Whose probe is it anyway?
Connor Graham
Keith Cheverst
Mark Rouncefield
Department of Information Systems
University of Melbourne
Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia
+61 3 8344 1498
Computing Department
Lancaster University
InfoLab21, Lancaster, England
+44 1524 1524 510312
Computing Department
Lancaster University
InfoLab21, Lancaster, England
+44 1524 594186
cgraham@unimelb.edu.au
kc@comp.lancs.ac.uk
m.rouncefield@lancs.ac.uk
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the “probe” as a method for enabling the
design of technology through consideration of a particular case. In
doing so we explore how systematic the use of the data from
probes should be and who should own the process in which a
probe pack may form a part. The probe pack we discuss here was
designed around inspecting the use of visual information and
message exchange at a care setting where health care workers
cared for ex-psychiatric hospital patients in a hostel 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week. The intention was both to enable care workers
to describe their current practice and help them envisage new
technology design. The probe design was informed by a period of
fieldwork and the probes were launched immediately after a
participatory design workshop that had presented and discussed
some technology designs. An interview with one informant was
conducted after the receipt of the probe pack. We found the
probes to be particularly useful for describing the use of artifacts
and places at the setting and for supporting a semi-structured
interview about a participant’s work, but ineffective for evoking
new technology design directly from the participants themselves.
We reflect on the probe pack, other types of probes that have been
exploited and challenges for probes as an approach.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H.5.3 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Group and
Organisation Interfaces – evaluation/methodology, computersupported cooperative work.
General Terms
Design, Human Factors
Keywords
Cultural probes, informational probes, technology probes, design
probes
1. INTRODUCTION
Cultural probes, since first proposed and described by [6], have
been appropriated and adapted for a range of purposes within a
variety of design processes. These include probes oriented
towards understanding the nature of everyday life at a sensitive
setting in order to generate possible requirements for new
technology design [3] and probes aimed at collecting data on
technology use while new, minimalist artifacts are field tested by
engineers and innofused [4] by users [11]. While we are
sympathetic to the notions that cultural probes act as ‘uncertain’
and ‘ambiguous’ inspiration for design and facilitate the
generation of stories within design teams and also that one can
dwell too much on process, we also believe that probes have a
particular value within particular design processes and that there
are lessons to be learned from these deployments. For instance,
cultural probes have been used within a scheme of participatory
design [15] to design technology mediating intimacy and within a
user-centred design process involving both users and designers
aimed at designing for pleasure [6].
Here we wish to return to and question the original notion of a
probe and, in doing so, consider who this method belongs to in a
process supporting technology design for pleasure, utility,
therapy, or everyday activity, whether this process of design be
participatory [14] or co-realisation [9] or something else. In this
exploration we make the simple claim that probes are useful for
gaining insight into particular settings and that their
“interpretation and analysis” [5] can have varying levels of
formality. Thus the question posed in the title of this paper is not
a mere play on words but an invitation to consider how
unstructured and impromptu this technique should be and who
actually owns the process that probes form a part of (e.g. users,
designers, engineers, social scientists). In addressing this question
we ponder whether probes only provide inspiration over
information [6], if the data collection approach supported by
probe packs should be treated as ‘fragmentary’ or ‘scientific’ [6],
exploratory or focused, who really owns the designs emerging
from a process involving probes and when key players (such as
designers and users) should be involved. We endorse the view
that probes are generative of stories about settings, but consider
that these ‘stories’ tend to be imported into a particular design
process or methodological scheme. We also consider what users’
particular involvement in any process involving probes is and if
probes should be used to innovate or, instead, to tune current
practice and configurations of technology. Central to this
discussion is the notion of ownership of the design process, the
designs produced, and the creative process.
We will explore the questions we pose here through the
examination of a particular case, involving a particular probe pack
deployment. We will show that probe deployment is indeed part
of a “multi-layered” process, but also question if the position of
the designer in this process should be as a ‘lens’ at both the
beginning of the design exercise and at the end [5].
2. SETTING & PROCESS
The probes described here were utilized at the end of a process in
which participants were actively engaged over a prolonged period
([3],[7]). Within this process we tried to enable users to realize
their needs through facilitation and create a context for design and
development where “effort shifts fairly smoothly between
implementing or adjusting previously decided possibilities,
picking up on the host of small problems that arise during work,
coping with the unanticipated consequences of previous actions,
talking to individuals…” [1].
