Listening: Design Ethnography Methods (UT 210, 2022-Present)

Context

UT 210 is a required course in the Urban Technology major—a new interdisciplinary program preparing students to work at the intersection of cities and technology. The course equips students with qualitative research methods, including ethnographic interviewing, participant observation, and positionality-based reflection, with the aim of cultivating equity-centered designers who listen before they build.

Challenge

As a foundational class in a brand-new major, UT 210 had to do more than teach methods. It had to help students understand who they are as designers, how to conduct research that centers community voice, and what it means to hold power ethically in tech-impacted spaces.

Our Role

Through Dr. Chanel Beebe’s leadership and pedagogical design, Beebe Arts LLC:

  • Designed a 14-week curriculum that blends design research, equity theory, and narrative reflection

  • Created frameworks for positionality mapping, community consent, and embodied listening

  • Facilitated peer-driven feedback models, visual synthesis activities, and personal ethnographies

  • Analyzed three years of student writing to produce research on identity development in emerging tech fields

Student Projects

Course Highlights

  • Students conducted interviews with peers, family, or community members to practice “deep listening”

  • Weekly reflections and guided discussion prompts invited students to interrogate their assumptions, identities, and design values

  • Projects included zines, community profiles, and narrative maps that captured lived experience in digital and spatial contexts

  • Mid-course and post-course surveys allowed students to track their own growth in awareness, empathy, and clarity of purpose

  • “This class helped me become a better listener in life—not just in research.”

    Student Reflections

  • “I didn’t realize how much I bring into the room as a designer until I mapped my own story.”

    Student Reflections

  • “I feel like I now know how to approach a community with humility.”

    Student Reflections

Results (Winter 2023–2025, 3 cohorts)

  • ~90 students taught, with over 65% identifying as students of color

  • 100% reported gaining new understanding of their own identity and its role in design

  • 90% reported increased confidence in qualitative research

  • Students developed capstone projects ranging from climate justice storytelling tools to community-based transit design concepts

  • Lasting Impact

    UT 210 serves as a cornerstone for cultivating justice-oriented technologists. Dr. Beebe’s data from this course is now forming the basis of a longitudinal research study on professional identity formation in emerging interdisciplinary fields. Her approach has also informed curriculum planning for other departments seeking to incorporate equity-based research.