Probing the Probes

‘Inspiration is not the special property of an elite but can be found in everyone’

Jean Dubuffet

Terry Hemmings, Andy Crabtree and Tom Rodden Karen Clarke and Mark Rouncefield The School of Computer Science and Information Computing Department Technology SECAMS Building The Jubilee Campus Lancaster Nottingham NGI 8BB, LA1 4YR UK UK. + 44(0) 1158466512 k.m.clarke, [email protected] tah,axc, [email protected]

ABSTRACT Ethnographic studies of technology INTRODUCTION have focused on trying to understand the socially In October 2000, the UK Engineering and organised, naturally occurring uses of Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) technological artifacts in socio-technical launched the Equator IRC (Equator #1). The systems. This paper describes the design work of six-year programme is a collaborative venture two separate research groups utilising ‘cultural spanning eight research partners1 and multiple probes’ as a mode of participatory design for disciplines including computer science, domestic settings. The first group created electronics, social science, psychology, art, specially designed probes to analyse the design and architecture. motivations that shape home life, to inspire future designs. The second group used a cultural Equator research groups are creating devices probe derivative as an adjunct to an and software platforms to interweave the ethnographic study of a sensitive ‘home’ setting physical and the digital in new ways. Research – a sheltered housing complex – and used them groups are developing innovative methods for for ‘information’ rather than ‘inspiration’. The designing and evaluating these technologies. authors will contribute an innovative evaluation From the outset, the Equator programme has of the use of these probes for a participatory been committed to combining these technologies approach to design and explore the ways in and methods in a series of large-scale which cultural probes and probes hybrids might ‘collaborative’ projects that directly engage present alternative strategies for exploring users in the design process. In practice, this ‘sensitive’ settings. grounded approach has resulted in a series of practical evaluations that directly involve the Keywords participation of users through collaborations Methodology, participatory design, cultural with museums, performance groups, community probes, domestic probes, ethnography, art and support groups, care organisations, schools and design, design practice, home, workplace. other user collectivities.

One of the fundamental challenges facing the Equator programme is to devise methods for understanding interaction for the purposes of design. In this paper, we discuss how two design groups responded to the challenge, through an exploration of their work.

Both these design-oriented workgroups are The Cultural Probes approach [7] has recently involved in separate but related experience gained some prominence as means of ‘inspiring’ projects. Firstly, we discuss the design and interactive design. We use the notion of a interpretation work of the Computer Related Cultural Probes approach as a generic term here, Design (CRD) group based at the Royal College incorporating technology probes, domestic of Art, UK. They are led by Bill Gaver, who probes etc. Within a domestic context, the pioneered the development of Cultural Probes approach is concerned to address both what role [6]. This group of designers is involved in technology might play in the home of the future Domestic Environments Project that is and, specifically, how it can support existing developing innovative applications of domestic values. The Cultural Probes approach, technologies in the home. This is followed by an Gaver argues, “act[s] as a design intervention introduction to the work of members of the that elicits inspirational material while avoiding Cooperative Systems Engineering Group the understood social roles of researchers and (CSEG) in the Department of Computing at researched” [6]. For Gaver, the ‘inspiration’ Lancaster University, who have pioneered the approach utilized by the CRD team brings the use of ethnography in design [4]. This group user closer to the design space in a way that is employs a multidisciplinary research team to seemingly different from conventional facilitate the development of enabling ethnographic methods widely used in domains technologies to assist care for specific user such as Computer-Supported Cooperative Work groups with different support needs. The Digital (CSCW) to uncover, elicit or validate Care Project is concerned with improving the ‘requirements’ for technologies. quality of everyday life by developing supporting technologies based on a comprehensive This initial analysis is based on an ongoing understanding of user needs. The CSEG group investigation of the design domain and has an eclectic approach to methods and is incorporates what can best be described presently utilising a number of cultural probe methodologically, as taking the techniques. ethnomethodological turn to studies of work. Following Sharrock and Hughes Our investigation of the work of these two recommendation, our approach places an groups is not simply concerned with evaluating emphasis upon the extent to which our reports the methodological rationale that underpins the are joint productions; things that have been use of the cultural probes approach. The aim is orchestrated by us and those under study [12]. to promote an understanding of the ways in Secondly, it emphasizes the “extent to which the which methods and procedures, strategically organisation of the social setting is also a ‘joint combined, produce beneficial outcomes for construction’, something that is done between collaborative design work. and together by the participants in the setting” [their emphasis]. We would argue that it might also be useful if the notions of participation and CULTURAL PROBES collaboration further elaborated to include to The initial impetus for this paper arose from a inter-collaboration- with the ‘subjects’ of study methodological interest in ‘Cultural Probes’. and intra-collaboration- between researchers. Particularly the ways in which non-scientistic art and design methods might lend themselves INFORMATION OR INSPIRATION? to design studies of socially sensitive settings. It is important to point out that each workgroup We were curious to understand the relationship adopted Cultural Probes for different reasons. between (a) the Cultural Probes and the more The theoretical and methodological concerns conventional collaborative approaches to design manifested in the Cultural Probes approach research procedures such as ethnography and developed by Gaver and Dunne [7] is located in (b), how practitioners from different disciplines the philosophical tradition of the artist-designer. go about the practical work of operationalizing Given the CRD group’s pedigree it is not Cultural Probes’ novel non-scientific approach surprisingly that Cultural Probes play a central to design. role in the CRD approach to design. Alternatively, the CSEG group has a Computer

Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) sensitivities of the then unknown volunteer background and concentrates on bringing adjunct researchers/participants, also ethnographic findings to bear upon design demonstrates the skills required in constructing matters. In the Digital Care project, however, cultural probes. These skills are combined with the group’s ethnographer has made a pragmatic a range of more mundane contingent matters adaptation of the CP approach in order to be including a working knowledge of material costs sensitive to the context of the research setting. and availability. Introducing a probe package has provided CSEG designers with ways of collecting Designers were regularly involved in informal contextual ethnographic information and impromptu discussions in the studio and unobtrusively from a socially sensitive setting. other locations. During these conversations, ideas for probe objects were ‘worked up’ Cultural Probes have been deployed recently in a through a process of organising a working number of innovative design projects, for division of knowledge and labour. example the Presence Project [5]. Essentially, Visualisations in the form of crafted prototypes, cultural probes are purposefully designed to models, sketches and/or verbal descriptions of provoke, reveal and capture the motivational objects were all considered fit material for forces that shape an individual and his/her home design discussions. Talk was central to the life. Cultural Probes are kits of provocative design process; in that assessing ‘just what materials meant to elicit inspiring responses counted’ as ‘appropriate’ for a probe object, from people. They are used to learn about was a negotiated matter. A tacit local working people's home lives for our research on domestic agreement, on what functional and aesthetic technologies. Designers draw upon probe qualities were relevant for an object to be returns as “inspirational data” for design. Probe classified as a candidate for inclusion, was objects include cameras, household rules packs, arrived at and maintained in and through the a pinhole camera, a family and friends map, talk of the designers. photogram paper, a domestic routine diary and camera, a listening glass, a floorplan, a dream We now move on to describe how the work of recorder, a bathroom pad, a visitor’s log and a designing and constructing Cultural Probes gets telephone pad. done. To begin with, we have provided a list of headings outlining a schedule1 of probe design DESIGNING CULTURAL PROBES activities. Having recruited 20 households from the 1. Planning Greater London area, they visited each for 2. Recruiting Participants. preliminary conversations and left behind 'probe 3. Selecting Volunteers. packs' containing provocative tasks for the 4. Assembling Domestic Probes. volunteers. The hundreds of returned items, both 5. Deploying Domestic Probes. text and images, serve as a rich resource 6. Retrieving and Analysing providing a myriad of fragmentary glimpses into Probes. peoples' domestic lives and aspirations. 7. Speculative Design. Although there are 12 objects in the probes pack used by the CRD group, due to space constraints In terms of the specific details, however, most of we will outline the design process involved in what was observed consisted of a complexity of the deployment of one of the CP objects. practical sequential activities that emerged during the course of work rather than follow Generating ideas and constructing innovative predetermined process. Time does not allow for and effective probes involves a range of skills, a full account of each step in the process. We experience and working knowledge of cutting focus on selected stages in the designing of the edge design matters. It also requires an probes themselves, and the ways in which the understanding of graphic design, craft skills such as model making, and skills in the use and deployment of computer based design packages. 1 The headings used here are for presentational An appreciation of the putative aesthesis and purposes and do necessarily reflect the ordering

