What Can’t AI See? Ethnographic Research in a Post-Screen World

As UX design becomes more automated and digital interactions move beyond screens and into experiences that are auditory, kinaesthetic, and sensory, what does the future of UX research look like? What is the right balance of researcher vs AI to conduct sense-making when cultural and tacit behaviour live outside LLMs?

This talk draws from the ethnographic fieldwork of Jane Goodall, Margaret Mead, and Sarah Pink to explore how AI can play a role in expediting components of research, so that we get the rigour of ethnographic observation combined with AI-assisted tools to help researchers in the field.

Attendees will leave with a practical introduction to mixed methods research that combines AI-assisted synthesis with contextual, on-the-ground observation, and a clearer sense of when contextual research methods outperform digital ones.