I believe in the explanatory power of developing truly transdisciplinary, multiple methods research frameworks.

I am committed to addressing questions of inclusivity, sustainability, and equitability of access to technology.

Techniques

Digital anthropology provides the overarching conceptual scaffolding for my approach to studying users and communities, but I draw on a broad range of methods and techniques from across the social sciences to build bespoke, responsive, and needs-based research frameworks.

Digital Ethnography

Digital ethnography is the dominant method in my work. Drawing on the foundational anthropological principle of seeing the world from the point of view of others, digital ethnography provides a framework for dealing with the complexity of computer-mediated sociality in a way that is deeply rigorous and, above all, empathic.

Thematic Analysis

Thematic analysis is a widely used method for analysing qualitative data. Data can be assessed across multiple formats, including textual, audio, and visual media. Thematic analysis is a highly flexible approach that is used to identify and interpret explicit and implicit patterns in a data set. Thematic analysis lends itself equally well to inductive and deductive approaches.

Contextual Analysis

Contextual analysis assesses and interprets the experience of users by situating their actions and behaviours within contexts of use. It is a form of field research that draws together ethnographic observation and interviewing to create a detailed picture of how people go about their tasks in the real world, such as in the workplace or at home.

Interviews

Interviews are a qualitative method that allow an interviewer (or interviewers) to dynamically gather data on a topic by eliciting responses to an array of questions, whether structured or unstructured. For a variety of reasons, interviews are usually conducted on a small scale and often work better when responses are open-ended.

Computational Social Science

Computational science science lies at the intersection of data science, statistics, and the social sciences. It enables the collection, management, and analysis of large-scale demographic and behavioural data through the application of various computational techniques, including text-mining, web-scraping, and machine learning.

Surveys

Surveys are a primarily quantitative technique that are useful for getting a detailed picture of attitudes, beliefs, and experiences at the population-level. Surveys are a foundational method for building representative datasets at this scale. Surveys can use a mix of open-ended and multiple choice questions.