CRD team develop their ‘inspirational’ probes the detailed form and function of the Cultural to inform a participatory approach. Probes.

Planning Selecting Volunteers. During the early period of their work, members The CRD group had initially carried out a mail of the group regularly discussed their proposed drop as a first attempt to recruit volunteers for project at length. Our arrival occurred just after the project. However, the response to such the start, when planning consisted of designers unsolicited mail was poor. In February 2001, talking through the ways they envisaged their advertisements for volunteers were placed in a work could be organised. In this way, they began variety of popular London publications - Loot, the process of organising the ways in which the Evening Standard, Time Out, and Country Life. work could be distributed amongst the group. The administrative staff at the RCA were Talking provided a way of elaborating and responsible for fielding the telephone responses sharing their knowledge of design and from candidate volunteers and sending out pre- established a sense of just who had practiced printed acknowledgements. Information skills and experience, and in which particular regarding the number of responses and area of design work. Conceptual matters were descriptive accounts of ‘interesting’ telephone also a design issue and featured at this stage in calls were relayed to the CRD designers. These designer’s talk. versions of the telephone conversation provided Over this period, the group arrived at a tacit the CRD team with verbal images of the ‘type’ agreement about the rules that govern the form, (social type) of person the administrative staff functions and aesthetic properties of a Cultural recognized making the call. Probe. The design requirements or brief Volunteers deemed to be suitable candidates for (although it was never expressed in such a way) consideration were visited at home, usually by for any probe object or artefact was that it two members of CRD designers. These initial should be capable of probing and recording meetings provided an opportunity for the CRD participant’s feelings about their life and their designers to assess the candidate ‘suitability’ home, eliciting some kind of emotional and to survey the candidate’s home. The response. Ideally, each probe object should be meeting also provided the opportunity for the capable of invoking a different form of response designers to explain in more detail the context that fits within a category of acceptable of the study and gauge the initial reaction of emotional responses e.g. playfulness, anger, candidates. This first meeting provided the sadness etc. It is clear that design work here was appropriate opportunity for the designers to very much a case of anticipating known in enquire about the participant’s personal common experiences. circumstances and family history and domestic

living arrangements. Invariably, they would be To sum up this formative stage of the project, invited to look round the home. Participants much of the designers work was concerned with would be later informed, usually by telephone, if talking through plans. They ‘bounced concepts they were successful. Providing firm dates for off each other’, ‘knocked ideas about’, made probe pack delivery was initially difficult, as suggestions, recommendations and they had not at that time been completed. Post endorsements regarding the possible properties a cards and envelopes incorporating initial probe object could embody. They talked over enquiries from the project were used “to keep putative responses certain ‘kinds’ of objects participants interested and involved” and ‘might’ elicit and, what features functioned to provided additional background information. provoked ‘these’ reactions. Together, during Arrangements were made some time later to their ‘working’ day in the studio, during coffee arrange mutually convenient dates for the breaks and later in the bar, they spent a lot of delivery of probe packs. time arguing and joking, made up stories, made sketches, kept notes, and talked over previous It is interesting that non-design administration and possible scenarios. In short, they worked up staff contributed significantly to the study through their involvement in the designation of suitable volunteer candidates. The skills an exceptional experience. ‘Strangifying’ or required to select ‘appropriate’ candidates were distorting the appearance of an ordinary object not grounded in any design philosophy, but would, it was argued “encourage from rested upon their tacit knowledge of designers respondents a slightly detached attitude to our and their lived experience. requests” [7]. To achieve this, the camera- a cheap, disposable, but nevertheless

