About Me:
I work for Razorfish doing User Experience research for corporate clients. My research group uses digital ethnography to learn about website users and make recommendations for webpage design. This includes encouraging self-etnography via digital camera and video, participant blogging and live video streaming of website interaction.
Area(s) of Training
anthropology, applied anthropology, archaeology, cultural anthropology, ethnography
Area(s) of Expertise
Business/Organizational Anthropology, Digital Ethnography
Current Area of Employment
Researcher
Comments
Peace...
Yes, I collaborate with the Texas Medical center who is designing a medical device and with Rice university who is deploying wireless internet in an underserved neighborhood.
Re: corporate culture at IDEO: They are extremely creative and work quickly and collaboratively. They want to know that you know how to do ethnographic-style research, that you can work with people from varied professional backgrounds (industrial designers, interaction designers, etc.), and that you can translate research findings into design principles.
Let me know if you want to talk more! Good luck!
most of the projects i am juggling are on my website under resume here : web.mac.com/melissazlatow, but a quick highlight includes addressing water and sanitation needs for a small village outside of quito, ecuador, a prefab deployable clinic that remains off the grid to be deployed in several native american reservations around arizona as well as possibly a few select regions in africa, and of course attempting to finish my thesis in time for the big move to san fransisco.