Harper Collins

State of the Nation: The use of dictionaries and the future of language learning

Challenge

To develop Harper Collins’ longer-term publishing strategy within both the paper and digital dictionary markets and ultimately to grow both sales and market share across both platforms in the English and Bi-lingual markets.

Our Contribution

In order to better understand the future of dictionaries and language learning, we conducted a virtual ethnography – immersing ourselves in virtual spaces and observing behaviours and patterns in online conversations. After a period of harvesting online artefacts (a combination of online conversations, screenshots, and snippets of audio/visual resources), we conducted as series of workshops bringing together members of the Harper Collins team with dictionary and language learning experts we met while confucting the virtual ethnography.

Results

We took key findings from the virtual ethnography phase into the quantitative phase to thoroughly test and refine future product offerings.