Cultural Probes

Authors: Bill Gaver, Tony Dunne, Elena Pacenti
Year: 1999
L5_Diary studies, cultural probes and qualitative data analysis.pdf Open PDF
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~~TH~~ E DIARY STUDIES & CULTURAL PROBES + QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

ITPDP’26, L5

Dr. Minna Pakanen,

Department of Digital Design and Information Studies mpakanen @cc.au.dk,

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TODAY

  • The diary studies

  • Media in the diary studies

  • Cultural probes

  • Qualitative data analysis

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THE DIARY STUDY

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Carter, S., & Mankoff, J. (2005). When participants do the capturing: the role of media in diary studies. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI’2005). ACM, New York, 899-908.

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TYPICAL DATA COLLECTION MEANS IN THE DIARY STUDY

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https://tinyurl.com/3ju6tmt2

https://penstore.dk/dk/ballograf/epoca-p-kulglepen

https://vshopg.tk/products.aspx?cname=custom+disposable+cameras&cid=109

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DIARY STUDY

  • Is a research method used to collect qualitative data about user behaviors, activities, and experiences in situ

  • What, where, who?

  • Longitudinal: from a few days to months (typically 3-14 days)

  • Researchers are remote from participants:

    • Participants control the timing and means of capture

    • Researchers suggest the timing and means of capture

      • Guidance in the tasks description

      • Prompting by messages, emails, notifications

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EXAMPLES OF DIARIES

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Anna Luusua, Johanna Ylipulli, Marko Jurmu, Henrika Pihlajaniemi, Piia Markkanen, and Timo Ojala. 2015. Evaluation Probes. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '15). ACM press, 85–94. https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702466

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DIARY STUDY ACTIVITIES TIMELINE

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Briefing

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Post-study interview

  • Explain study • Discuss entries

  • Provide materials and instructions

  • Probe for additional insights

• Set expectations • Ask for clarification Pilot Actual diary study logging Data analysis Planning

  • Select capturing methods • Evaluate entries as they come in • Create materials & instructions –> questions for post-study interview

  • Recruit study participants • Check in with participants

  • Select an analysis method • Conduct analysis rounds • Report findings

  • Define the study timeline

  • Schedule briefs and interviews

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DIARY STUDY

  • Can take place as:

  • A feedback study

  • An elicitation study

  • Combination: results from the feedback study act as prompts for discussion in the elicitation study

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FEEDBACK STUDY

  • Participants answer predefined questions about certain events

  • Asynchronous communication between the researcher and participant

  • Participant driven: participants answer questions about some event when it occurs

  • Benefits:

  • as questions are asked at the time of the event, or in situ –>provide accurate responses to questions that depend on recall of the event

  • Drawbacks:

  • Overburdening participants with questions, when the number of events reported is high because the act of answering questions is a significant distraction from their main task.

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ELICITATION STUDY

  • Participants capture media that are then used as prompts for discussion in interviews

  • Synchronous communication between the researcher and participant

  • Participants merely capture some information about the event that will serve as a memory cue during a later interview

  • Benefits:

  • Less burdensome than feedback

    • rapid capture of prompts, such as a photograph, audio, tangible objects

  • Drawbacks:

  • Potentially inaccurate recall

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CONTENTS OF THE DIARY

  • An introduction page with clear instructions and expectations for how often participants should fill in information

  • Question pages for every day you expect your participant to be filling in the diary

  • What did you do today?

  • What did you like the most about [task/activity]?

  • What did you like the least about [task/activity]?

  • How could that have been made better for you?

  • How did you feel about your experience [doing task/activity] today?

  • Why did you feel that way?

  • Did anything get in your way?

  • Instructions for any photographs or videos you want them to take each day.

  • A wrap-up page with concluding questions to be filled at the end of the study

https://outwitly.com/blog/research-methods-diary-study/

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What kind of questions related to the course topic you could add in a diary study?

Social music listening/ composing & music creation/ learning?

