Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Ux Design10
Ux Design10
Cultural Probes
For studying groups that are not well acquainted/familiar, it is
often difficult to gain a true understanding of the group’s culture,
behaviours and attitudes, preferences, concerns and desires.
• If the group is not familiar, traditional surveys, questionnaires
and various observational techniques are likely to produce
responses that are guarded and merely scratch the surface.
• Cultural probes are sets of simple artifacts (such as maps,
postcards, cameras, or diaries) that are given to users for them
to record specific events, feelings or interactions in their usual
environment, in order to get to know them and their culture
better.
• Cultural probes are used to uncover aspects of culture and
human interaction like (1) emotions, (2) values, (3)
connections, and (4) trust.
Cultural Probes
Responses from these probes initiate a communication.
• With minimal intrusion, researchers can glean insights into
participants’ environments that can help to (1) identify
problem statements, (2) uncover new opportunities, and (3)
inspire the designer with new ideas and novel solutions.
Bill Gaver, Tony Dunne, and Elena Pacenti first introduced cultural
probes when they worked on the Presence Project in the
European Union. The project was open-ended and was intended
to explore ways to increase the involvement of the elderly in
three communities (Gaver et al, 1999).
• Aesthetically inviting and informal probes were developed to
facilitate the research.
• Probes were delightful, but not childish or condescending to
encourage a playful, casual attitude from participants.
Cultural Probes
Cultural Probes
Cultural Probes
Cultural Probes
Reporting the Results
(About probes)
(About participants)
(Results summary)
Cultural Probes
Process
1. Kit Design – Researchers must identify the goals of the
cultural probes, as well as the activities and materials that will
support these goals. Too specific instructions could limit the
insights that may come from the probes (Gaffney, 2006).
2. Demographics – Participants should be carefully selected
based on research goals.
3. Delivery – Kits are delivered to participants—if possible in
person, or elaborate instructions are provided to explain each
item and the overall intention of the research. Participants are
asked to follow the instructions and send the information
back to the researcher. Usually given a lengthy period of time
to complete the kits but could be asked to send individual
tasks back to the researcher early as well.
Cultural Probes
4. Materials – While there are no fixed components in a cultural
probe, designers should carefully select the items, as well as
the overall design of the kit, in order to elicit the desired
response. Kits should be playful yet professional. Kits might
include items such as disposable cameras, maps, stickers,
postcards, notebooks, gifts, etc.
5. Activities – Include instructions with the kit to guide
participants on completing the tasks. For example: “Take a
picture of the heart of your house”, or “show us the first five
places that you would take a friend from out of town by
placing a sticker at each location on the map”.
6. Follow-up – Once the kits are completed, the researcher
meets with the participants again—either individually or as a
group—to share the inspiration that the user’s artifacts
sparked and to engage in deeper conversation where
appropriate.
Cultural Probes
7. Analysis – A debriefing session can be conducted with
participants to interpret the probes, as well as to identify
similarities and patterns. Researchers will then interpret the
findings and may contact participants to clarify and validate
them.
Variations
Cultural Probes have been used when trying to design in
“sensitive settings” such as mental health institutions where
traditional observation methods could be problematic.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming
A method for generating ideas, intended to inspire the free-
flowing sharing of thoughts of an individual or a group of people,
typically along while withholding criticism in order to promote un-
inhibited thinking.
• Good brainstorming focuses on the quantity and creativity of
ideas: the quality of ideas is much less important than the
sheer quantity.
• After ideas are generated, they are often grouped into
categories and prioritized for subsequent research or
application.
Brainstorming is useful for:
• Identifying a wide range of ideas and solutions to existing or
new problems.
• Creating group ownership of ideas.
• Improving group cohesiveness.
Brainstorming
Procedure
1. Decide on the question or topic that you will present to the
group during brainstorming. Avoid questions and topics that
are too narrow or too broad.
2. Develop a set of brainstorming rules and review those with
the participants. The most basic rules could include:
• No verbal or non-verbal criticism.
• Quantity, not quality is the goal so extreme ideas are
welcome.
• No arguing over ideas or telling of long stories (be succinct).
• Clarification is fine, but should be focused and brief.
