In the documentary film “Keep the River On Your Right”, we see anthropologist Tobias Schneebaum as the cultural expert aboard a cruise ship. Tobias travels to the waters near the primitive Asmat region of New Guinea, where he once lived. He brings fellow passengers ashore to witness tribal dances and circumcision rituals.

Tobias characterizes these passengers as tourists who are interested, so they visit. In contrast, he presents himself as someone who comes to examine, and stays. It’s an interesting continuum: from passive interest to active examination; from temporarily visiting to semi-permanently staying.

One of the criticisms (and there are several) that academic anthropology and its adherents have voiced over the contextual approach taken by user researchers is around the short time spent in the field. Methods and theory that assume the researcher will live with subjects for months or years are applied to projects lasting only weeks; what depth, it is asked, can be learned in such a short time? Contextual researchers engaged in design and usability activities are more than visitors and less than cohabitants; we are more than interested but less than exhaustive documenters. The key (as any methodologist will tell you) is to match the time invested to the level of insight required.

In product development there’s an enormous pressure to produce results in reduced time. This is why there are practitioners advocating for sexy-sounding approaches such as Extreme User Research, Guerilla Ethnography, or Rapid Ethnographic Assessment. Insights in 33 minutes, or your money back?