Expectations Vs Reality of Conducting Ethnographic Research in Nigeria to Inform Autonomous Ground Vehicles Design

Abstract

We present a comparative reflection of our experiences designing and conducting ethnographic user research in understudied real-world contexts - Nigerian road traffic. We present our experiences planning and doing fieldwork to investigate and map Nigerian road users' on-road experiences and perspectives on trust and safety in real-world traffic, towards identifying design factors to inform trustworthy autonomous ground vehicle design. We compare our expectations and plans for the fieldwork to the reality of conducting the research in a multicultural country like Nigeria. We describe how some contextual research factors - including geopolitical, institutional, cultural, infrastructural, safety, and trust factors - affected the fieldwork, and how we addressed them by adapting the methodology to be suitable for the research contexts, populations, and societies. Our insights may be useful for researchers designing or conducting ethnographic research in multicultural communities to capture understudied perspectives to inform technology design practices in a culturally sensitive manner.