Thick descriptions: a tool for designing ethnographic interactive videodiscs

  • Authors:
  • R. G. Segall

  • Affiliations:
  • -

  • Venue:
  • ACM SIGCHI Bulletin
  • Year:
  • 1989

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Videodisc technology will have a dramatic effect on the future of ethnographic educational research by giving the users of the videodisc workstation access to the actual 'raw' data and encouraging them to manipulate the material in a variety of ways. Users will have the ability to examine the original documentation, make their own observations, compare their observations with other researchers/users, and compile the 'data' with new levels of interpretation. Unlike more traditional research methodologies, in hypermedia ethnography there is no systematic way for different viewers to reach the same conclusions about the same content. However, building a system where each content grain or unit is a thick enough description of what is being examined could enable the user to come very close to understanding the underlying intention of the action, event or process presented on videodisc.