Ethnography and Wicked Problems

Design Ethnography

Design ethnography offers a holistic, in-context understanding of how life works, so that it can be supported, enhanced, or changed. An ethnographic study observes people in their normal environment over a substantial period, documenting activities and artefacts through photos, video, audio recordings, and field notes.

Outputs are diverse and depend on the research question: task-flow diagrams, journey maps, concept-generation maps, activity timelines, written reports, and “thick” (richly detailed, experiential) descriptions.

What Ethnography Helps Teams Understand

Ethnography answers two distinct kinds of question:

(A) What things happen: everyday life, current experiences with technology, people’s own strategies for getting things done — including workarounds, adaptations, and informal practices invisible in an interview.

(B) How things matter: how products help people be social, make meaning, feel in control, express identity, or manage their emotional state. This second question is distinctly third-wave — it asks about significance, not just activity.

Mixed Methods

Ethnography is not used in isolation. A common pattern:

1. Quantitative survey to identify trends and segment the user population.
2. Ethnographic fieldwork with a subset of respondents to investigate in depth the interesting questions the quantitative data raises.
3. Member-checking: showing findings back to participants — “is this what your experience is like?” — to validate the interpretation.

This triangulation ensures the ethnographically-studied group is representative of the wider population, while using ethnography’s depth to explain the quantitative patterns.

Wicked Problems

Rittel and Webber (1973) identified a class of problems that resist classical engineering solution methods. Unlike “tame” problems (solving a quadratic equation, designing a bridge to a given specification), wicked problems have no definitive formulation, no stopping rule, and no true-or-false test of a solution.

The Ten Characteristics of a Wicked Problem

1. There is no definitive formulation of the problem — understanding the problem and solving it are the same activity, because every attempt to define it reveals new dimensions.
2. Wicked problems have no stopping rule — you never “finish”; you stop when resources run out, when the result is “good enough,” or when you lose patience.
3. Solutions are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad — judged qualitatively by stakeholders with different values.
4. There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution — consequences ripple out over time and cannot be fully predicted.
5. Every solution is a “one-shot operation” — no opportunity for trial and error without real consequences.
6. There is no enumerable set of potential solutions.
7. Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
8. Every wicked problem can be considered a symptom of another problem — e.g. “low engagement with the health app” is a symptom of “users find health tracking demotivating,” which is a symptom of “the app’s feedback triggers shame.”
9. A discrepancy can be explained in numerous ways, and the choice of explanation determines the resolution.
10. The designer has no right to be wrong — real people bear the consequences.

Examples of wicked problems: reducing loneliness in elderly populations; improving public health through behaviour change; slowing climate change; designing a social-media platform that promotes well-being rather than anxiety.

Design Implication

For wicked problems, goal-directed task models (HTA, GOMS, CW) are the wrong tool. These models assume a well-defined goal with a measurable path to it. A wicked problem cannot be decomposed into sub-goals because the goal itself is contested and evolving.

Instead, favour reflective, iterative, and participatory approaches:

• Ethnography to understand the problem as lived experience, not as an abstract specification.
• Prototyping and iterative evaluation to learn what works, accepting that “success” is provisional and qualitative.
• Participatory design — involving users and stakeholders in co-design, because the problem cannot be “solved” at a distance.

Exam Answer Structure

When asked whether a described social or health-related system is a wicked problem:

1. State explicitly: “this exhibits characteristics of a wicked problem.”
2. Name at least 2–3 specific Rittel & Webber characteristics that apply, with concrete reference to the scenario.
3. Explain why goal-based methods (HTA, GOMS, CW) are inappropriate.
4. Recommend reflective/iterative/participatory methods instead (ethnography, prototyping, co-design), justifying each choice.

Expected Learning

• Explain what design ethnography is, what it reveals that interviews and questionnaires miss, and what outputs it produces.
• Distinguish the two questions ethnography answers: what happens vs how things matter.
• Name and explain at least five characteristics of wicked problems from Rittel & Webber.
• For a given socio-technical problem, argue whether it is wicked or tame, citing specific characteristics.
• Explain why goal-based methods fail for wicked problems and what alternative approaches are appropriate.

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Past Paper Questions

Ethnography appears in user-research method questions across multiple years: 2023 Q6, 2022 Q6, 2020 Q6. Wicked problems are a conceptual framework underlying the third-wave HCI material — they are not frequently asked as a standalone question but provide the theoretical justification for choosing certain methods (ethnography, participatory design) over others (HTA, GOMS) for specific types of problems.