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ROLE OF MEDIA IN DIARY STUDIES

Carter, S., & Mankoff, J. (2005). When participants do the capturing: the role of media in diary studies. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI’2005). ACM, New York, 899-908. Kumpel, A.S. (2021). Using Messaging Apps in Audience Research: An Approach to Study Everyday Information and News Use Practices, Digital Journalism, DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2020.1864219

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FIND THE INFORMATION IN GROUPS

Open the article from Bs (Content -> Week 6/10 Diary Studies -> Before class–> Carter & Mankoff, 2005. When participants do the capturing: the role of media in diary studies)

Groups 1-3: Photo diary study Groups 4-6: Transit decision diary study Groups 7-9: Festival diary study What was the focus of the study? What kind of data was gathered? What were the results of the study?

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Photo/transit/festival diary study What was the focus of the study? What kind of data was gathered? What were the results of the study?

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MEDIA IN THE DIARY STUDIES

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Easy recall of
the episode
Easy to Difficult to
capture capture
Difficult recall
of the episode
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MEDIA IN THE DIARY STUDIES

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  • Photos: the easiest to capture and recognize: best support of who and where recognition

Studies where details are important

  • Audio clips: easy to capture events secretively & lightweight media appropriate for annotation, but suffer from recognition problem, but once recognized provides adequate support to participants to recall events

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  • Tangible objects: do not lend themselves to who or where recognition, but elicit participants’ creative explanations of attitudes and beliefs

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  • Raw location data: is not likely to lead to better recall of an episode. (Experience sampling method (ESM) works in some studies when the amount of events stays within a proper threshold)

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HOW TO SUPPORT RECALLING?

  • To support recall of ambiguous events

  • A brief annotation for each capture event is needed

  • Suggested way:

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thorough review by Lightweight lightweight capture tools in-situ annotation ex-situ annotation participants & researchers

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MESSAGING APP DIARY APPROACH +

  • Using of messaging apps already used by people (WhatsApp, etc.)

  • No additional apps needed –> convenience

  • Easy to integrate into participants’ daily routines–> continuous participation & improved response rates

  • Provides easy-to-use multimedia documentation solutions for the sharing of rich and context-sensitive data

  • Allows researcher for an easy way for sending prompts & an instant feedback channel

  • Allows participants to record their experiences, feelings, and thoughts “where they are”

(Kumpel, 2021) 23[RD] FEB 2026 MINNA PAKANEN

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What could be the downsides of using WhatsApp in the diary studies?

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– MESSAGING APP DIARY APPROACH

  • Needs constant attention from the researcher in the documentation phase –> time-consuming

  • –>

  • Apps are privately owned by international companies data security, GDPR of sensitive data

  • Participants allow the researcher into their personal world–> mixing of personal life and participation in research

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DIARY STUDY PIPELINE

  • 1) A participant takes a photo

  • 2) The participant annotates the photo with an audio recording

3) The participant uses a tool (an application) to log the photo and audio and add more annotations

  • 4) The researcher provides feedback about the captured data

5) The researcher holds an elicitation interview with the participant using the captured media as prompts

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CULTURAL PROBES

Gaver, B., Dunne, T., & Pacenti, E. (1999). Design: cultural probes. Interactions, 6(1), 21-29.

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USER-CENTERED INSPIRATION

  • Data collection to inspire design

  • Stimulate designers imagination

  • Helps designers to familiarize with the design context and learn the culture

  • Helps to establish a conversation with the target group of people that can last throughout the project

  • Overcomes the distance

  • Geographic and cultural + language barriers

  • Respects the respondents

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CULTURAL PROBES

  • Personal communication tool between the target group

  • Designed for specific project, people & their environments

  • Package containing:

  • Maps + stickers

  • Postcards

  • Disposable camera

  • Booklets: photo album, diary

  • Is left behind and returned ‘filled’ to the designers!

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AESTHETICS

  • Idea is to reduce the distance between the designers and target group

  • Little bit abstract/alien design aesthetics

  • Delightful, but not childish

  • Not too professionally finished!