professionally designed device - was repackaged Assembling Probes The Domestic Probe pack. (See figure 1), by a member of the CRD team. Materially, the contained 12 objects including a ‘Probe Camera’ cameras packaging was transformed into an (See figure 2). ‘aesthetically crafted’ object rather that a commercially manufactured consumable. The objective here was to attempt to “reduce the distance between the designers and the participants through the probe packages” [5].

CULTURAL PROBES AND THE DIGITAL CARE PROJECT In contrast to the ‘inspiration’ approach as

Figure 1. Domestic Probe Pack utilized by the CRD group, the Digital Care ethnography used the probes for ‘information’. The practical work of designing, constructing This is a response to the particular problems of and assembling the Domestic Probes Pack using ethnographic techniques in sensitive, care- started at the very beginning of the project and oriented settings Ethnographic studies [9] claim had continued throughout the planning, to provide a ‘sensitising’ to the ‘real world’, recruitment and selection phases. The group ‘real time’ character and context of everyday life had come to an agreement that they would and the facilitation of what Anderson [1] calls include a “PROBE CAMERA” (see figure 2) - a ‘the play of possibilities for design’, in this case repackaged disposable camera. the socially organized, naturally occurring uses of technology in domestic interaction in a care setting.

Over the past three decades or so ethnography- oriented techniques have emerged that have promoted an understanding of the nature of organisations and the different forms of interaction that underpin organisational life [2]. With its early focus on business systems and Figure 2. Probe Camera office automation the ICT community has, over time, incorporated a range of techniques to Using the camera, volunteers were instructed to support design particularly for workplace photograph the spaces, objects, scenes and environments [13]. Ethnographic approaches to people in their domestic environment. Printed field studies continue to produce valuable on the back of the camera were questions that insights into existing and emerging work included: "who lives in your home", “your most practices of use [10]. However, the use of private object" and "a photo at 8pm on a ethnography-oriented techniques for studying Sunday ". social settings such as the home is relatively The camera itself is not an unusual object. What immature and under evaluated by comparison. is unusual, however, are the recommendations This is partly because it is a relatively new are of for its use. The design ‘problem’ was to contrive study but also, and of at least equal importance, to make the functional use of the camera an because the ethnographic techniques themselves aesthetic experience. The theory here was that are constantly adapting to the setting or domain using this camera could afford participants with being studied.

