Cultural probe

Cultural probes (or design probes) is a technique used to inspire ideas in a design process. It serves as a means of gathering inspirational data about people's lives, values and thoughts. The probes are small packages that can include any sort of artifact (like a map, postcard, camera or diary) along with evocative tasks, which are given to participants to allow them to record specific events, feelings or interactions. The aim is to elicit inspirational responses from people, in order to understand their culture, thoughts and values better, and thus stimulate designer's imaginations.^[1]

Background

Cultural Probes was developed by Gaver, Dunne and Pacenti in 1999. They were inspired by the art movement Situationist International. This technique does not follow the scientific approach. It follows the artistic approach, which is characterized by being irrational, uncontrolled, getting inspiration, and cannot be analysed systematically.^[1]

Applications

Cultural probes can be used for idea generation, inspiration, values and dreams in a design process. The technique is about opening up the design space, instead of narrowing it. Cultural probes aim to seek out subjective thoughts, values and dreams and surprise and uncertainty is a key value. The probes provoke inspirational responses by using a creative approach in questions instead of analytical and descriptive question usually asked in User Experience Research.^[2]

Since the initial publication in 1999 of cultural probes in interactions, the use of probes has been interpreted broadly and used in a wide variety of projects within user experience. Some cases are grounded very much in the original cultural probes work, while, in other cases, ‘probes’ has become an umbrella term covering everything from Diary Studies to longitudinal user studies to field trips.^[3]

Criticism

It is hard to get scientifically valid information from data that is so subjective.
The data generated it not suitable for deep analysis and requirements list.
Participants are supposed to reflect upon and be inspired by the probes, but it can be hard to motivate participants doing it, as well as to get them to send the probes back.
There is a risk of few returns.
The wide variety of applications of and scientific approach to the probes has been criticised by Gaver and his colleagues as a misunderstood desire to rationalize and analyze the probes.^[2]

References

1 2 Gaver, W, Dunne, A., & Pacenti, E,. Design: Cultural probes, Interactions, Vol 6, Issue 1, Jan/Feb 1999
1 2 Gaver, W. W., Boucher, A., Pennington, S., and Walker, B. 2004. Cultural probes and the value of uncertainty. interactions 11, 5 (Sep. 2004)
↑ Boehner, K., Vertesi, J., Sengers, P., and Dourish, P. 2007. How HCI interprets the probes. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI ‘07.

External links

Culture

Outline

Sciences	Anthropology Cultural astronomy Cultural ecology Cultural entomology Cultural neuroscience Cultural studies Culturology Culture theory Neuroculture

Subfields	Bioculture Cultural analytics Cultural anthropology Cultural economics Cultural geography Cultural history Cultural mediation Cultural psychology Culturomics Cross-cultural psychology Intercultural relations Philosophy of culture Popular culture studies Semiotics of culture Sociology of culture Sound culture Theology of culture Visual culture

Types	Constructed culture Dominant culture Folk culture High culture Individualistic culture Legal culture Low culture Official culture Political culture Civic Popular culture Urban Primitive culture Subculture Alternative culture list Super culture Vernacular culture Culture by location

Aspects	Acculturation Cultural appropriation Cultural area Cultural artifact Cultural baggage Cultural behavior Cultural capital Cultural communication Cultural conflict Cultural cringe Cultural dissonance Cultural framework Cultural heritage Cultural icon Cultural identity Cultural industry Cultural invention Cultural landscape Cultural learning Cultural leveling Cultural memory Cultural pluralism Cultural practice Cultural property Cultural reproduction Cultural system Cultural technology Cultural universal Enculturation High- and low-context cultures Interculturality Manuscript culture Material culture Non-material culture Organizational culture Print culture Protoculture Safety culture Technoculture Trans-cultural diffusion Transculturation

Politics	Colonial mentality Consumer capitalism Cultural assimilation Cultural attaché Cultural backwardness Cultural Bolshevism Cultural conservatism Cultural deprivation Cultural diplomacy Cultural environmentalism Cultural exception Cultural feminism Cultural genocide Cultural globalization Cultural hegemony Cultural imperialism Cultural intelligence Cultural liberalism Cultural nationalism Cultural pessimism Cultural policy Cultural radicalism Cultural retention Cultural Revolution Cultural rights Cultural safety Cultural silence Cultural Zionism Culture change Culture minister Culture of fear Culture war Dominator culture Interculturalism Intraculturalism Monoculturalism Multiculturalism Security culture

Related	Animal culture Archaeological culture Bennett scale Bullying culture Coffee culture Cross-cultural Cultural bias Cultural center Cultural Christian Cultural Mormon Cultural competence Cultural critic Cultural diversity Cultural encoding Cultural evolutionism Cultural institution Cultural Judaism Cultural lag Cultural literacy Cultural mosaic Cultural movement Cultural Muslim Cultural probe Cultural relativism Cultural tourism Pop-culture Cultural turn Cultural sensibility Culture gap Culture hero Culture industry Culture shock Children's culture Culturalism Cyberculture Deaf culture Death and culture Emotions and culture Intercultural competence Languaculture Media culture Oppositional culture Participatory culture Permission culture Rape culture Remix culture Tea culture Transformation of culture Urban culture Welfare culture

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