Ethnographic Consumer Research

Ethnographic consumer research engages with customers on site to understand how they think, feel and interact with a product, service or message.

We’ve been all over the globe observing users in their natural habitats. And something magical happens when we come face to face with those we’re trying to serve.

We uncover hacks, new use cases, and messaging strategies that clients often didn’t know were important. 

Think of us as Jane Goodall for your business! 

When you need to see how people interact with a product, service or message, and how that differs by culture, we’ll be there. In homes and offices, at patient bedsides, in mobile veterinary units and at government summits. 

If you’ve been wondering whether you need this kind of insight, let us help you decide.

A couple of jaw dropping discoveries LUR has made over our years conducting ethnographic consumer research. You can find more in our Case Studies:

• Back in the day, MicroSoft was trying to find a way to make Bing as ubiquitous as Google. In observing how people search, we found that Google is more like talking to a friend than a computer. You can enter full questions, just as you would in speech. People have whole conversations – out loud- with their Google searches. Bing didn’t like the conversational method, and sort of shut down a search that wasn’t precise. Turns out that’s a big no-no, and one reason Google remains web king
• Children’s hospitals can do better designing for parental stress. We observed little to no guidance in directions, parking and wayfinding across renown American facilities. In riding along with parents, they described the brain fog that all but eliminates their executive functioning as they approach the hospital in an emergency. No survey could have demonstrated how bad the experience was, compared to traveling door to door with parent and patient. Here’s an article we wrote on the topic.

Ethnographic consumer research can come in at many different junctures, but here are the 3 most common points in a product lifecycle where it has tremendous impact:

1. Early development/prototype stage – learn how people use variations of your product or service in the wild. Often leads to new use cases, form factor changes, and the beginnings of marketing messages
2. Just after launch – validate that needs are being met and understand areas for improvement. Also a good time to check the fit of advertising messaging
3. Established/adopted – learn what works and doesn’t work about the current product or service, and gauge interest in line extensions or innovations

Worried about timing?

2020 taught us a thing or two about technology. LUR weaves in remote ethnography and AI to engage your teams and deliver insights along the way.  

One of our favorite things at LUR is seeing team engagement and passion go through the roof when clients get face time with the people they are designing for.

Being bitten by the ethnography bug is a game changer that supercharges everyone on the team. It’s like an injection of empathy for brand managers, strategists, designers, copywriters and engineers.

Check out a few of our Case Studies below or plan a free strategy session to talk about ethnographic consumer research for your business.