Probing for Information
Keith Cheverst, Karen Clarke, Guy Dewsbury, Mark Rouncefield, Tom A. Rodden, Andy Crabtree, Terry Hemmings · Lancaster EPrints (Lancaster University) · 2002
The movement of digital technologies out of the workplace brings with it the need to develop new techniques to consider how technology might relate to and support everyday activities in a wide variety of different contexts. In our own case, our user groups consist of former psychiatric patients and disabled people living in residential care settings. Methods for identifying user needs in care settings are not well developed and the situation presents a very complex set of design challenges. In particular, the highly personal and sensitive character of such settings presents conventional observational techniques, such as ethnography, with obdurate problems that make direct observation intrusive, disruptive and inappropriate on many occasions. Direct observation requires supplementation in such settings. Accordingly, we report on our experiences of adapting Cultural Probes to open up communication channels and foster an ongoing dialogue with the members of our user groups in order to generate key insights into their unique needs.