[IxDA Discuss] Ethnography - Frameworks

[Jeff Howard]

Hi Alok,

eLab's AEIOU framework was along those lines, but with a different mnemonic.

Activities
Environments
Interactions
Objects
Users

Here's a good article on the background of the framework, on eLab and on design 
ethnography in general:
http://tinyurl.com/rfowo

The author also discusses some limitations of the framework:

"AEIOU framework suffers from a number of obvious limitations; it has no place to identify 
broad cultural patterns and ignores questions of change, history, and political economy. Such 
an overly exclusive focus on the microlevel was particularly characteristic of ELab's earliest 
days. By the time I worked there, researchers were developing various ways to incorporate 
macrolevel issues into their analyses. The AEIOU framework was still used for certain 
purposes, but its limitations were recognized. -- Christina Worsing"

( www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3800/is_200001/ai_n8895749/print )