An ethnographic approach to research in UX design and technology looks at how people relate to tech in their natural, real world settings. With field studies, you get to observe the situations and circumstances in which a product will be used. Some circumstances are obviously important and useful—observing people encountering sudden rain storms, for example, a valuable data point will be how quickly users are able to retrieve and open their umbrella, or whatever rain-avoidant device or product they prefer. However, there are more subtle things that researchers will observe to suss out further insights.