Attitude
Iterative process
Methods
WHAT IS USER CENTERED DESIGN?
• Ergonomics
• Usability
• Interaction
• Emotions / values
= Use-experience
= Holistic perspective on potential users
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APPROACHING THE USE-EXPERIENCE
• What people are doing? • Who?
• Where and When?
• Why and How?
• Needs, Values, Lifestyle? • Alone or Together?
WHAT KIND OF INFORMATION IS NEEDED?
KNOWLEDGE:
WHAT PEOPLE:
SAY
THINK
SAY
EXPLICIT
OBSERVABLE
DO
USE
Observation
DO
TACIT
KNOW
FEEL
DREAM
Interview
MAKE
LATENT
(Sanders & Dandavate, 1999*)
Generative
methods:
Probes,
collages, codesign
workshops,
design games
*Sanders, E. B.-N, Dandavate, U (1999). Design for experiencing: New tools. Paper presented to the First International Conference on Design and
Emotion. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
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Kirsikka Vaajakallio
19.03.2009
Design probes
A) Seeking experiences and design empathy: Why?
B) Approaching experiences: How?
C) Probing examples; Cultural and Emphatic Probes
*presentation is partly based on Eva Brandt’s and Tuuli Mattelmäki’s material
Why?
We need user data from places and
situations where researchers or designers
presence would be disturbing.
We need to understand emotional and
subjective perspectives, attitudes and
meanings.
How to document experiences which take
place in private contexts?
How to support people to document their
everyday experiences, values and needs?
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How? Probes
• Based on self-documenting.
• Collections of tasks, which are given
to people to make them analyze,
document and express their
experiences and ideas.
• Focus on the users’ subjective
world.
• Design oriented. Use your skills!!
• Empower both users’ and designers’
interpretations and creativity.
Bille Gaver and Tony Dunne
Royal College of Art, London
Cultural Probes
CHI’99, Pittsburgh. ACM: New York
The Bijlmer housing district, Amsterdam:
• Poor reputation
• Unemployment
• Drug abuse
• Crime
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Project goals
To find new ideas for using new media
in order to support elderly peoples’
active presence in local communities.
Characteristics:
• Address people’s emotional,
aesthetic, and experimental reactions
to their environments.
• Look for alternative future.
• Provoking and visual, not for
analyses but to inspire creative
thinking.
.... ”if Bijlmer were a body ...”
Probe materials – postcards
• Strong, ambiguous and contradicting
images with text.
• To evoke stories from experiences.
...”tell us a piece of advice”
... ”why do we have politicians?”
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Probe materials – camera tasks
... ”what will you wear today?”
...”something beautiful”
... ”something ugly”
Send us 6-10 pictures that tell
us your story!
Mattelmäki & Battarbee 2002
Mattelmäki 2003
Mattelmäki 2006
Empathy probes
The main interest has been
in gathering empathic
versatile subjective user
data for concept design.
reminder
camera
stickers
• Company collaboration.
• Following interviews
support interpretations.
My weaknesses
Diary / task book
postcards
My strengths
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(Picture by Tuuli Mattelmäki)
Reasons for
applying probes
Probing process
(Picture by Tuuli Mattelmäki)
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Example: Active@work project
• Was carried out by University of Art and Design Helsinki.
• Aim was to develop alternative concept solutions for ageing workers well
being at work.
• Focused on individual workers and their motivations, problems and
attitudes.
• Alltogether 15 workers, 8 from cleaning maintenance (all female) and 7
from technical maintenance (all male), participated in the probe study.
Probing process – example from Active@work project
Interpretation
Interviews
Producing the probes
Probes are in the field
Planning
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Work book / diary
Map
Probe Design
• Should be communicative, visual
and motivating.
• Illustrations can help in
understanding the questions and
stimulate emotional responses.
• Appropriate for the topic and the
users.
• Can reflect designer’s view about
the research and design issues
• Consider the logistics, time and
broadness.
• What you want to find out?
• Individual / group work.