  • Personal and informal feeling

  • Revealing the energy put to the creation

  • Revealing the tastes and interest of the designers –> making target group to reveal themselves to the designers

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EXAMPLES CATHERINE LEGROS

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EXAMPLE: ITPDP PROJECT 2025

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  • © Hook’d team: Agnes Niewald de Place, Kamilla Nørgaard Nielsen, and Julian Philipp Leimbeck

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EXAMPLE: BSC PROJECT 2020

PACKAGE AND SURPRISE

Keep the interest alive during one week study

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  • © Rebecca Rauff Mouritsen and Christoffer Vorgaard Ashorn & Louise Mathiasen and Trine Eg Fredslund

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MAP IN PROBES

INQUIRING ATTITUDES ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT

  • Map, questions and different coloured dot stickers to mark the answers on where:

  • They would go to meet people?

  • They would go to be alone?

  • They liked to daydream?

  • They would like to go but can’t?

  • To emphasise individuality:

  • Printed on different kinds of papers and cut into envelope forms –> easy to fold together and put into mail

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POSTCARD IN PROBES

  • Inquiring about target groups’ attitudes towards their lives, cultural environments, and technology

  • Informal and friendly way of communication

  • Place image at front & 1 question at back:

  • Please tell us a piece of advice or insight that has been important to you. (attitude)

  • What do you dislike about (city/building)? (context)

  • What place does (x) have in your life? (attitude)

  • Tell us about your favourite device (technology)

  • Oblique wording and evocative images to open space for possibilities

  • Name and address of the designer + pre-stamping for return!

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Create a probes stcard with one ~~po~~ image on the front and one question about attitude/context/tech nology related to the Social music topic on the back.

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Give your card to another team and wait for the card to return to your team’s desk later J

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CAMERA IN PROBES

  • Should be repackaged to separate it from its commercial origins and to make it fit with the other probe materials

  • Mark on the backside/instruction label the requests for pictures:

  • Your home

  • Something desirable

  • Something boring

  • Unassigned pictures –> whatever participants want to show to designers before mailing the camera back

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Disposable camera: https://tinyurl.com/47rej4mm Reusable camera: https://tinyurl.com/53rkmcus Instant camera: https://tinyurl.com/3bsws9jn

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BOOKLETS

  • Photo album

  • Pictures or text to tell a story about the participant

  • Diary

  • The entries are done daily, for a total of a week or other period of time

  • Record use of something:

    • What?

    • With whom?

    • When?

    • Example: television/ radio use or calls

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EXAMPLE: BSC PROJECT 2020

TASKS INQUIRING INTO DAILY LIVES IN THE CENTER

My world Floor plan Style board Who am I? Where I like/ dislike being? My day Emotion bubbles Postcards Who am I interacting with and when? What does it mean to me?

Style board

What are my aesthetic preferences?

Who I will remember from here in five years?

© Rebecca Rauff Mouritsen and Christoffer Vorgaard Ashorn & Louise Mathiasen and Trine Eg Fredslund

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EXAMPLE: ITPDP PROJECT 2025

5 TASKS

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Selected fishing gear and reasoning of the preferences?

What websites do you use for research and planning before fishing trip?

Map: Fishing location preferences?

Emotional reflection through images (before & after the fishing trip)?

  • © Hook’d team: Agnes Niewald de Place, Kamilla Nørgaard Nielsen, and Julian Philipp Leimbeck

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LAUNCHING THE PROBES

  • Personal introduction to the group of participants

  • Present yourself & your intentions

  • Answer questions

  • Encourage the participants to take an informal, experimental approach to the materials

    • Introduce the types of things participants will find from the probes package

  • Learn about the participants and create enthusiasm and trust!

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THE RETURNED PROBES & DATA

  • Allows designers to

  • Familiarize themselves with the design contexts and people who are they designing for

  • Ground proposals in detailed textures of the local

  • Inspiration rather than direct design proposal!

