FMP (7) — DESIGN: PROBE KIT

Topic: Money
Timeframe: 02/10/23–23/11/23
Team: R.Hodge, R.Suri, T.Singh & Myself

READ EARLIER WEEKS OF THE PROJECT HERE: FMP 1 / FMP 2 / FMP 3 / FMP 4 / FMP 5 / FMP 6

OVERVIEW

At last, we arrived at our final concept — Probe Kit. Probe Kit is a research kit consisting of intentionally designed artefacts, which prompt reflection on the given topic of inquiry. It is also our holy grail, the design that embodies who we are as designers and a variety of our finding and learnings from the previous weeks of the project:

• the interplay of material and narrative reflection (from our audio-sensory experience)
• the impact of creative work on sense-making (from our campaign iteration)
• the value of storytelling for design research (from our barter workshop)
• the value of engaging with situated lived experiences for design research (from our 'visible transactions' test exercise)

We spent the final weeks of the project exploring testing and iterating, to produce artefacts and research experience which allows participants to explore, navigate and share their personal narratives from within the complex topic of money.

DESIGNING PROCESS

EARLY ITERATIONS OF THE PROBE KIT ARTEFACTS

Artefacts embody our findings and learnings from the previous projects and project research. Artefacts are carefully designed to inspire reflection and draw our personal nuanced insights on the keys theme of our inquiry:

Money — Value

Money — Identity

Money — Power

Craft as a prompt for narrative reverberates our learnings on the nature of craft and narrative from ‘audio-sensory experience’. The task of personalisation of the artefact draws on learnings from our ‘visible transactions experience’, designed to empower personal reflection on value, with the focus on distinguishing between objective and subjective / monetary and sentimental value.

Private/personal receipts translate our ‘visible transactions experience’ and exercise, into a self-etnography artefact, which prompts the participants to reflect on the nature of identity-making, and social-judgement related to money and purchasing decisions.

Our first version was a make-shift toolkit, designed for testing and further iteration — upon iteration we developed the artefacts, the tasks that engage them and their explanations. We then distributed the toolkits to stress-test them in actual research conditions.

TESTING OUR PROBE KIT

For testing purposes, we iterated and polished our probes. Roshni and Tanya were responsible for the graphic design of the receipts and instruction cards, while me and Bex hand-picked the interactions to include, and worked on the wording and language to make sure it communicates all that we need it to, without being intimidating and heavy of design-specific vernacular — the goal : crisp but inviting.

We then wrapped our probe kits up and distributed them to 10 willing participants. We chose a combination of both creatives and people outside the creative professions, to get a more comprehensive sample of results and feedback.

Testing results was insightful —participants reflected positively on these prompts, stating that the activities encouraged them to reflect on their personal relationship with money in a new light. In turn, thoughts and experiences they generously shared with us through the kit provided a situated understanding of money within lived context.

Instructions were understood well, and as a general truth, the probe kits were welcomed with excitement and joy. People outside of the creative profession confirmed the engaging nature of the kit, while also illuminating our blind spots, by reporting feeling a little intimidated by the inherently creative tasks.

completed and returned probe kits, from participants who consented to having their contributions shared

We implemented insights into our further iterations, by amending language of the tasks into a more vague, more open-to-interpretation form, aiming to allow participants to decide for themselves what ‘creativity’ is.

CRITICAL REFLECTION & LEARNING

Both my critique and my learnings are related to the question of ‘where am I and who am I, in relation to the people around me’. First, it is the reflection on our team’s shared positionality as young professional women in the creative field. We designed the exercises and artefacts from our learnings throughout the weeks of the project — this made craft a central part of our probe kit quite organically. While I don’t regret the creativity-based approach, as it was carefully chosen as antithesis to the the cold and impersonal nature of money, having received the kits and feedback back from our test group, it was interesting to reflect on the process of designing artefacts for research for non-design folk.

Insights from testing prompted me look more closely into assumptions designers can make about what form of engagement is organic and comfortable for people. For whenever I am designing my next probe kit, I will ensure, that I engage with a diverse range of people earlier in the production of the artefacts, to make sure the designed object embody and appeal to participants from a wider variety of backgrounds, while maintaining the integrity of research intent.

READ ABOUT THE FINAL VERSION OF THE PROBE KIT AND THE FINAL WEEKS OF THE PROJECT HERE: FMP 8 / FMP 9