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Hi Alison and Ben et al. My experience is that, to use your terms, Alison, the results from cultural probes escape classification and articulation in terms of how an idea might emanate from them. I talk about strategies, because so far I'm not sure that there is a method or an integration to cultural probes to make them easier to handle in the design process. An example of a strategy we used in the past is to translate the data from CP in time sequences (i.e. the description of the daily, weekly, monthly or yearly routine) of the people providing the probes. This was done on some probes concerning ageing people and their use of food. This strategy was very effective in this project, but I have no elements to demonstrate that it can work well in different projects. An example on this case is in our wiki on service design: http://servicedesign.wikispaces.com/Interpretation+of+qualitative+data Cheers Nicola Nicola Morelli, PhD Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Design Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark http://servicedesign.wikispaces.com/ Blog http://nicomorelli.wordpress.com/ skype: nicomorelli -----Original Message----- From: Alison Barnes [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: 29. september 2008 10:07 To: Nicola Morelli; [log in to unmask] Subject: RE: CUltural probes and axioms hi nicola/ben et al when you talk about 'other research (or design) strategies have to be used to interpret and process such information' can you give me and idea of what you are referring to. is it more towards traditional modes of data analysis or something different? also if they offer few 'grips' for the design process, do you think that makes them fairly non-functional, or does it just mean they escape classification and articulation in terms of how an idea might emanate from a probe response? there does seem to be a gap in the literature regarding the translation/articulation of the process from probe return to design idea. do you have any thoughts on this? best, alison Alison Barnes AHRC funded research student School of Graphic Design, LCC University of the Arts, London ________________________________________ From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nicola Morelli [[log in to unmask]] Sent: 28 September 2008 20:43 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: CUltural probes and axioms HI Ben and Alison, (sorry Ben, I previously sent this message to you only, by mistake) I used cultural probes in teaching for some years, now, and I can say that cultural probes are typically escaping both the axioms proposed by Eduardo. I would define them as a "creative design method to gather information" (not being a native English speaker I would skip the discussion about gathering, I think Edoardo's definition was clear to a certain extent, though I agree with some of the objections) I would add that the information coming from cultural probe is mainly qualitative, not quantitative. For this reason cultural probes cannot be used as an information processing method, though they are very creative, also because they stimulate the creativity of the observed subjects. I found it very hard for my students to translate the very rich picture they could create with the information from cultural probes in something that could be processed in a design project. (when the observed subject is very collaborative) the picture is complex enough not to offer many useful "grips" for the design process. Therefore other research (or design) strategies have to be used to interpret and process such information. Ciao Nicola Nicola Morelli, PhD Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Design Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark http://servicedesign.wikispaces.com/ Blog http://nicomorelli.wordpress.com/ skype: nicomorelli -----Original Message----- From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ben Matthews Sent: 24. september 2008 23:05 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Design as Research? Axioms? Dear Alison, I'm not sure I can shed much light on your first question, but I do have a take on it. On 9/24/08 1:13 PM, "Alison Barnes" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > as a fairly new practice led phd student i have many tentative half formed = > questions about this thread (not to mention many other things!). two are... > > where do listers feel cultural probes might fit into the axioms below, or, = > as they are allegedly about inspiration rather than information, do they no= > t belong here at all as they are something different? I think Cultural Probes are something of a can of worms. It would be nice to make a sharp distinction between design methods and research methods and say that Probes are not about attaining knowledge about the world, but about facilitating the creation of something new. Unfortunately, it would be misleading to do so. Much to Bill Gaver's chagrin, and despite his protests, probes have frequently been used as a method of doing research about user populations, rather than what they were originally intended to be (according to Gaver), which was to subvert a data/research-based approach to design, and establish a more designerly, open-ended, ambiguous, pluralistic way of inspiring design concepts. Just to confuse matters, Gaver et al. introduced probes as a "research through design" approach, though exactly what the 'research' bit consisted of can be a little hard to pin down. There are a couple passing remarks in the '99 probes paper to the fact that probes provided insights into the rich textures of local cultures, but there isn't much more specific than that to go on. Others' subsequent work that has applied (or bastardized) the probes is largely different to the original though, and it depends on which incarnation of them you are considering as to whether or not they constitute a 'method', and then what kind of method: whether they are used as an inspirational design method or a method to do research about users for design. Two recent (and contrasting) discussions of the probes literature are good reads, if anyone's interested: Boehner et al. 2007 and Graham et al. 2007, which represent two different takes on the information versus inspiration interpretations of probes. All the best, Ben Boehner, K. et al., 2007. How HCI interprets the probes. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.1077-1086. Gaver, B., Dunne, T. & Pacenti, E., 1999. Cultural Probes. Interactions, 6(1), p.21-29. Graham, C. et al., 2007. How probes work. In Proceedings of the 2007 conference of the computer-human interaction special interest group (CHISIG) of Australia on Computer-human interaction: design: activities, artifacts and environments. Adelaide, Australia: ACM, p. 29-37. -- Ben Matthews Associate Professor Mads Clausen Institute University of Southern Denmark