I have read the following three readings:
1. "Cultural Probes" by Bill Gaver, Tonny Dunne, and Elena Pacenti
2. "Cultural Probes and the value of uncertainty" by Gaver, William, Boucher, Andy, Pennington, Sarah and Walker, Brendan
3. "TaskCam" by Andy Boucher, Dean Brown, Liliana Ovalle, Andy Sheen, Mike Vanis, and William Gaver
Through the readings, I have learned more about cultural probes, the implications of such probes, and TaskCams. Below is a summary of the readings as they are intertwined with each other when it comes to delivering meaning.
What is a Cultural Probe?
Cultural Probes are “collections of evocative tasks designed to elicit evocative responses that can provide insight about participants” according to Bill Gaver. In the essay “Cultural Probes,” Bill Gaver, Tony Dunne, and Elena Pacenti gathered together to utilize cultural probes for a “European Union–funded research project looking at novel interaction techniques to increase the presence of the elderly in their local commu- nities.” They chose three communities, and they sent members of the selected community cultural probes, which in this case was a combination of maps, postcards, and other materials. These cultural probe packets were designed to “provoke inspirational responses from elderly people in diverse communities.”
What were Cultural Probes Gaver and his team used?
Cultural Probes that Gaver and his team used includes a postcard that asks “what is your favorite device?” Gaver states that he chose a postcard because it is not too formal to a sense that it feels like a doctor’s appointment whereas it is not also too liberal that it gives the participants a dominating sense over his team. In other words, Gaver thinks that it is personal enough and thought-provoking enough to elicit a response that can offer the researchers a meaningful insight into the lives of the participants. A map and little dot stickers were also included in the packet along with a question such as “if Pecolli were New York…” Gaver and his team included some images of New York to evoke a mental response from the participants. Gaver illustrates that the responses of the participants were focused on significant events that happened in the community; this shows that participants of a community can provide a valuable insight into the history of the community; this also shows that the map was effective in eliciting the mental image of the participant when it comes to their community. Moreover, there was a camera included. The cameras were disposable cameras aiming for the elders to record their “television and radio use” along with their phone usage daily for a week. The purpose of the camera was to have a personal view into their relationship with the media that they have.
Why is a disposable camera included?
The disposable camera that Gaver used is called a “TaskCam.” According to an introduction of the “TaskCam,” TaskCams are “simple digital cameras designed for studies of users and their contexts.” Researchers and interested individuals can build their own Taskcams by visiting the website www.probetools.net. TaskCams can provide an interesting insight for design research and cultural probes as proved in the case illustrated in the article “Cultural probes and the value of uncertainty.” In a project named “Dream Recorder,” Gaver and his team makes participants describe a dream in 10 seconds without the possibility of editing it or reviewing after the take. The responses to this task is interesting as the answers are extremely abstract and confusing at first glance. One of the responses of a participant goes as the following: “In my dream, the moon’s reflection in a stream turned into my girl-friend’s face. As I leaned forward to kiss her lips, I fell into the water and it was dark, green and very cold.” According to Gaver, these kinds of abstract responses can be useful for novel design ideas as they “make the strange familiar and the familiar strange, creating a kind of intimate distance that can be a fruitful standpoint” for design thinking.
Here is an image of a 3D TaskCam with hardware components to help your understanding:
I would like to share my viewpoint on the three readings.
Critique on "Cultural Probes"
I believe that the cultural probes that Gaver and his team conducted is interesting because he has strived to find the ideal ground to interact with the group that he is trying to research. I have been subjected to many surveys during my life, and I usually did not feel comfortable about filling out the surveys as they made it seem like I was supposed to have stiff and precise responses ready. At school, when I was subjected to surveys about my background, it was as if I was filling out a doctor's note. I have heard from my college professors that most responses that come from these surveys have a significant amount of error and a stark disparity compared with the reality as most participants do not answer honestly because of the rigid setting of the survey. Therefore, I think that Gaver and his team's idea to send postcards and other mediums that would make the participants feel comfortable is brilliant in the sense that it would allow them to have more genuine data. I also think that it would be able to capture more about the subtleties of what it means to be a community member of the group that they are researching. For example, in the past, I have sent a postcard to a fashion magazine to show my admire for the magazine, and I plastered the postcard with stickers, drawings, and neat letters that obviously showed my adoration for the magazine. I believe that the colors and the stickers that I used showed my interest in fashion and told the viewer a lot about my personality. However, if I were to have just sent an email to the magazine, I am not sure that my personality would have shown as much as it would have via the postcard that I sent as I usually do not attach stickers or drawings to my emails. I believe that postcards evoke people to express themselves in a more down-to-earth way. Hence, I think Gaver and his team's idea to choose mediums such as postcards and maps that people can put stickers on is an excellent idea to elicit a more comprehensive view about the research group.
Critique on "Cultural Probes and the value of uncertainty"
I agree that cultural probes do not offer hard data that can be drilled into an excel sheet. How would one enter the subtleties of a handwriting into an excel sheet? I believe that an emotional judgment of the responses that Gaver and his team receives would be more accurate than trying to make sense of the responses in a way that would be used for financial modeling. In other words, cultural probes would not provide accurate data that can be shown precisely in a graph. However, I believe that culture is not something that can be quantifiable. I believe that culture is more of a way of life, and because it is a way of life, it is extremely comprehensive and emotional because as humans, we emotionally invest in life. Therefore, I believe that in order to know more about the culture of a research group, it is essential to collect data that shows a facet of emotion. I believe that cultural probes show emotion, and emotions can be interpreted in multifarious ways. Moreover, emotions are fluid. A feeling about an event could be sharp feeling, a shallow feeling, or a mixture of various feelings. I believe that although the responses that are received thanks to cultural probes emanate uncertainty, I think that this is is an ironically accurate response in order to probe into the culture of a group as culture is a fluid concept that is an organic amalgamation of colorful aspects that cannot be easily defined.
Critique on "TaskCams"
The disposable camera is useful to cultural probes and design research as I believe that TaskCams can capture raw emotions and snippets of human subconsciousness. There is little known about human subconsciousness. The Turing Test, which is the test that aims to test whether a computer can pass as a computer, has a heated debate over it as scientists argue that the test is meaningless as computers and the human brain cannot function in the same way as the realm of subconsciousness of humans is unknown and thus different from that of a manmade computer. Unlike most computer-generated speech, human speech has pauses, stammering of words, repetition, and other subtle randomness to it that makes it more human. It is nearly impossible to know where these randomness is stemming from; nonetheless, one thing that is certain is that these kinds of randomness is what makes people discern whether or not an entity is a human. Therefore, I believe that TaskCams are brilliant in the sense that it captures the “humanness” of people by allowing space for their subconsciousness to show. Because participants of a TaskCam task has less time to process their speech and actions, they are able to reveal a raw footage of what their subconsciousness looks like. I believe that an emotional aspect that cannot be entirely described by logic is also embedded in the subconsciousness of the human brain. For example, if I were to be asked what I like about breakfast, I would immediately think about a warm sunny day where I have the time to appreciate the sunlight instead of immediately thinking of why breakfast is logically good for me. Therefore, I believe that TaskCams are a splendid approach to assist designers into researching what makes humans, human.
Favorite Quotes from the article “Cultural Probes and the Value of Uncertainty”
“Probes are collections of evocative tasks meant to elicit inspirational responses from people—not comprehensive information about them, but fragmentary clues about their lives and thoughts.”
“The potential benefits and lessons from this approach are in danger of being lost if Probes are used in a purely “scientific” fashion."
Kommentarer