Ethnographic Study of Art Supply Buying Habits

Overview

The pur­pose of this study was to exam­ine the habits of dorm-dwelling stu­dents in search of art/design sup­plies in order to under­stand how impor­tant loca­tion is in rela­tion to price and oth­er con­trib­u­tors to the idea of val­ue. We explored oppor­tu­ni­ties that one store in Savan­nah may have in over­com­ing the dis­ad­van­tage of prox­im­i­ty to under­grad­u­ate dorms. The insights uncov­ered by this research allowed us to rec­om­mend some small changes that could make a big dif­fer­ence for our client. The busi­ness is already see­ing pos­i­tive results.

Contextual Research

Our first step was to define our focus and devel­op a detailed research plan, lay­ing out what we need to accom­plish week by week. Our ini­tial research began with pas­sive obser­va­tion at three store loca­tions. We then moved onto par­tic­i­pant obser­va­tion, with meth­ods such as sur­veys and ethno­graph­ic inter­views.

I designed a unique research method for our group to use, which involved the par­tic­i­pants describ­ing their feel­ings about each art sup­ply store in their own words. We sta­tioned our­selves in the com­mu­ni­ty court­yard near the dorms and asked stu­dents to par­tic­i­pate in the exer­cise. We found that stu­dents had an eas­i­er time explain­ing exact­ly how they felt about each store after first being asked to write three adjec­tives down on post-it notes. The stu­dents’ answers were more elab­o­rate in this open-end­ed exer­cise than when we asked spe­cif­ic ques­tions.

This exer­cise gave us greater insight into stu­dent feel­ings and behav­ior than the one-on-one inter­views. As a bonus, we also had the post-it notes as arti­facts to use lat­er in our affin­i­ty dia­gram.

Analysis

We cre­at­ed an affin­i­ty dia­gram in order ana­lyze the data we col­lect­ed. We were able to iden­ti­fy sev­er­al new design oppor­tu­ni­ties to help the art sup­ply store com­pete with new com­pe­ti­tion.

Presentation

We pre­sent­ed the find­ings to our client in a 98-page process book that includ­ed inter­view tran­scripts, arti­facts, exten­sive research details and inno­va­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties. We also deliv­ered a PPT pre­sen­ta­tion with a short video.

Outcomes

Our client has already enact­ed a few of our rec­om­mend­ed changes and they are see­ing results. The store began bet­ter uti­liz­ing social net­work­ing by high­light­ing spe­cial deals and offers on their face­book page. They start­ed offer­ing a free shut­tle between SCAD dorms and their store the first week of Fall class­es in order to get new stu­dents in the door. The store now promi­nent­ly adver­tis­es their gift cards after we dis­cov­ered that many stu­dents were unaware that the store offered them. Pre­vi­ous­ly, par­ents were buy­ing their kids gift cards from the oth­er stores in town.