Within the 'Digital Care' project, the What follows is an account of the use of a CP methodological response to the issues raised by derivative for the Digital Care project. This will our focus on context and user-led design has then allow for a comparative analysis of the taken a number of forms and remains under ‘inspiration’ and ‘information’ deployments of active consideration and revision. At present CP’s, highlighting our main themes exploring CSEG are exploring and modifying various the nature of participation and design in these forms of observational and ethnographic study, two approaches and the roles of the researcher user-centred design and evaluation and the use and the researched. of 'cultural probes'. The specific focus is on technological intervention to support everyday The 'Digital Care' project employs a life. Observational studies have been multidisciplinary research team to facilitate the supplemented with relatively informal development of enabling technologies to assist interviews and, what some might call care in the community for particular user groups 'technological tours’ [2]. The interest is in how with different support needs. The general aim is residents organize their day, the kinds of things to examine how technology can be used to they do and how they go about doing them, their provide various kinds of support to sheltered use of technology, the organisation of their housing residents and their staff. The setting for personal space and so on. the project is a hostel and nearby and associated semi-independent living accommodation, 'Cultural probes' have been adapted in the managed by a charitable trust, for former Digital Care project as a way of uncovering psychiatric patients. The hostel is the initial information from a group that is notoriously location for former psychiatric patients leaving difficult to research. In this particular case, the the psychiatric wards of the local hospital that residents involved in the study have medical are themselves in the process of being closed conditions, e.g. paranoia, which would make down as part of a more general move towards conventional observation techniques at least 'community care'. In the hostel, residents are inappropriate and potentially damaging. They provided with a room and are monitored and are also a way of prompting responses to areas helped to develop independent living skills by a that are equally difficult to uncover - users number of qualified staff. Residents then move emotional, aesthetic, and social values and on to another, semi-independent living site, habits. 'Cultural Probes' - in this case consisting which is sheltered housing consisting of a of various polaroid and disposable cameras, number of flats and bed-sits, prior to eventually diaries, maps, dictaphones, photo-albums, and moving out to flats in the local area, or, if they postcards etc) - were a method of supplementing are deemed to need further and continuing ethnographic investigations, and as an engaging support, back to the hostel. Emphasis is on the and effective way to open a dialogue with users. learning of daily living routine and skills and The aim here is to elicit new and different consequently any technology introduced should information through using the probes, contribute to this goal. anticipating that they could be used to provide more substance to design ideas that had surfaced One objective of the 'Digital Care' project is to in the course of the interviews or observational improve the quality of everyday life by building periods. Although this project is in only its early and adapting technologies for a range of user stages, it has already resulted in prototypes for a groups and application domains. Consequently, self-medication device and communication it is very much concerned with developing devices for staff [13]. A PD-oriented design supporting technologies based on a workshop with the staff has also been held. comprehensive understanding of user needs. A technology that merely completes a task for DISCUSSION residents does little in producing independence Our analysis of the studies carried out by the but merely shifts reliance onto the technology. CRD group at the RCA and CSEG group at Thus, the emphasis here is on assistive or Lancaster University provides one of the first enabling technology. evaluations of the interdisciplinary approach which has led to the adaptation of methods across disciplines in the use of participatory milieu of domestic activities. Consequently, approaches to design oriented practice studies. understanding the relevance of context specific behaviors and the situated use of technologies The techniques developed to study the are elements that should have relevance in the workplace may, on the face of things appear design space, along side fundamental cognitive inappropriate when applied to the differently notions such as tasks of tools [9]. organised institutional social settings such as the home, whatever form that takes e.g. care. Clearly, both groups are using Cultural Probes Technology design approaches that have as part of an ongoing design process. The emerged from the workplace have, quite rightly, trajectory followed by the CRD group over the been situated within the core rationalities of first two years starts with design-driven methods production, efficiency and the organization of for understanding people. This phase will be labour. However, it is debatable whether these followed by concept proposals and technology post-Fordist principles could be applied to small explorations, and tests of novel configurations of but complex social environment glossed as the technologies in participants’ homes. It is ‘household’. The utilisation of Cultural Probes important to note that members of the Home is a way of addressing the methodological