02.12 // Cultural Probes Presentations, Affinity Diagramming
Syllabus | Class Box Folder | Cultural Probes Assignment | Affinity Diagramming Assignment
Presentations from four teams highlighted their process in implementing a design probe at Construction Junction (CJ). Teams were able to innovate around constraints and evaluate their results.
Process insights
Narrow into a clear research question.
Design for visibility. Bold, punchy black on yellow with large text, large banners, were some examples used.
Explore reasons for low engagement. Without asking, it can be difficult to tell among many reasons, why a customer might not engage with a survey-type probe. Surmised probe-related reasons: not visible, not engaging, not easy to participate; user-related reasons: too busy, hands full.
Address constraints. Probe placement was sometimes pre-determined, several probes competed with each other for attention.
Consider strategic placement. From placing probes at eye-level in high traffic areas, to inside of shopping carts with pencils attached.
Talk to passersby. One team, by being physically present, was able to encourage customers to participate. They found that some shoppers described CJ as having “everything they needed”, while others described it as “a disaster”.
Note interesting or unexpected responses.
Questions for thought
Is it common in design to spend significant time and energy to design something for someone who may only engage with it for a few seconds or not at all? What does it say about the designer-user relationship over time?
How do you engage people to communicate things that seem obvious to them? (For example, if you felt like the layout of a store was a disaster, it might seem too obvious to even have to say)
Why are people inherently not interested in contributing to research studies and surveys? Maybe there are ways to sneak up on research and make people feel like there is some tangible output they can be proud of. For example, at a tour I went on, at the end, they gave us marbles and asked us to drop our marble in the bucket of the non-profit organization that we wanted to donate a portion of our admission fee toward. While the original intent is not to research people, they do have the data to do it (also goes into ethical issues).
What causes some people to contribute a lot and others to not want to contribute anything?
Could probes could be a qualifier / screener to identify people to interview further?
Affinity diagramming
A brief introduction to affinity diagramming showed students a way to begin synthesizing research findings. It is a way to begin looking for patterns and make tacit knowledge more explicit. For homework, we assigned for students to bring in post-it notes with researched observations to affinity map next class.