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RETURNED

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© Rebecca Rauff Mouritsen and Christoffer Vorgaard Ashorn & Louise Mathiasen and Trine Eg Fredslund

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RETURNED

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© Hook’d team: Agnes Niewald de Place, Kamilla Nørgaard Nielsen, and Julian Philipp Leimbeck 23[RD] FEB 2026 MINNA PAKANEN

QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS

General about qualitative data analysis (Blandford et al. 2016), Affinity mapping (Scupin 1997), and thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2012)

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LEARNED IN FITDES AFFINITY DIAGRAM ( )

  • Affinity diagram help organize your data into groups of similar items

  • Process of affinity mapping:

  1. Record all notes or observations on individual cards or sticky notes (can be done in Miro.com as long as you have pseudonymized data and your “key file” is not stored in it, if you are unsure check here: https://studerende.au.dk/en/itsupport/information-security/data-protection-gdpr/projects

  2. Look for patterns in notes or observations that are related and group them

  3. Create a group for each pattern or theme

  4. Give each theme or group a name

  5. Read it through carefully and combine or break themes until saturation is reached –>Affinity diagram is ready

    • Create a statement of what you learned about each group –> provide your analysis or key insights! 23[RD] FEB 2026 MINNA PAKANEN

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EXAMPLE AFFINITY DIAGRAM

Create a statement of each category to present your findings

Each participant is presented with different color Scheme names

© Rebecca Rauff Mouritsen and Christoffer Vorgaard Ashorn & Louise Mathiasen and Trine Eg Fredslund

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ANALYSIS/ PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS

Anonymous code

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THEMATIC ANALYSIS (TA)

› Systematic and sophisticated method for identifying, organizing and offering insight into patterns of meaning (themes) across a data set

  • › Accessible, flexible, and popular method

  • › Driven by research question

  • › Identifying relevant patterns to answering to it

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FLEXIBILITY AND CHOICES IN TA

Many approaches to choose from, but for you these two are important at this point:

  • › Inductive approach: “What is in the data”

› Deductive approach: “Researchers decide what is mapped”

› In reality, we always combine these two approaches!

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FLEXIBILITY AND CHOICES IN TA

Inductive approach

  • › “What is in the data”

  • › Bottom-up: the codes and themes derive from the data

  • › What is mapped relates closely to the data

  • › Experiential in its orientation

  • › Essentialist in its theoretical framework:

    • › Assuming that there is a knowledgeable world

    • ”

    • › “Giving voice to experiences and meanings of that world as reported in the data

›

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FLEXIBILITY AND CHOICES IN TA

Deductive approach

  • › “Researchers decide what is mapped”

  • › Top-down: the codes and themes derive from researchers' ideas and concepts

  • › What is mapped has a looser link to the data

  • › Critical in its orientation

  • › Constructionist in its theoretical framework:

    • › examining how the world is put together (i.e., constructed) and the ideas and assumptions that inform the data gathered.

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PREPARING DATA FOR ANALYSIS

Transcribing and working with the raw data

› Transcribe the audio data (Transcriber in Ucloud)/per participant (Px, where x is participant ID number, I= interviewer):

  • › Verbatim = Capturing every sound made (e.g. throat clearing, laughter, and verbal pauses: “ah,” “um,” and “uh” + other noises (e.g. a phone ringing or a door slamming).

  • › Edited= edited to be clear in grammatic (avoid this)

  • › Intelligent verbatim = edits out distracting filler words & sounds, repetitions, ramblings, non-standard words, and irrelevant conversations

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HOW TO DO THEMATIC ANALYSIS?

6-Phase Approach

1) Familiarization

  • 2) Generating Initial Codes

  • 3) Searching Themes

4) Reviewing the Potential Themes 5) Defining and Naming the Themes 6) Producing the Report

In practice, these phases are done in parallel!

