a. Ethnography-lite methods have been developed in response to
the need to support fast-product lifecycles. The “Quick-anddirty”
approach, for example, involves carrying out a series of
short, focused studies in the field [10]. In this approach, the
investigators attempt to identify the contexts which might
provide the greatest level of strategically useful information –
that is, the ones they would study in more depth, time
permitting. For each of these study settings, the aim is to tease
out the major factors that might affect the acceptability or
usability of any proposed changes. These mini-studies can be
performed in the style of a pilot-study; the time-savings come
from there being no follow-up larger scale observation.
Alternatively, the results can be used to target later, more
involved, costly ethnographic investigations.