Technologies design group were not coming to challenge posed by the ‘home’ setting. We are the project as complete novices. Each member aware that there are many relevant issues had practical, practitioner-based experience in concerned with the purported differences in the the design community and so fully understood study of home and work settings and the the user-centred, design-driven process. In blurring of the boundaries between the two. We addition, each member of the group has had deal with this particular debate elsewhere [8]. either direct experience2 or was familiar with the Cultural Probes approach [6]. One consequence of the shift in emphasis from the workplace to the home is that it has Before the substantive work of designing provoked a reassessment of approaches for (a), domestic technologies could begin however, the analysing and representing domestic life then CRD group was faced with a preliminary (b), conveying the ‘findings’ to designers. A ‘design challenge’- how could familiar objects notable exception here is of course the and artefacts be reconfigured in such a way that, Scandinavian design school. Here, there is a not only were they capable of triggering long history of participatory design that has emotional reactions in a respondent but that they developed into a practice imbued with notions of were able capture the context in which those the community and the sociality of design. For responses were occasioned. In short, the example, the cooperative/participant design function of all domestic CP objects is to capture research studies of domestic life of Bjerknes et al for analysis the motivations that shape home life [4], Bødker et al [in 4] and, more recently, the [6]. ‘interLiving’ project [16]. Unsurprisingly, each of the five members of the For those engaged in formative design studies of group appeared to share a common disciplinary social settings, the creation of future approach to computer related design. It was, technologies for domestic environments offers a however, apparent from their talk that each number of interesting challenges. Gaining a oriented to probe design issues in different ways. comprehensive understanding of needs or an As individuals, they were hired for the particular insight on user requirements in such domains is skills and knowledge they could contribute to central to this. Predominant in designing for the project. All acknowledged that as a ‘team’ future domestic environments is the key research their fundamental problem was a practical one- issue of understanding the everyday character of how to design probe object that would be the existing social and physical arrangements perceived and function in the way in which it within the home; how people live (and was intended. There was much talk about the sometimes work) together in the home, what appropriate use of a CP object. There was also a they do when they are at home, and the existing concern that the normative understanding of the and potential role of technologies within the use of everyday objects would prohibit an interpretive response. Using Probe objects and using a range of professional CAD required participants to be creative, to think applications was a skill each member regularly about what they take for granted and report employed in their work. upon that which is intimae, private often deeply personal. The group worked together to compose The Lancaster group’s probe pack consisted of a a form of words that would provide clear camera, an event diary, maps, an audio tape instructions on how to use the object i.e. recorder and postcards. These objects provided a guidance on how to get objects such as a camera way of eliciting and recording information from or a tape recorder to function correctly. a group that would be difficult to study by other Embedded in these instructions were also cryptic ethical means, and as a way of prompting clues on when and where they should be used. responses to users emotional, aesthetic and As Gaver makes clear: social values and habits. Incidentally, handing over and collecting the probes proved to be ".. we were after “inspirational data” with the appropriate opportunities for unstructured probes, to stimulate our imaginations rather interviews with users. Apart from some color than define a set of problems. We weren’t trying coordination and their appearance as 'presents' to reach an objective view of … needs through the general approach has been to make the the probes, but instead a more impressionistic probes stimulating and fun (though, as it turned account of their beliefs and desires, their out, they could be 'too much fun' and in one aesthetic preferences and cultural concerns". instance resulted in 'rude' photos of various residents). To give some examples of the probes - residents were supplied with Polaroid and We are not aware of the existence of a document disposable cameras and asked to take photos of that formally recorded the group’s plan or laid their rooms, things that were important to them down a schedule of proposed work to be done and were asked to put the Polaroid photos in the but that is not to say that a plan did not exist. photo album supplied with the probe pack and The ‘plan’ for the work of designing and "write what you like about them, why you took producing the probe, and the design work that them, any thoughts...." and were provided with resumed as probes returned, was regularly 'post-it' notes to attach any comments. The invoked throughout the time of our study in and provision of disposable cameras provided the through the talk of the members of the group. researchers with a useful opportunity to open up As the daily work proceeded there would a friendly dialogue with residents based around inevitably be situations or events that called for the return of the