THE DESIGN THINKING CLASSROOM - ETHNOGRAPHY TOOLS

There are a variety of ethnography tools that you and your students can use in the Discover process. These tools are simple to use and produce and are designed to help people structure their thinking. Using these tools within a workshop, either face-to-face or virtual, can help your students structure their interactions with stakeholders, provide guidance for your workshop participants, and as a result and get better data.

You’ll find the tools I mentioned in Chapter 6 here and you can download them and use them for yourself and with your students. They are published here with a Creative Commons Attribution - Non-Commercial License. Basically, you can use them freely but they cannot be used for commercial purposes. Each download is marked with my author information and this can serve as attribution. Should you blog about your work, or post images of the ethnography tools, please attribute the tools to The Design Thinking Classroom, David Jakes.

Many of the examples posted here are from my work with clients on designing learning spaces or organizational change. I would encourage you and your students to develop your own tools using the formats presented here.

When preparing for client work, I generally print these on 24” X 36” paper. When I travel and it’s difficult to transport charts, I have had workshop participants draw the tools on chart paper - and that works too. Don’t overthink it!

I use a Keynote or PowerPoint slide deck to create these and then export each slide as a pdf (for printing) or jpeg (for use in a virtual workshop. You can learn how to create these here and how you can use these in a virtual workshop here.

TOOLS

2-Column Template (PDF, JPEG).

  • It’s Not ____ | It’s ____ (PDF, JPEG)

  • Too much of | Not enough of (PDF, JPEG)

  • Take Forward, Leave Behind (PDF, JPEG)

3-Column Template (PDF, JPEG)

  • You | Constraints | Could Be You (PDF, JPEG)

  • Telescope | Binoculars | Microscope (PDF, JPEG)

  • Start | Stop | Continue (PDF, JPEG)

  • What Worked | What Didn’t Work | Suggestions (PDF, JPEG)

  • Antiquated | Classical | Innovative (PDF, JPEG)

  • First | Best | Only (PDF, JPEG)

2 X 2 Grid Template (PDF, JPEG)

Radar Chart (7, 8 and 9 spoke PDF, 7, 8 and 9 spoke JPEG)

A Day in the Life…(PDF, JPEG)

  • Using “A Day in the Life”

Spectrum Chart (PDF, Example)

  • Using Spectrums

Download the entire set (PDF, JPEG)

Slide Decks of Tools: download the entire set as a slide deck to modify any of the originals. These decks include the templates. Download the presentation file, make the change you would like, and Save As PDF.