How do we learn about other cultures and the world? How can we apply our powers of observation, sensitivity in interaction, and an artistic eye to better understand other people’s worldviews? Ethnography for Design introduces students to ethnography, the techniques that ethnographers, anthropologists, and designers use to understand human experience. Students will engage in hands-on exercises that reveal how knowledge is produced through interviewing, observing, and analyzing material artifacts. It will help students understand how to bring together data from different sources to solve problems and achieve greater interpersonal empathy. Students will read ethnographies from various cultures and contexts to appreciate the benefits and challenges of ethnography. The course will consider important issues including: ethics; the influence of the researcher in outcomes; observing the self; emotional labor; decolonizing design; the quantified self; visual ethnography; artistic data collection techniques; and approaches to participatory design. The course heightens awareness of how everyday behavior risks reinforcing inequities or non-optimal designs of products and processes, and how ethnography 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.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.

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