3. Heterogeneous group is likely to bring out more diversity in
ideas, but a group that is too heterogeneous (bringing in
outsiders who are unknown to most of the team) may not
achieve a comfort level in a short time. (Some say a group size
that ranges from five to twelve participants)
Brainstorming
5. Plan how you will record and track the results of the
brainstorming session.
6. Describe the topic and procedures for the session. Review the
brainstorming rules. Describe what you will do with the data
and how the results will be used.
7. Ask if anyone has any questions about the session, and begin
the brainstorming by asking participants to call out their ideas
as quickly as possible.
8. At the end of the brainstorming, walk through all the ideas
and make sure that the meaning of the idea is clear.
9. At this point, you might want to choose a subset of ideas for
subsequent use. You can do this in number of ways including:
consensus, rating of all items, and having another group
decide which ideas to consider further.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming
The outcomes of brainstorming are:
1. A list of ideas or solutions related to a particular problem.
2. The ideas or solutions organized into groups.
3. Some form of prioritization based on attributes like cost,
feasibility, popularity, etc.
Benefits
1. Many ideas can be generated in a short time.
2. Requires few material resources.
3. The results can be used immediately or "preserved" for
possible use in other projects.
Brainstorming
Advantages
1. Is a "democratic" way of generating ideas.
2. Could get over "design" blocks that are slowing development.
Challenges
1. Requires an experienced facilitator who understands the
social psychology of small groups.
2. Requires a dedication to quantity rather than quality.
3. Can be chaotic and intimidating to introverts.
4. May not be appropriate for some business or international
cultures.
Metaphor Brainstorming
In the context of Design, "A metaphor is a word, sound, image, or
a physical or virtual concept that helps people to understand a
system and that describes one thing in terms of another.“
Once the cards have been sorted into groups the team may sort
large clusters into subgroups for easier management and analysis.
• In many cases, the best results tend to be achieved when the
activity is completed by a cross-functional team, including key
stakeholders.
Affinity Diagramming
Give each person a pack of post-it/sticky notes/cards and ask
them to record each collected statement on each card, along with
a short code that will allow you to track that statement back to a
participant, such as their initials.
• Focus on statements that seem to have relevance to the
design, either specifically (a feature statement) or in a more
general way (a statement that represents as participant’s
attitude to the company or subject matter).
• If some cards belong to more than one group, you can write
duplicates and place them in each appropriate group.
Affinity Diagramming
Affinity Diagramming
Affinity Diagramming
Some examples of the kinds of categories that you might see,
including the kind of statement you’d find in them:
1. Goals: “I try to clear off all the open items here before I leave
for the day.”
2. Mental models/Stereotypes: “I use this online tool as my
briefcase, for things I reference a lot but don’t want to carry
around with me.”
3. Ideas and feature requests: “I wish this would allow me to
undo. I keep moving the whole folder accidentally and it takes
me forever to cancel out of it.”
4. Frustrations: “I’d ask the help desk about this, but half the
time they don’t know what the problem is either.”
5. Workarounds: “This takes so long to do here that I just end up
printing out the list and working with it throughout the day.
Then at the end of the day I enter in the results.”
6. Value statements: “This tool here saves me a lot of time, so if
you’re making changes don’t take it away!”
Card Sorting
Card Sorting
In a card sorting activity, participants (working either individually
or in small groups) are given items printed on cards and are asked
to put them into groups that make sense to them.
• Either they group them into categories that are provided
beforehand (closed sort), or they make their own groups and
title each group themselves (open sort).
• One might also perform an open sort first, identify distinct
groups/categories, and then conduct closed sort to assign
members to these unique groups.
• At the end of the round of card sorting you should begin to see
common patterns emerge in how people are sorting the items,
as well as common areas of confusion or disagreement.
• A common reason for doing this is to create a site map for a
website/application or to create a hierarchy of content,
categories, and subcategories.
Card Sorting
Card Sorting
Card sorting is a technique in user experience design in which a
person tests a group of subject experts or users to generate a
dendrogram (category tree) or folksonomy.
• It is a useful approach for designing information architecture,
workflows, menu structure, or web site navigation paths.