27 Jul Lesson 7: Seeing Through the Frame

Reference: Bong Joon-ho

Learning Objective

To help students recognize how cultural, social, and organizational contexts shape user behavior — and learn how to reveal those hidden forces through contextual inquiry.

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Headline

Understanding the frame is as important as observing the action.

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Narrative and UX Interpretation

In Parasite, Bong Joon-ho uses architecture and class boundaries not just as setting, but as storytelling devices — where stairs, doors, and windows become symbols of visibility and power. Similarly, in UX research, what users do is inseparable from where, with whom, and under what constraints they act. Students are encouraged to examine their own framing: What questions are being asked? What’s left unasked? What social and organizational dynamics are considered “background” but in fact shape every outcome?

We explore how to conduct contextual inquiry that doesn’t just observe behaviors, but questions the conditions that make those behaviours possible.

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Developing Critical Thinking

Bong’s work teaches researchers to see beyond the user and into the environment that structures choice:

• Observe thresholds — the transitions users cross (physical, emotional, social) and what they leave behind.
• Question the obvious — what roles are fixed by default (e.g., “admin,” “customer”), and who benefits?
• Map invisible systems — pay attention to power, hierarchy, and unspoken rules that influence behaviour.
• Notice spatial metaphors — how users describe their environment may reveal more than direct answers.
• Frame the inquiry — students learn to be aware of what their own perspective excludes or obscures.

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Anchor and Process Grounding

This lesson builds on NNG’s principles of context-aware design and ethnographic field study techniques, particularly the importance of observing users in their natural environment.

It moves beyond usability testing to explore how researchers can investigate systemic influences — making research more attuned to social, cultural, and organizational realities.