developed pictures. Another variations in the plan. The plan was flexible, probe was a map of the local area and various revisable and ultimately contingent on indefinite colored pens and 'post-it' notes to enable variables. residents to indicate favorite places, areas where they felt safe or threatened and so on. In this As we have remarked this group, like many way the probes clearly had an 'informational' other groups of knowledge workers, spend a focus as opposed to Gaver's emphasis on great deal of their time talking. This talk 'inspirational' use. enabled them to know what is relevant. Talking about designs involved the use and development Participatory design has, necessarily always of their specialist vocabulary. This ongoing been sensitive to the political context of design. knowledge, together with personal experience, In the case of 'Digital Care', the project, and any acquired skills and an understanding of the associated technical development, takes place history of previous Cultural Probes studies within a particular political and moral provides both the contextual framework for their framework. The challenge for design in these expectations and the resource for design work. settings therefore, is not just to recognize this dilemma but to steer a careful path through this This ‘talking’ about the work continued moral minefield. Embodying a philosophy of throughout our visits and appeared to be just as care into design necessitates considering issues integral to the creative process as the work of of empowerment and dependence and then computer-based design skills. Understanding thinking how these might usefully become information and continually repaired their incorporated into design guidelines. understanding about each other. These ongoing biographical exchanges provide each member CONCLUSION with context for their own, the group and One of the objectives for this paper was to participants behavior. Seen this way, contextual explicate the practical, real world nature of knowledge provides a way sensitising and creative and imaginative design work. However, accommodating each other’s actions and ideas readers will no doubt be aware that there is a in an appropriate manner. variety of discipline-led approaches to design research (psychology, cognitive science, A key issue brought out through our evaluation sociology, engineering etc). The existence (or of the work of the CRD team indicates that co-existence) of this range of approaches is not much of the apparent gathering of ‘inspiration’ in itself an issue here. That said, what is rests on ethnographic ‘information’ gathering problematical is that a discipline’s philosophical techniques. It is clear that, in the course of the attachment to certain theoretical matters drives visits to the homes of volunteers, designers were an attachment to particular methodological implicitly involved in eliciting ethnographically- procedures. This preoccupation with oriented data. This in turn provided a contextual methodology often masks what is really sensitivity to the individual settings. We would required, ‘a more adequate- often more detailed- argue that it would be a mistake to try to rendering of the domain being designed for’ separate the mutually constitutive activities of [14]. We demonstrate how two seemingly designing and deploying Cultural Probes and the discrete disciplines deal with this apparent gathering of information about volunteers’ home problem. lives. From our evaluation, the apparent methodological dichotomy that results from an This paper provides an initial evaluation of both attachment to theory is dissolved in practice. these user-centred approaches to design studies and asks whether current approaches to the The probes deployed in the Digital Care project design of new technologies are appropriate in were certainly less well or less obviously such intimate and sensitive settings. Both 'designed' than those produced in the CRD groups have begun to explore some of the studio. Despite this fundamental difference of methodological options opened up by the use of focus, there are also some similarities in the way ‘cultural probes’ and a combination of a cultural probes have been used. Like Gaver the derivation of cultural probe and ethnographic CSEG group envisaged probes having a study [13]. provocative in eliciting informative responses; “we anticipate that the probes, the feedback on For the authors, providing an ethnographically them as well as the periods of observation has oriented view of just what ‘doing’ design studies enabled us to overcome some of the 'distance' consists required that we attempt to relay our between us and the residents and staff at the understandings that have been ‘appropriated’ hostel” [13]. In this sense we would concur with [14] during our field study. It also illustrated the Gaver's statement that: " The cultural probes way in which the ethnographic approach is in were successful for us in trying to familiarize itself an intrinsically collaborative affair, ourselves with the sites in a way that would be particularly the participant observation appropriate for our approach… They provided techniques. us with a rich and varied set of materials that both inspired our designs and let us ground This notion of collaboration extends to the work them in the detailed textures of the local we observed in the CRD studio - it could be cultures" [6]. characterized as an intra-collaborative achievement. Design work here is plainly a No doubt, the art and design philosophy social activity that involves and is organised underpins the probes approach, and the anti- around the sharing and exchange of ideas. We scientific stance that many might find novel and observed that, in and through their talk, appealing. 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