Explorations into the Social Context of Design Marek Roman van de Watering Information Sciences / Multimedia and Culture Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam July 2007 Supervised by dr. A. Eliёns 2 “This is criticizing not so much Western audiences but the situation this audience finds itself in, the state of culture in the West. For example, for Russians, even now, culture and works of art have always carried certain spiritual, mystic, or — if you prefer — prophetic significance. A similar understanding of culture has to a very large extent also developed in Poland. Here, in the West, culture has long ago become an object of consumption, a consumer property. What does culture mean for them? Culture is what I can have. As a result of my being free. And what does it mean free? — I am free to have what everyone here has. Does culture exist in the West? It does. Thus I can and I have the right to use it. And what does it mean: I can? Well, just — physically, pragmatically — I can. It won't even occur to him to pause and think: yes you can but are you able to digest it? Let's take Goethe for example — you read Faust — but have you been able to read it? […] He thinks: I can go and buy; all I have to do is pay. This is where the lack of spirituality leads.” Andrei Tarkovsky 3 4 5 6 Index Index ............................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Abstract ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 11 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................................................... 13 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................................. 15 1.1 Research questions .......................................................................................................................................................... 15 1.2 Thesis structure ................................................................................................................................................................ 17 2 Ethnographic Methods ............................................................................................................................................................. 19 2.1 Ethnography as a method in design ......................................................................................................................... 19 2.2 User Requirements Elicitation – Say, Do and Make ......................................................................................... 19 2.3 Contextual Inquiries ........................................................................................................................................................ 20 Focus of Inquiry ........................................................................................................................................................................... 20 The Panorama contextual inquiries .................................................................................................................................... 21 Identities and activities ............................................................................................................................................................ 21 Sights and sounds ....................................................................................................................................................................... 22 2.4 Cultural Probes .................................................................................................................................................................. 22 Future Probes ............................................................................................................................................................................... 24 3 Probes in Practice - Panorama .............................................................................................................................................. 27 Inspiration and requirements ............................................................................................................................................... 27 The probe packages ................................................................................................................................................................... 27 Time constraints .......................................................................................................................................................................... 29 Visual invitations ......................................................................................................................................................................... 29 “My Work-Book” .......................................................................................................................................................................... 30 Metaphors ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 31 Logging time and activities ..................................................................................................................................................... 32 Being creative ............................................................................................................................................................................... 33 Probe material analysis ............................................................................................................................................................ 33 Analyzing the probe material ................................................................................................................................................ 33 7 Using the probe material in design ..................................................................................................................................... 37 The Panorama prototype ......................................................................................................................................................... 38 Panorama’s Probes – A discussion ...................................................................................................................................... 39 4 Case Studies in Design – Social Factors ............................................................................................................................. 41 4.1 Review aspects of the different cases ...................................................................................................................... 42 Design process .............................................................................................................................................................................. 42 Conceptual alignment of the stakeholders involved ................................................................................................... 43 Conflicts – Roles and attitudes .............................................................................................................................................. 43 4.2 Multimedia Design Casus .............................................................................................................................................. 46 Multimedia Casus Context – Goals ....................................................................................................................................... 46 Multimedia Casus Context - Project Group and Stakeholders ................................................................................ 47 Multimedia Casus Design process ....................................................................................................................................... 48 Mismatch of conceptual models ........................................................................................................................................... 48 Adding a dimension ................................................................................................................................................................... 49 Multimedia Casus - Conflicts .................................................................................................................................................. 51 4.3 Panorama ............................................................................................................................................................................. 52 Panorama Context - Project Group and Stakeholders ................................................................................................ 52 Panorama – Design process .................................................................................................................................................... 52 Panorama - Mismatch of conceptual models .................................................................................................................. 53 4.4 Clima Futura ......................................................................................................................................................................