Future Ethnography (or Ethnographic Design) in the ACID Suburban Communities Project

The Suburban Communities project is part of the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID), and aims to design new information technologies with and for predominantly placebased communities. The project focuses on residents, households and communities in suburbia and specifically seeks to understand and facilitate the activities of suburban households and communities in relation to new communication interfaces, especially with respect to interactive design and digital tools. Our research aims to bring together a diverse range of perspectives under the name ‘future ethnography’ (FE), in particular combining what might be termed ‘social context’ approaches with participatory and scenario-based design in the technical development of Community Digital Assistants (CDAs), which could feasibly take many forms (mobile devices, digital tablets, public display screens, among other things). Existing projects include designing “bottom-up” community intranets/portals in Brisbane, investigating e-work in Melbourne, and developing and evaluating interactive public displays in Sydney and Brisbane. Potential projects include prototyping 3D virtual environments (serious gaming) for economic development and lightweight urban planning and consultation, integrating web content management and mobile messaging, and combining participatory and contextual design with evolutionary development.