Abstract
Teams draw from many disciplines in working to design usable and error-tolerant systems. Anthropology is one such field, and ethnographic methods are often used and modified for this purpose. Linguistics expertise is commonly described as helpful; however, Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Computational Linguistics (CL) methods have rarely been described for aiding design efforts. Computational ethnography is described as using large bodies of data to provide insight into the routine of users for use in subsequent design efforts. Narrative text is often a subset of this data; NLP/CL methods are well-matched for analyzing bodies of existing user language. Sharing our previous and new thoughts on these methods in the facilitation of design team understanding can contribute to the discussion on computational ethnography. Both computational ethnography and linguistics can provide insight into error-tolerant system design.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank everybody at the National Center for Patient Safety for their commitment to patient safety. There were no relevant financial relationships or any source of support in the forms of grants, equipment, or drugs. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Veterans Administration.
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Arnold, T., Fuller, H.J.A. (2019). In Search of the User’s Language: Natural Language Processing, Computational Ethnography, and Error-Tolerant Interface Design. In: Ahram, T., Falcão, C. (eds) Advances in Usability, User Experience and Assistive Technology. AHFE 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 794. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94947-5_4
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