspects of our shared lifeways. Students will engage in hands-on exercises that reveal how knowledge is produced through interactive, first-hand data collection and analysis. This course covers core aspects of the ethnographic enterprise including interviewing, observing, and analyzing cultural artifacts. It will help students understand how anthropologists and ethnographers bring together data from different sources to solve problems and achieve greater empathy for people who hold different worldviews. Students will read ethnographies from various cultures to appreciate the benefits and challenges of ethnographic research. The course will consider important ethnographic issues including: ethics; the influence of the researcher in outcomes; autoethnography; decolonizing design; visual ethnography; ethnographic imaginings; and creative approaches to participatory design. The course aims to heighten students’ knowledge of how everyday behavior often reinforces inequities or non-optimal designs of products and processes, and how ethnographic investigation may help forge a path toward social change.Social Science and History (SSHIS) courses develop students' critical thinking skills through the study of history and the social sciences (e.g. sociology, psychology, economics, political science, anthropology, geography), as well as through contemporary interdisciplines that draw heavily on these fields (e.g. feminist and queer studies, media studies, urban studies, ethnic studies). Subject matter in these courses contributes to students' cultural literacy while instructional materials and classroom assignments introduce basic research problems and techniques.

Visit Workday to view this information.