There’s an assumption that people want algorithms to serve up frictionless experiences, but our work shows something different. People want to have relationships and dialogues with algorithms and hack them toward different ends – in other words, social algorithms.

Camila sentou-se em seu sofá rosa desbotado, desenfaixou a atadura em torno da panturrilha e me mostrou um ferimento roxo, uma parte da pele em crosta e uma parte úmida. Sua filha Cecilia sentou na beirada de uma cadeira no canto, completando os vazios na história:

As businesses scramble to understand the digital revolution of the home, they have misunderstood many of the realities of modern domestic life.

Applied ethnography still struggles with the fundamental challenges of framing research to obtain ‘thick’ data, making sense of data in teams and with clients, and making a convincing case with data in challenging environments.

In applied ethnographic praxis, how should we use theory? Exploring how existing theory from a variety of domains has supported and advanced our work, this paper justifies and demonstrates how theory can be used in an accessible and practical manner when framing research and analyzing experience in the field.