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1) FAMILIARIZATION

Start by familiarizing yourself with the data › Listening to the audio, watching videos, and reading the transcripts

  • › Write down some initial thoughts while doing so in a file or in a notebook

  • › Annotate the whole data transcripts by underlining, noting, or color highlights

  • › Helps you to read the data as data

  • › Focus on things related to your research question

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Themes
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Codes
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2) GENERATING INITIAL CODES

  • Systematic analysis of the data › Codes are the building blocks of the analysis (tiles)

  • › Semantic: descriptive, stay close to the data

  • › Latent: identify the meaning behind the semantic surface

  • › Usually, a mix of both

  • › Code each data item in its entirety before coding another

  • › Modify codes when necessary and read the data again! › Cut and paste data from all participants in another Word file under themes (keep the participant ID (Px) with the snippet)

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2) CODE EXAMPLES

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Themes
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Codes
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3) SEARCHING FOR THEMES

Themes (Walls & roof)

› Searching for themes is an active process

  • › Reviewing codes and coded data to identify broad topics around the

  • code clusters

  • › Thinking of a particular story about your data, together the themes should provide a meaningful picture of your data!

  • › In an 8000-10000-word article, there are typically 2-6 themes

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4) REVIEWING POTENTIAL THEMES

Quality checking

› The developing themes are reviewed in relation to the coded data and the entire data set

› Check if the themes work with data under them, if not relocate the data snippets under another theme

  • › Redraw boundaries of themes to better describe the data under them

› Consider if it is a theme or code

  • › Is there enough meaningful data to support the theme?

  • › Is the data too diverse and wide-ranging/ does the theme lack coherence?

–>If not create additional themes/refine the existing ones

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5) DEFINING AND NAMING THEMES

What is unique and specific in each theme? › Write a few sentences to sum up what is the essence of the theme

  • › Good themes:

  • › They have a singular focus: do not try to do too much

  • › Are related to each other, but do not overlap (can build on previous themes)

  • › They should directly address your research question

› Note that together the themes should tell a coherent story about your data!

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5) DEFINING AND NAMING THEMES

What is unique and specific in each theme?

  • › Deep analytic work in this phase

  • › Descriptive: using data in an illustrative way (easy to start with)

  • › Conceptual and interpretative: latent meanings in the data

Often a combination of both!

  • › Telling the story:

    • › Data does not speak for itself! Don’t just paraphrase the content of data

    • › Your analytic narrative will tell the reader what in the extract is interesting and why

    • › The data needs to be interpreted in relation to your research question

  • › Naming should be informative, concise, and catchy

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5) DEFINED & NAMED THEME EXAMPLES

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6) PRODUCING THE REPORT

Reporting the findings in the publication, thesis, or report › In qualitative analysis, the analysis phase is usually never completed before write-up, but writing and analysis are interwoven

  • › Good writing comes with practice, but try to avoid repetition, paraphrasing, unnecessary complexity, and passive phrasing

› Order of the themes should create a coherent story:

  • › Logical and meaningful

  • › Building up on previous themes is possible

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6) FINAL THEME REPORTING EXAMPLE

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DOING THEMATIC ANALYSIS WELL

Try to avoid common errors:

› Providing data extracts with no or little analysis =no interpretation of what data tells us, what is important in it regarding the research question

  • › Using data collection questions (interview questions) as themes

for data analysis –> better to focus on what participants say

  • › Lack of evidence: provide examples that convince the reader that this pattern was evident in the data

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EDITING TRANSCRIBES IN THE RESULTS REPORTING PHASE

Partly intelligent verbatim, adding things to ease understanding and shortening the quote + how to indicate it?

“Participant quotes are in Italic.”

“When it first time popped open, I was looking over my shoulder, and a woman passed-by me, and it [bag] made a neeee! [makes a sound of the motor] and I was like oh shit! I felt very aware of it, [its] affect to people and [as] I am going to places where are people, so I was like noo [embarrassed sound and holds hand on the face], because I was like waiting it to [. . .] start moving. In terms of getting attention, I received that when it made sound.” (P2)

[your addition inside of these

brackets are not italic]

[…]

= something has been

removed

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DIRECT QUOTATION PRESENTATION ★ ▲… Pseudonymized (P1 or #1)/ first name (real or made up)/ code

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”For me, this lecture has been relevant in learning how to conduct / diary studies.” (P3) (#3)/ (Mia) One participant (P3)/ ( ★ )/ Mia stated: ”For me, this lecture has been relevant in learning how to conduct diary studies.”