Timetable
Postcards
Disposable camera
Stickers or other ’ready made’ material
can inspire and support filling the probe
Designing the probe kit
• In the brainstorming session the researchers created ideas about
themes, open questions, tasks and the form of the probe package.
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selfdocumentation
Content
•
•
•
•
Instructions
A disposable camera
A one week timetable task
2 postcards, one of which was
addressed to Palmia and the other
was addressed to the researchers at
the University of Art and Design
Helsinki
• A booklet which included questions
and tasks grouped into different
themes
• A map in which the users were told
to keep track of their movements
during a working day
Rewarding my self
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Content: The booklet
Who am I?
• Describe your personality.
• Continue the sentence: The
best thing when getting older
is...
• Continue the clause: The worst
thing when getting older is...
The aim:
• To get an idea what ageing
means to them and find out
about who they are as
individuals.
Content: The booklet
Who am I?
• If you would be a shoe what
kind of shoe you would be
and why?
The aim:
• With an abstract question
something inspirational and
unexpected things can be
revealed.
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Content: The booklet
Social connections
• Tell with this picture about
your social network. Who do
you meet and keep in touch
with? Think it both from your
work community and leisure
point of view.
The aim:
• To get an idea of the amount
and importance of their social
contacts.
Content: The booklet
Physical wellbeing
• Mark with stickers those
areas of body which strain
during the work day. Tell
when and why it happens
and how it could be
prevented.
The aim:
• To get an idea what
physical problems
individuals have.
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Content: The booklet
”recipe of nice work day”
• What elements create a nice
work day. What are the main
”ingredients” and what are
the small but important
”spices” which crowns the
day. Think also what can spoil
it?
The aim:
• To get insights of the
importance of the atmosphere
at workplaces and its meaning
for wellbeing.
Content: The booklet
Physical environment
• Here are some pictures
about old tools. Tell or draw
what kind of tool could help
you in your work in the
future.
The aim:
• To get first impression about
the possibilities of
developing better tools for
them.
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Content: Map + Timetable
The map aim:
• To get an overview of
different environments and
physical spaces during the
week or day.
The timetable aim:
• To get an overview of the
weakly tasks and routines.
Wednesday
Thursday
Content: The postcard
• The postcard had an open aim.
Translation:
“To bow is not bad if you bow in a right place”
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The tool I like most…
Content – camera tasks
• For visualizing the context
Mechanics I confront in my work…
This is hard…
Interviews
Discussing the returned probes
material and the taken
photographs.
Interview complements the
fragmented probes data.
After receiving the probes
researchers go through it and
makes structure for the
interview.
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Collages
• Can reveal values,
attitudes and dreams
difficult to verbalise.
• Can include words and
images.
• How they organise the
images, what images
they use and what they
tell is interesting. (ask
people to think aloud)
Data
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Interpreting and making sense
• Applying interpretation models
e.g. Affinity diagram.
• Interpretation in the terms of
the material.
>> Leave your pre image behind
and start with an open mind!!!
• Condensing and combining.
• Direct interpretation.
Probe study results
• Combine and condense it into
visual and narrative
presentations.
• Illustrates your findings in
inspiring way.
• Support the overall topic
• Poster, booklet, web page ,…
>>> think your audience
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Combine and condense: User descriptions
• Represent individual characters
and interpretations (without
revealing the person).
• Not caricature or it looses
credibility.
• Summarize characteristics, tasks,
attitudes etc.
• Support insights and facilitate
collaboration.
• Create base for brainstorming,
developing and evaluating
concept design solutions.
What next?
• Idea generation based on persona
descriptions.
• Finding focus for concept development.
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Deciding focus
Co-design workshop using persona descriptions
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What next?
•
More user studies, workshops,
generative methods…
• Persona descriptions helped to:
a) Remember the users;
b) Form design drivers according
to different motivations;
c) Present the concept ideas
through them.
Probe assignment
Think:
•
Who are your users?
*Define the number and
characteristics of users according
to the aims of the study.
•
What you want to find out?
*Plan the content based on that.
•
How you can apply different
tasks?
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