The setting where the probes were deployed was quite unusual: a
community care facility in a small town in the north of England
supporting ex-psychiatric hospital patients. The participants were
health care workers aged between 25 and 58, operating across the
two sites forming the community care facility. One site is staffed
all the time, even at night, whereas the other is staffed at regular
working hours. Due to the nature of the setting there were
considerable constraints governing data collection. These
included concerns over confidentiality and disturbing and
alarming the residents through the data collection process. This
sensitivity was indeed a motivation for studying the health care
workers over the residents in this phase of the work. Thus, in the
earlier phases of the work, data was collected through cultural
probes that were more informational in character than Gaver et
al.’s [6] original conception [3], technology probes (when new
technology use is actually logged) [2], field visits and interviews
with staff and researchers involved in the earlier phases of the
work [7]. In this part of the research process we were keen to
explore the possibility of handing over the “provocateur” role [6]
to the participants themselves so that they could reflect outside the
norm of their current practice and hopefully surprise us.
The probes themselves were ‘launched’ after a participatory
design workshop which capped a period of field work. At this
workshop ‘stories’ or snippets of typical, everyday action and
interaction at the setting were presented to participants for
confirmation or disconfirmation. These scenario-like entities acted
as a means for staff to reflect on their current practice and on
opportunities for new technology deployment. A technology
demonstration was also presented which played out how
particular technology (in this case a mobile phone interacting with
a public display) might work. The session produced several crude
designs for technology configuration, described mainly in text
(see Figure 1). Two multi-disciplinary groups placed the
participants in the centre of the creative process, while supporting
them with a computer scientist and social scientist in each team.
One of these designs that emerged was then ‘fleshed out’ by the
research team [7].
Figure 1. Workshop Design Description
These details are not insignificant: they show that participants
were involved in a prolonged process of data collection and
reflection and co-realised [9] the resultant designs, crude though
they might have been. There was also a deliberate attempt to
introduce and describe technology that both constrained their
conceptions of what might be deployed at the site and helped
them envisage the possibilities offered by new technologies.
3. PROBE PACK DESIGN
The purpose of the probe pack was to enable participants to reflect
on particular phenomena and artifacts at the settings and, above
all, to enable them to sketch some configurations of technology
that would be suitable for the particular nature of the setting. A
very important feature of this probe pack was that it was
sequenced. The reflections in the first two sections (see 3.1 and
3.2) were supposed to support self-directed envisagement in the
last (see 3.3). Thus this pack was not only initially intended as a
tool supporting reflection, but also as a kind of prop supporting
the ‘acting out’ of design ideas [10]. This structure meant this
probe pack was more proscribed and less constrained than many
others (e.g. 15) due the particular kind of responses we wanted to
elicit.
The probe pack comprised a booklet, a Polaroid camera with extra
film, glue, a disposable camera, PostIt notes and pens. The
booklet was divided into three parts and was designed to be kept
like a journal or impressionistic diary capturing the particular as it
happened over a week. When the probe packs were returned, one
participant was interviewed, focusing on the substance of their
return. Only two probe packs out of three were returned.
3.1 Photo Diary
The Photo Diary was a means for capturing the properties of the
environment in which the participants acted and interacted. It was
oriented towards understanding what might indeed populate a
digital public display if deployed at the setting. As already noted
this technology had been described at the participatory design
workshop via a demonstration. The instructions (Figure 2 below)
had a reflective component (under the ‘Think about…’ section)
and an action component (under the ‘What to do…’ section) and
were oriented to visuals and information in the environment. This
‘reflect-do’ format was consistent across all three sections of the
booklet.
The Photo Diary was successful at eliciting the particular artifacts
and information that care-givers used at the setting: notices on the
walls (6 photos); visible artifacts such as papers, files, and books
(6 photos); people, including residents and staff (5 photos);
communication technology such as CCTV, a messaging system,
an intercom (5 photos); ‘hidden’ artifacts used to store important
information such as files (4 photos); pictures on the walls (2
photos) and a global view of one office (1 photo). Alone, this data
had limited significance, but situated as they were in a research
process involving both traditional and remote fieldwork, they
presented rich and specific instances of how particular work was
done using particular artifacts in the course of a working day. For
instance, a photograph of a staff member “busy updating daily
reports during the shift” was not surprising, given what we found
during a phase of the research involving site visits and interviews.
On the other hand, 2 photographs of a messaging system (SPAM)
that had been installed at the site previously [3] did not reflect the
actual use of the system as mainly being to support social
interaction that we discovered through analysis of 164 logged
messages [8]. The two comments added underneath the photos
revealed a level of cynicism and detachment regarding the
technology and were: “Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam,
Spam, Spam everybody loves spam” (see Figure 3) and “Picture
of SPAM machine, Broken down.”
what might be suitable for public display content. The instructions
(see Figure 4 below) were directed towards participants thinking
about message transfer at the setting.