★ / Star/ Mia stated: ”For me, this lecture has been relevant in learning how to conduct diary studies.”

★ &▲ found this A few participants (P3 & P6/ / Mia & Jake) 23[RD] FEB 2026 MINNA PAKANEN lecture as helpful in learning how to conduct diary studies.

REFERENCES

  • Carter, S., & Mankoff, J. (2005). When participants do the capturing: the role of media in diary studies. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI’2005). ACM, New York, 899-908.

  • Gaver, B., Dunne, T., & Pacenti, E. (1999). Design: cultural probes. Interactions, 6(1), 2129.

  • Kumpel, A.S. (2021). Using Messaging Apps in Audience Research: An Approach to Study Everyday Information and News Use Practices, Digital Journalism, DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2020.1864219

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REFERENCES: DATA ANALYSIS

  • Blandford, A., Furniss, D., & Makri, S. (2016). Qualitative HCI research: Going behind the scenes. Morgan & Claypool Publishers.

  • Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. In H. Cooper, P. M. Camic, D. L. Long, A. T. Panter, D. Rindskopf, & K. J. Sher (Eds.), APA handbook of research methods in psychology, Vol. 2. Research designs: Quantitative, qualitative, neuropsychological, and biological (pp. 57–71). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/13620-00

  • Scupin, R. (1997). The KJ Method: A Technique for Analyzing Data Derived from Japanese Ethnology. Human Organization, 56(2), 233–237. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44126786

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L4_Understanding Users & The Empathic Designer _2026.pdf Open PDF
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UNDERSTANDING USERS & THE EMPATHIC DESIGNER ITPDP’26, L4

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Minna Pakanen

Department of Digital Design and Information Studies mpakanen @cc.au.dk

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TODAY

  • Designers role

  • Empathic Designer

  • Understanding users

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DESIGNERS ROLE

Harold G. Nelson & Erik Stolterman (2003) The design way. Intentional Change in an Unpredictable World. Foundations and fundamentals of design competence

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DESIGN AS SERVICE RELATIONSHIP

  • A dynamic service relationship between service provider (designer) – those being served (clients, surrogate clients, customers and end users)

  • Design is about service on behalf of the other

  • The clear difference between traditions of design vs. art-science

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Own curiosity/ Own need for passion for knowing self-expression Self-serving

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‘Serves’ the client? Other-serving

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DESIGNER AS SERVICE PROVIDER

  • Being in service does not mean

  • being a servant, or subservient

  • acting as a mere facilitator on behalf of someone else’s needs

  • service to exclude self-expression, but it is not as dominant as in art-science

  • Service is not about helping people to create what they already know they want

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Desiderata? & Designer’s role in it?

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DESIDERATA

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  • The success of the design process can best be determined when those being served experience the surprise of self-recognition

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  • → when the outcome of the design process meets and exceeds the client’s original expression of what is desired (usually only dimly perceived) is known as the client’s desiderata

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  • The designer’s role is to midwife that desiderata!

  • Not fully imagined from the beginning, by either client or designer

  • to provide end results in the form of an expected unexpected outcome

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SERVICE IS NOT SERVITUDE

  • Other party is seen as equal, but not as similar

  • Service is not about helping

“Helping is based on inequality; it is not a relationship between equals. . . Service is a relationship between equals. . . Helping incurs debt. When you help someone, they owe you one. But serving, like healing, is mutual. There is no debt.”

Remen (1996)

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DESIGN EDUCATION

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Own curiosity/ Own need for passion for knowing self-expression Self-serving

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Objective and subjective understanding on behalf another’s interest Other-serving

reflective thought + practical action –> knowledge of ‘why’ + knowledge of ‘how’

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designer client

EMPATHIC DESIGNER

Harold G. Nelson & Erik Stolterman (2003) The design way. Intentional Change in an Unpredictable World. Foundations and fundamentals of design competence Peter Wright & John McCarthy (2010) Experience-Centered Design. Designers, Users, and Communities in Dialogue

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LISTENING

  • Design communication is about listening

  • Helping people to express what they believe will help them live fuller lives.

