Case study 1

Skin Care Moblographies

To get up close to women's everyday skincare routines, we took a two stage approach combining mobile ethnography and follow-up discussion sessions.

For the first stage, our participants filmed themselves as they went about their daily rituals. Spreading the process over a series of days helped our self-ethnographers to get comfortable with the process for a natural take on things. A series of additional video-diary exercises helped provide deeper insight into their behaviour.

The recorded material went on to stimulate discussion in the second stage, as we worked with our participants to develop new concepts that would work with their routines. It also gave us a rich source of visual media to bring our findings alive for the final output.

Case study 2

A 'girls-night-out' in-facility

To get a deeper insight into what 'beauty' really means to young women, we tapped into the recent 'boom' for joshi-kai or 'girls-nights-out'.

In the comfort of our 'living room' style facility, we encouraged our young opinion leader target to set the scene, introducing themselves whilst they listened to their favourite music and shared their favourite snacks. Once the topic of beauty was introduced, there was almost no need for a moderator, as the young women went on to freely share their thoughts, tips and insecurities.

Case study 3

Co-creating a new product concept

In order to fine-tune a new mobile accessory product release for Japan, we combined co-creation groups following a product trial and ethnographies.

A week's product trial, managed using our online research system provided a rich source of feedback for our team to produce material for the groups based on real issues and needs.

At the same time, a series of accompanied ethnographies helped our foreign client prepare for the co-creation sessions by getting them closer to the lives of our participants and providing insight into the broader cultural issues shaping how the devices would go on to be used.

The brief was how to get timely and cost effective feedback to feed into the development and design of a personal drug delivery system. Our response was a series of three co-creation sessions, bringing together designers with an Advisory Board of medical specialists.

In the initial face-to-face session, the research process was carefully explained and the designers and medical specialists were introduced. There was an initial feedback session on the prototype in development and on current devices in the market.

Based on this first session, the designers made improvements on the initial design. For the second and third sessions held 2 months and 4 months later, the specialists reconvened via teleconference. With the relationship already established, the group was able to hit the ground running, with both sides openly suggesting new possibilities and ideas.