E-Lab

E-Lab was a research and design consultancy established in Chicago, Illinois in 1994 by Rick Robinson, John Cain and Mary Beth McCarthy.Canabou, Christine. "E-Lab," Fast Company, October 1999. Retrieved September 19, 2023.Wasson, Christina. "Collaborative Work: Integrating the Roles of Ethnographers and Designers," in Creating Breakthrough Ideas: The Collaboration of Anthropologists and Designers, Susan Elaine Squires and Bryan Byrne, eds., Westport CN: Bergin & Garvey, 2002, p. 71-90. Retrieved September 14, 2023.Posner, Bruce G. "The Future of Marketing Is Looking at You," Fast Company, October 1996. Retrieved September 14, 2023. The firm and its founders were part of a movement in the late 1980s when organizations such as Xerox/PARC (Palo Alto Research Center], IBM, Institute for Research on Learning and Jay Doblin & Associates embraced social science approaches in their product design and development efforts.Cefkin, Melissa. "Business, Anthropology, and the Growth of Corporate Ethnography," in Ethnography and the Corporate Encounter: Reflection on Research in and of Corporations, Melissa Cefkin (ed.), New York: Berghahn Books, 2009.Blomberg, Jeanette and Mark Burrell. "An Ethnographic Approach to Design," in The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook, Andrew Sears and Julie A. Jacko, eds., New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2008, p. 965–86. Retrieved September 14, 2023.Bezaitis, Maria. "Practice, Products and the Future of Ethnographic Work," Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, American Anthropological Association, 2009. E-Lab became known for pioneering a multidisciplinary, human-centric methodology strongly guided by anthropology and ethnography that was equally balanced between research and design.Sunderland, Patricia L. and Rita M. Denny. Doing Anthropology in Consumer Research, Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2007.Littman, Margaret. "Shopping Science," Crain's Chicago Business, January 9, 1999. Retrieved September 19, 2023. Its approach challenged conventional market research by prioritizing real-world user experiences and behaviors uncovered through fieldwork, helping to establish new practices termed "human-centered design," "design ethnography" and "design anthropology."Niemi, Wayne. "Are You Experienced?" P-O-P Times, 1998. In 1996, the business magazine Fast Company characterized E-Lab's approach as "simple but subversive" and "at the forefront of a growing movement to rethink how companies understand customers and create products that meet their needs."

In 1999, E-Lab was acquired by the technology consulting firm Sapient Corp. and became that company's "experience modeling" discipline, renamed "Xmod."Morris, Margaret and Arnie Lund. "Experience Modeling: How are they made and what do they offer," LOOP, AIGA Journal of Interaction Design Education, August 2001.Reese, William. "Behavioral Scientists Enter Design: Seven Critical Histories," in Creating Breakthrough Ideas: The Collaboration of Anthropologists and Designers, Susan Elaine Squires and Bryan Byrne, eds., Westport CN: Bergin & Garvey, 2002, p. 17–43. Retrieved September 14, 2023. In the 2000s, as former E-Lab/Xmod researchers and designers joined and formed other firms and organizations, its influence on the practice of anthropology and other social-science research in business spread.Baba, Marietta L. "Anthropology and Business," in Encyclopedia of Anthropology, H. James Birx, ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2006, p. 83-117.Cohen Kris R. "Who We Talk About When We Talk About Users," Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, American Anthropological Association, 2005, p. 9–30. Retrieved September 19, 2023. In 2009, anthropology researcher Melissa Cefkin wrote, "Robinson, Cain and their colleagues at the Doblin Group, E-Lab and Sapient contributed considerably to the development of current norms and forms of ethnographically oriented strategy and design consulting."

History E-Lab's founders met as co-workers at Doblin Group (initially Jay Doblin & Associates), a Chicago-based design consultancy.Koprowski, Gene. "The Science of Shopping," Business 2.0, June 1999. John Cain joined Doblin as a design strategist in 1987, and later became its design practice lead, after studying engineering and earning a BS in industrial design at the IIT Institute of Design.Institute of Design. John Cain, People. Retrieved September 14, 2023. Rick Robinson completed a Ph.D. in human development at University of Chicago, studying with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; he was hired at Doblin in 1989 and became head of research.Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly and Rick E. Robinson. "Culture, Time and the Development of Talent," in Conceptions of Giftedness., R. Sternberg and J. Davidson (eds.), New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986.Industrial Designers Society of America. Rick Robinson, Profiles. Retrieved September 14, 2023. Mary Beth McCarthy joined the firm as a comptroller in 1991.