    • design communication may at times include the use of rhetoric and persuasion, as is true of science and art

  • A good designer does not convince clients of needs or desires they have not authored –no ‘selling’!

  • It is the client’s own intentionality—in the form of their desiderata—that triggers the process.

  • Design is democracy 

     - –> Heightened ability to ‘listen', utilize notitia (Hillman, 1992)

 - Notitia is an act of attention that is complete and uncompromising: ‘focus’

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DESIGN COMMUNICATION

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  • A complex multi-dimensional and multi-phased process:

  • → initial phase of building trust (through conversation)

  • → finding common ground through dialogue (using logic) and developing a shared or common understanding

  • = creation of an uncommon understanding through diathenic graphologue (Greek: diatheno= to show through or let a thing be seen through; and grapho= image or representation).

  • → produces breakthrough insights in the form of rich, complex images that are difficult, if not impossible, to apprehend from a single perspective or cannot be represented in the linear format of text

  • → break the established common ground and bring the process back to a need for more dialogue, in order to find new common ground.

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DESIGNER/CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS?

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designer designer
designer technician
designer facilitator
client client
designer artist
designer designer
designer expert
client client
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designer

designer

designer technician

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designer facilitator

client

designer client

client

designer client

designer artist

designer expert

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designer

designer

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client client designer artist designer facilitator

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designer designer client client designer expert designer technician

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IDEAL SERVICE RELATIONSHIP

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designer
client
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DESIGNERS CHOISES OF RELATIONSHIPS

But any given process have more stakeholders…

  • People who influence …

  • People who are affected …

  • People who are using …

Key exercise is to identify them and decide which ones to satisfy, this needs to be designed!

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DESIGN RELATIONSHIPS

  • Interaction “protocols” describing a relationship

  • Can change along the way

  • I (designer) -> you

  • We (designer + specific stakeholder) -> them • I (designer) -> It / other

  • Everyday relations / partnership / alliances etc.

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EMPATHIC DESIGNER

  • ‘Makes meaning’ for a client by empathetically drawing out his or her pre-formed desires

  • Does not ask the client what fully-formed outcome is to be designed, but instead, through open communication, tries to discern the underlying intentions of that client’s vague ideas of desiderata

  • This symbiotic relationship is possible only if there is an exchange of empathy

  • Empathy in design means: ability to ‘be’ as the other, while remaining a whole self

  • Must be willing to let empathy lead the way!

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UNDERSTANDING USERS

Peter Wright & John McCarthy (2010) Experience-Centered Design. Designers, Users, and Communities in Dialogue

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BEYOND USABILITY

  • Computer systems started to spread from workplaces into home and leisure use context

  • Design for usability is only one of the many values that user-centered design could focus on (Blythe et al., 2003)

  • It no longer seemed enough for user-centered design to focus solely on usability, ease of learning, efficiency, and effectiveness, and for a transparent interface to be the ultimate criteria of success

  • “

  • • beautiful things work better” (Norman, 2004)

    • significant impetus toward experience-centered design

    • slogan opened up an interdisciplinary debate around beauty and pleasure as a design value and the relationship between aesthetics and usability (Sutcliffe, 2009) and (Hassenzhal, 2010)

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EXPERIENCE

  • Developed from pragmatist philosopher John Dewey’s focus on human experiences (Art as Experience, 1938)

  • Thoughts and ideas do not exist separate from our bodies and separate from each other

  • There is no knowledge (or experience) without a knower, language without context or emotion without thought and action

  • We must engage with felt life — the full range of our embodied experiences

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Felt life?

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“FELT LIFE”

  • Life is felt in as much as the continuous sensory and sensual connection we have with it is integral.

  • This is a connection that is situated in and built up over .

  • time and space

  • It reminds us that the world of experience is a world that has a kickable reality both in the physical sense and also in terms of the way in which actions we take have consequences for us intellectually and .

