Ethnographic tools help interaction designers better recognize their audience. They help you gather data about your customer base to help improve your design and the components surrounding it. These include things like how much a person would pay for your product, or what colors, shapes, textures, and things of that sort impacts the user.
Designs are finished at different stages depending upon the particular project or how the designer sees fit. When the product accomplishes it’s goals and the designer is happy with the outcome and it is finished. Although, some would argue that a design is never done. We talked in class about the Iphone, which is a perfect example. It has been re-releasing a new version with updates every year now and sees no sign of stopping, but I would argue that sometimes for the big corporations it’s about the money. The Iphone hasn’t had any ridiculously major upgrades that have completely changed it from the very first, just updated specs and some cool new features.
A product I use often that I am loyal to is actually the opposite of an Iphone, it’s my Droid Turbo. I am a Motorola fan an always have been. Their version of Android is very straight to the point and not loaded with a bunch of useless features. They also consistently have the best specs, and on top of that I have dropped it many many times with no case and no damage has occurred after a year except for some minor scratches. Unfortunately, Motorola’s phone division is set to be bought by Lenovo, so the future of the brand is unknown at this point. Hopefully with the success that Lenovo has had in the computer industry they can take the technologies developed at Motorola Mobility and make it better, but I wouldn’t be opposed to switching to a Google Nexus.