Figure 4. Instructions in Message Book
The Message book produced 6 entries by one participant. These
entries were: PostIt notes containing phone numbers and coding
schemes (4 – see Figure 5 below); and scraps of paper that were
used to transfer information among staff members (2). The content
of these messages concerned the recording of medication to be
collected, telephone calls to be made and money handed out to
residents.
Figure 2. Instructions in Photo Diary
Figure 3. Example of Photo Diary data
3.2 Message Book
The Message Book was a way of enabling participants to reflect
on how information was transferred and moved around the
setting. Again, there was a deliberate intention to concentrate on
Figure 5. Example of Message Book data
3.3 Ideas Book
The Ideas Book was intended to facilitate design. Thus this probe
pack was not only about reflection but also was supposed to
support envisagement of new practices and technology. The
instructions (see Figure 6 below) were directed towards reflecting
on entries in the Photo Diary and Message book and on thinking
about how particular technology configurations might work in the
context of the setting. There were no entries in the Ideas Book.
Despite the paucity of entries in the Ideas Book, many of the
photographs presented in the Photo Diary represented design
opportunities, such as the possibility of displaying staff rota
information (see Figure 7 below) on a digital public display that
we explored in a design emerging from the other field data [7].
Figure 6. Instructions in Ideas Book
Figure 7. ‘Inspiration’ for Design in Photo Diary
4. REFLECTIONS ON PROBE PACK
Often the relationship between designers and users is conceived
of in terms of power – of the powerful and the less powerful. We
will not deny that there is a system that enables the production of
differences, but we will insist on the need to study its existence
and its implications empirically. The difference between designers
and users should not be taken as an a priori fact. It has to be
explored.
[13:4]
We have described a very small deployment of probes that was
intended to support participant design. The data that was returned
was incredibly valuable, but not in the manner we expected. It
gave us insights into the objects used, information transferred and
aspects of the environment from the participants’ point of view.
Through our use of the probe pack, we deliberately handed over
the responsibility for design to the participants within carefully
constructed constraints. So, on one hand, the probe pack very
much belonged to us. However, our concern was to be democratic
in the way we involved participants in design. Thus, on the other
hand, the probe was very much the property of the participants.
The pack was spectacularly unsuccessful in producing designs but
was successful at gathering participant impressions (regarding the
importance of record keeping for example), attitudes (regarding
SPAM for example) and important aspects of their physical
environment (such as notices on staff’s shift patterns). However,
the participant who was interviewed (with his returned probe pack
acting as a prompt) noted that he did not complete the Ideas Book
because he felt the current technology and practices (e.g. the use
of PostIt notes) dealt with the issues he raised through the Photo
Diary and Message Book adequately. The same participant
commented that the probe pack had made him realize how
information was passed among people “all the time”. The former
comment seems particularly damning when the intention of the
probe pack is considered: the aim of the pack was to enable the
participants to think beyond current use and practice.
However, this case has shown that we can trace the content of
probe packs forward into design ideas (see Figure 7). These
inspirational shards may lack detail and may not result in
particularly novel technology design, but they are situated within
the practices operating at the setting and they represent important
actions, interactions and reflections as-they-occur. This involves
acknowledging the probe content as reflecting the day-to-day
practices of participants that can, indeed, inspire design. The
results also show that this pack was successful in combating our
inability to access particular details of the setting (such as the
important ‘hidden artefacts’ photographed by participants). We
also seemed to bridge the gap between a participant view and an
observer view by accessing their own opinion of their work and of
the importance of particular artifacts and places they experienced.
For example, one participant wrote “THE NERVE CENTRE”
under a photograph of one office at the setting, reflecting how
important s/he regarded it as a nexus for message exchange.
This probe pack, we admit, was highly functional in character.
The booklet was designed as a journal and all the materials
included were added as support for the construction of a detailed
picture describing the role of messages, photographs and pictures
in participants’ everyday working lives by the participants
themselves for the participants themselves. However, there was
little support in the pack for activities supporting design (for
example, only one instruction suggested the use of sketching) and
the instructions seemed too verbose (see Figure 6). Thus the Ideas
Book seemed both to have too many constraints and not enough
support. This lack of support may have been compounded by
participants not being ideally suited to envisaging new technology
design in the first place.