  • emotionally

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EXPERIENCE

  • Experience as sensation, emotion, intellect and action situated in a particular place and time

  • Most experiences consist of a subtle interplay and overlaying of unconscious and conscious action

  • Highly subjective, solitary and introspective process vs. social experience

  • Anticipation and expectation connect past experience to present and future experience

  • “Levels” of experience:

  • Aesthetic experience (flow — body directly connected to the world)

  • Pre-reflective experience (successful habitual interactions)

  • Reflective experience (engage in process of sense making)

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WHAT AFFECTS ON THE EXPERIENCE OF DRIVING A CAR?

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EXPERIENCE-CENTERED DESIGN

Valuing the whole person behind ‘the user’

  • Focusing on how people make sense of their experiences

  • Seeing the designer and user as co-producers of experience

  • Seeing the person as part of a network of social (self-other) relationships through which experience is co-constructed

  • Seeing the person as a concerned agent, imagining possibilities, making creative choices, and acting.

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STORIES IN EXPERIENCE-CENTERED DESIGN

  • Focus on stories over use-cases, requirements, etc.

  • Collecting and analysing stories (understanding the users)

  • Conceptualise and interpret for design

  • Scenarios (agents, goals, plot, action, events)

  • Personas (personal histories, goals, and feelings)

  • Drama and role-play (to connect and evoke)

  • Sharing stories as a way to involve participants

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EXPERIENCE-CENTERED DESIGN

Requires empathic understanding of the users –> Dialogical methods for:

  • Dialogue with the person for whom the object is designed, before and after the object is made

  • Dialogue with materials when the object is being made

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Cultural probes (Gaver et al., 1999)

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BLOSSOM FOR ANA BY JAYNE WALLACE

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXdUNVBOtb0

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DIALOGUE IN BLOSSOM

  • Wallace uses the […] conversations to try to get a glimpse of the other person’s life, perspectives, and values, their own sense of who they are

  • She immerses herself in the materials produced by the participant and in the conversation they have had together

  • Wallace finds some threads that are familiar to her from her own experiences or with which she can empathize .

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EMOTIONAL RESPONSE TO BLOSSOM

  • Blossom piece provoked a strong emotional response and important insight.

"…when it blossomed, it kind of upset me that it was only the once, and I thought ‘oh my god!’ (laughs) but …if it wasn’t only once then that would defeat the object … for me anyway… I mean that was a kind of crucial point for me, when I started blubbing (laughs) when it said it ‘only blossoms once’ and I was just like ‘oh!’, ‘yeah!’ and it, I sort of got it, that it was sort of, represented life really and that, erm, you only live it once…”

(Ana interview transcript lines 155 – 161)

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DESIGN AS DIALOGUE

Separate knowing versus connected knowing

  • “Dialogue puts the focus clearly on processes between people. It sees communication, knowledge, and identity as constructed in relationships between people, not within individuals.”

  • “New understanding is created in the respectful, responsive engagement with dissimilarity. Trying to understand other people, including users, by foregoing one’s own perspective may reproduce existing knowledge but will not produce new understandings.”

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Listening?

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Listening by thinking about the situation in terms of problems and needs?

We already impose our frame of reference rather than listening to what the other person has to say.

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In active listening we have minimum ~~of~~ preconceptions about what we will hear in the situation and the understanding that it may be necessary to change how we already think about the people, practices, and events we find there.

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Active listening is the way forward when aim is to do experience centered-design.

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LISTENING

“By thinking about the situation in terms of problems and needs, we already impose our frame of reference rather than listening to what the other person has to say.”

VERSUS

“Active listening involves going into a situation with the minimum of preconceptions about what we will hear and the understanding that it may be necessary to change how we already think about the people, practices, and events we find there.”

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Why you should not design to students who are studying in IT Product Development Program?

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REFERENCES

  • Harold G. Nelson & Erik Stolterman (2003) The design way. Intentional Change in an .

  • Unpredictable World. Foundations and fundamentals of design competence. MIT Press

  • Wright, P., & McCarthy, J. (2010). Experience-centered design: designers, users, and communities in dialogue. Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics, 3 (1), 1- 123. (chapters: 2-5)

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