Giving Voice through Ethnography - Experience Design in the Military Family Advisory Network
Dr. Shelley Kimball
Shelley Kimball’s roots lie in journalism, where she would learn the importance of ‘shoe-leather’ in chasing a story. Part of this effort involved capturing people’s experiences by meeting them where they were. It is hard, if not impossible, to literally ‘phone it in’ by interviewing people on the phone. People’s experiences are complex, multi-dimensional, and lived. It is in the lived experiences that the stories exist, and to be a good journalist means going to where the experiences happen to capture them and their meaning.
The same can be said about doing ethnography. Ethnography is not a method; it is a goal and an orientation. When doing an ethnography, we are trying to relate the traits, characteristics, and experiences of a particular group of people in such a way that their worlds are revealed to others. Not only that, but their perspectives are understood and deeper meaning of their worlds appreciated. For Shelly, the goal of her work for almost a decade has been relating the worlds of military families.
It is a world that she personally knows well. She was raised in a military family. Her husband served in the Coast Guard for twenty-eight years. Her brother was in the military. As she related, once you are in a military family, you are always in a military family. It is not a category or identity that you ever lose. You are part of a community of other families who all share the experiences of service, dedication, deployment, and many instances the hardships that can come along with that. This history made her work in the Military Family Advisory Network (MFAN) all the more meaningful to her, as well as important.
Even though there is a lot of need among military families, those families don’t seek assistance as much as they should. A lot of people remain hungry who don’t need to be hungry. The stigma of receiving help resulted in people not seeking help. To overcome that, they put the people back into the service design by making receiving help a positive memorable experience. The question that always drives their planning is, “where are humans in the equation?”
A major part of MFAN’s work is not just understanding the needs of military families, but providing programs to help address those needs. From understanding military housing, to financial insecurity, to food insecurity, MFAN turns the knowledge of their research into products for their families. More than that, they use an experience design framework to examine the effectiveness of those programs.
Thus, her former role as Vice President of Research & Program Evaluation with the Military Family Advisory Network (MFAN) was not just part of her professional work, but personal life. Success in these programs was not measured by the number of families served, but the impact of experiences had. How we understand that impact is through qualitative methods and data, digging into the stories and the voices of those who loved ones are serving nearby or far away. By bringing qualitative research to the forefront of capturing military family experiences, the team at MFAN could best capture the lived experiences of those they were trying to reach.
Creating Experiences and Delivering Food
This doesn’t mean that there is no place for quantitative work. Rather, her methodological strategy is always an inclusive one. The point is not the methodology, but the action that can be prompted by discovery. Action should follow understanding, and ethnographers should be the conduits of the stories they collect in order to provide the direction for that action.
The story of MFAN and their work is one that goes beyond just military families. It is one that is of importance to anyone who wants to be people-centric. From measuring what matters, to multi-methodological approaches, and to communicating outcomes, the work of Dr. Shelley Kimball and MFAN demonstrates how to use passion and dedication to drive decision-making and impact.
You can listen to the Experience by Design episode with Dr. Shelley Kimball here