5. INSPIRATION OR INFORMATION?
“In fact, one should be careful about the a priori distinction made
between use and design, between user and designer. This
distinction implicitly inscribes assumptions that the one is passive
(user), and the other is active (designer)…”
[13:8]
The probe pack presented here poses a question: Where is the
envisagement and who does it? We have presented one example
of a photograph (see Figure 7) that was indeed something that
could be implemented using the technology we presented at the
participatory design workshop, in an attempt to empower
participants to actively produce design ideas instead of passively
consuming them. This photo reinforced the finding that making
staff rota information visible was important at this setting. But
does probe pack content have to map directly onto new
technology design, as with a sketch of a technology configuration
which we tried to encourage? Does not the “inspiration” emerge
from the story that unfolds from the “interpretation” of the pack,
as Gaver et al. (2004) suggest? We would say “yes” but only
because some of the participants themselves, in partnership with
the researchers, helped shape these stories. “Some” and “helped”
are important here: one probe pack that was returned was by a
participant who had been interviewed. The other was filled out by
a participant who had had an active role in the design workshop
and, as the post-probe interview showed, enjoyed reflecting on
his/her own practice. Both these participants were involved in an
ongoing dialogue that formed an important part of the design
process.
That the inspiration-information dichotomy has been described at
all, and in some cases ridiculed, represents a particular stance
concerning probe deployment: probes are seen as a means of
looking from the outside in for those enthused by the possibility
of technology intervention and production. In framing the debate
in this manner, participants become the watched, the designed for,
the architect’s puzzle, the passive consumer. A more important
and subtle distinction seems to be concerning innovation and
envisaging new technologies as a design experiment against
understanding and incorporating new technologies to support
existing practice in a sustained way. Thus more worthy
continuums may be represented by the design intervention
continuum and the conception of the user: the design intention
varying from the extraordinary to the ordinary; and the conception
of the user varying from the passive consumer to the active
bicoleur [14].
6. CONCLUSION: TYPES OF PROBE
“When studying technologies we are looking for types of use,
symbolic expressions and personal attachment remaking the
technologies into something close and familiar. This is a way of
making them part of everyday life, and it is not accomplished
simply by letting them into the home or other daily surroundings.
There is a paradox concerning technology as well as everyday life
in that both make us look for the trivial and functional. Here we
have sought to shed light on the emotional”
[13:17]
The above quotation could well be a call for new methods as well
as a plea to consider new perspectives on technology beyond
function and utility. Here we have explored one such method, first
used for such design beyond function. But, given this method has
been used to probe the everyday, the functional and useful and the
affective and ‘ludic’, how can we describe it, and in doing so
think about how it might be used? Is it a social science research
tool for reaching the unreachable? A means of making the
invisible, visible, the inaudible audible, the intangible, tangible,
the impalpable, palpable? “Collections of evocative tasks meant to
elicit inspirational responses from people” [5] that return
“fragmentary data” over time? We think probes are all of these
(the latter quotation is a comment on what they were originally
intended to be, as opposed to how they have been appropriated).
“Probes” describe a cluster of approaches and tools, some with
considerable history in social science research (e.g. diarykeeping). Probes can be designed to capture a sense of participant
culture in a very unsystematic way to understand ludic pursuits or
be directed towards understanding everyday phenomena involving
particular people. They can be owned by the research team where
the designer of new technology acts as a slightly distanced
architect or be shared with participants in a process of co-realising
new technology design and practices. They can be directed
towards understanding less goal-oriented activity in settings that
are hard to access because of generational ‘distance’ or towards
settings where understanding the character of everyday work is
important and difficult. They can be used in a “fragmentary” or
more “scientific” manner and they can be used to design
technology for pleasure or more for utility, such as for technology
supporting therapy. They can be highly visible and demand work
on the part of the participants or be embedded in the fabric of the
setting as with technology probes [11,3]. It seems common across
all deployments that the returns from probes are analysed and in
being analysed they are evocative of narratives, vignettes or
scenarios that can act as information or inspiration (or both) for
design. Other common characteristics are that they are deployed
with a purpose (although this may be very broad) and they
facilitate autonomous data collection for the design of new
technology or practices.
In considering how a ‘design’ emerges from probe data we reflect
on the role of ‘the user’. We have suggested here that ‘the user’ is
not a powerless and passive consumer in this process. In doing so,
we question the very conception of a probe as a scientific
‘instrument’ for data collection controlled by a research team.
When thinking about adjusting this power balance we really are
asking the question Whose probe is it anyway? In considering the
answer to this question we consider the detail of how technology
might actually work at a setting, the implicit view of technology
we hold and our conception of ‘the user’ in the design process.
7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was funded by the EPSRC funded CASIDE project
(grant ref: EP/C005589) and the Equator and DIRC IRC projects.
The work also builds on work carried out under the EPSRC
funded CASCO project and was part funded by a Melbourne
University Abroad Travelling Scholarship (MATS). Thanks to
Dan Fitton, Steve Howard and Frank Vetere for help and advice.
Special thanks to Christine Satchell for listening and contributing
to early ideas.
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