Think MOBILE first

• Mobile Ethnography works best with short, open ended tasks.
• Make it easy for respondents to understand the task and quickly complete it.
• Ideally tasks should be entirely visible within the screen.

Put yourself in the Respondent’s shoes

• When writing each task, think about it from the respondent’s perspective.
• How easy will it be for them to understand what they need to do?
• The simpler the task, the higher the completion rate.
  
  

Always be context aware

• Think about where the respondent will be when completing each task.
• E.g. if the topic is personal or sensitive, tell them to find a private place to record their video without worrying about anyone over hearing them.
• In public locations, they may be more comfortable uploading photos captions instead of videos.
  
  

Choose an appropriate Required Response

• The best Task Lists typically have a mixture of Video, Photo, Screen Recording and Note based tasks.
• Video is powerful at capturing in-context behaviors and in the moment feelings but it takes times to analyse. Sometimes a Note is better if you just need them to answer a few questions.
• Where photos / screenshots with short captions are sufficient to detail what you want to capture, specify these instead of video. It will save you time in analysis!

Let the Respondents surprise you & give them permission to go off-piste!

• The more open ended you can make your tasks, the more likely Respondents will surprise you.
• Projects where respondents are allowed flexibility / creativity typically tend to be the most informative and the most successful at uncovering hidden needs and unexpected behaviors.