Their work at Doblin was cross-disciplinary, integrating ethnographic research, design and strategy, as did contemporary firms such as Fitch and IDEO. A breakthrough collaboration was the "Workplace Project" (1989) with Steelcase and Xerox/PARC, in which they worked with researchers including anthropologist Lucy Suchman, human-computer scientist Austin Henderson and linguists Charles and Marjorie H. Goodwin.Suchman, Lucy. "Constituting Shared Workspaces," in Cognitions and Communication at Work, Y. Engeström and D. Middleton (eds.), Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Goodwin, C. and M. Harness Goodwin. "Seeing as Situated Activity: Formulating Planes," in Cognitions and Communication at Work, Y. Engeström and D. Middleton (eds.), Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Anthropology researchers Patricia L. Sunderland and Rita M Denny credited that project with catalyzing the growth and visibility of applied anthropology in design, consumer research and business discourse in the U.S. Anthropologist Marietta L. Baba wrote that the interdisciplinary project "would revolutionize the design industry" by conceptualizing the idea notion that new product and service concepts should emerge from "a contextually-rich understanding of the client’s natural world, developed through ethnographic field research at client sites," a concept that E-Lab would later take to the market.

In 1994, Cain, McCarthy and Robinson left Doblin to start a new type of consultancy more purely devoted to the integration of research and design and to ethnographic methodologies rather than strategy. They named it "E-Lab"—the "e" representing everyday experience and ethnography and "lab" positioning the firm as a product research laboratory for understanding and innovation. E-Lab's approach to disciplinary boundaries and hierarchy was egalitarian and fluid, equally balancing design professionals and young social-science researchers across many fields recruited through university graduate programs.Rayner, Bruce. "Now Here This!" Electronic Business Today, August 1997.

After securing initial projects from former Doblin clients Hallmark, McDonald's, Steelcase and Thomson Consumer Electronics (RCA), E-Lab attracted other projects from well-known technology and consumer product firms, automobile manufacturers, fast food restaurants and convenience store chains over five years, increasing its staff to nearly fifty employees.Robinson, Rick E. and James P. Hackett. "Creating the Conditions of Creativity," Design Management Journal, Volume 8, No. 4 Fall 1997.Jones, Rachel. "Experience Models: Where Ethnography and Design Meet," Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, American Anthropological Association, 2006, p. 82–93. Retrieved September 19, 2023. It also gained wider recognition through features in trade publicationsHeath, R. P. "Seeing Is Believing: Ethnography Gets Consumers Where They Live—and Work, and Play," and Shop," Marketing Tools, March 1997, p. 4–9. and the business magazines Fast Company, Business Week and Financial Times,Labarre, Polly. "Work Fast, Learn Even Faster," Fast Company, October 1998. Retrieved September 14, 2023.Nussbaum, B. "Annual Design Awards: Winners—the Best Product Designs of the Year," Business Week, June 2, 1997, p. 95.Smith, A. "Shoppers Under the Microscope: Watching How Different Types of People Use Goods and Services Can Supply Useful Information," Financial Times, December 5. 1997, p. A1. speaking and writing engagements, and commentary in national features on the design of corporate workspaces, headquarters and identity.Zuckerman, Laurence. "House That Lou Built Reflects a New I.B.M.," The New York Times, September 17, 1997. Retrieved September 19, 2023.Lohr, Steve. "Rethinking Privacy vs. Teamwork in Today's Workplace," The New York Times, August 11, 1997. Retrieved September 19, 2023.

After E-Lab was acquired by Sapient (then an internet systems company moving into design, communications and branding) in fall of 1999, it evolved into that firm's "experience modeling" discipline, "Xmod", and expanded into online brands. The acquisition more than doubled E-Lab's staff to fill offices in London, New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Sydney, with Robinson heading the new discipline as one of the first "chief experience officers."

In the 2000s, E-Lab's methodologies and philosophy continued to be an integral part of Sapient and other organizations through the spread of its multidisciplinary researchers.<ref name="BW12">Business Wire'''. "SapientNitro Deepens Capabilities in Data and Analytics as Iota Partners Joins Company." September 18, 2012. Retrieved September 19, 2023.</ref> After leaving Sapient, Cain and Robinson again collaborated in 2010, on the founding of Iota Partners, a firm focused on instrumentation-driven consumer research, data and analytics; it too was acquired by Sapient (then SapientNitro), in 2012.Dell, Emma. "From the board room to the classroom," Denver Business Journal, November 11, 2015, p. 8–10.

Philosophy, methodologies and tools According to anthropologist Christina Wasson, E-Lab's principle of an equal partnership between research and design represented a then-novel shift from the traditional representation of design as "an autonomous, inward-looking relationship between designer and product" that positioned research as secondary. The firm was strongly guided by a commitment to ethnography as a creative means of discovering cultural patterns and models and to a collaborative process throughout project development and execution that gave ethnographers a significant voice. Its multidisciplinary methodology was framed by anthropology but also drew upon sociology, human development, literary narrative, cultural theory and art history.