Qualitative methodology
Etnoraid
Ethnoraids are ideal for seeking out your target audience where they are.
Ethnoraids is an ethnographic method using short interviews and observations to investigate target groups' behaviour in their everyday lives and can be done with little preparation time.
When are ethnoraids interesting to you?
Ethnoraids are a great tool when you need to get a quick and immediate sense of how your target audience views the topic you are working with. By using ethnoraids, you gain insight into the target group's thoughts and attitudes towards a given topic and the environment they live in. It is obvious to use ethnoraids exploratively at the start of a project as a basis for developing hypotheses for a questionnaire or to seek out a target group that is otherwise difficult to recruit where they are.
Etnoraids is an ideal tool for:
- Exploring the complexity of a problem
- Get a quick overview of patterns in behaviour or attitudes of a target audience
- Confirming and disproving hypotheses
- Up- or down-prioritising themes for further investigation
- Discover questions, themes, angles, sources, etc. that only the target group can contribute to
- Reaching out to the target group on location or in a use case if the target group is difficult to identify or recruit
How is an ethnoraid performed?
An ethnoraid involves spending 2-5 hours in a place where the target group naturally frequents. You can do ethnoraids at schools, workplaces, conferences, festivals, shopping centres, urban spaces or parks. On a good ethnoraid, you can talk to 15-20 people. However, you typically only have each person for 5-10 minutes, so these are short, exploratory interviews. It is based on a semi-structured interview guide. The value of an ethnoraid comes not only from conversations, as interviews are combined with observations of the target group's behaviour and environment.
The execution of ethnoraids requires an authorisation to stay at the location in question. In addition, there is no need for a large recruitment effort and they can therefore be conducted with a few days' notice. Reporting can be done with transcription and/or analysis.
