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Cultural probes

What?

The cultural probes is a set of instructions that is aiming to collect valuable data about your user's daily life. It is a qualitative research tool that is interactive, fun, and provides real information about your user. This tool is a way to observe your user's private life without being intrusive, since they have the control to share or not details about their life.

When?

Cultural probes are used when it is necessary to have an in-depth look at your target's personal life. The respondants may share private information about their personal habits, their environment, their schedule and their thoughts and feelings while being in their comfort zone. It can also be used when you don't have so much insight about a topic and would like to know better by exploring different areas related to the topic, and have diverse perspectives..

How?



Make sure to read the best practices. You can find them on the right

Identify a user segment related to your topic.

Identify the areas of research that you would like to tackle.

Ideate different probes, each of them with a specific objective. You can refer to the template (see button on the right) to help you through this step.

Make a plan to organize yourself for : the ideation, the design, the material shopping, the crafting, the targeting, the contacting and the return date. Consider setting margins for the schedule, and a plan B if things don't go as planned. Organize yourself better by also evaluating your expenses and creating a sheet with all your users and their contact.

Buy the materials you will need, both for the crafting, and for helping the respondant through the experience: providing pencils, stickers, cameras if applicable... Keep in mind that ergonomy for the user is crucial for keeping them commited.

Craft your your probes. Create a set (physical, digital or both) with clear instructions on how to complete them.

Send the package to the user and specify when you need it back. Keep their contact and check on them from time to time. Also, you can send further (easy) instructions on the go.

Get the package back on the agreed date, and start analyzing your data.

Keywords

Probe

Input

Personnal

Immersion

User

Research

Private

Daily



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Documentation

This tool was experienced in our project 'Blue Button' while on the research phase. Our topic revolving around togetherness, we took advantage of the holiday season and people gathering with their loved ones, to send them a jolly christmas-themed package containing our cultural probes.

We slipped a little board game in each box as a christmas gift and as a 'thank you' gesture, for taking part of this experience.

We prepared 4 probes tackling different facets of our topic:

1. a week in the day of ...

In this probe, we wanted to see what emotions people feel through different times of their day. So we prepared a little journal, a set of stickers, and a space to draw and mention the highlight of their day. We also joined a QR code for them to upload any additional picture

2. Letter to Santa

Here, we ask the respondants what they would wish to prolungate the festiveness of the holidays, something that will take them out of their boredom.

3. The perfect plan

In this one, we wanted to know what are the preferred activities with each kind of social group: friends, family, colleagues, and love partners. We prepared a set of stickers to stick for the activities and asked people to draw if there was something else.

4. The nice & naughty list

Here, we wanted to see what people consider a good surprise, and a bad surprise. We asked them to document the surprise they would do to someone from their surroundings.

With this tool, we found a lot of insightful information about our user group.

Since it was a qualitative searching method, it was a little bit hard to extract the relevant data and organize it in a consistent way that would make sense, even though we found some common patterns.

With this tool, we found a lot of insightful information about our user group.

Since it was a qualitative searching method, it was a little bit hard to extract the relevant data and organize it in a consistent way that would make sense, even though we found some common patterns.

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Best practices

When using this tool, make sure to satisfy the checkboxes below. You can find more details about each box in the bottom.

The setting

Before to start working on the cultural probes, prepare the right setting. You are about to go through an exercice that will stimulate your brain in different ways! Are you ready for this? You need a space that is stimulating for your creativity and your focus. Ideally, a space that lets you move freely and provides the right tools for each step. Be sure to be in a calm and relaxed mindset. Put the scope of research and the topic of research in front of you.

The objective

When ideating the probes, you need to ask, for each probe: what is the objective from this probe? For example the objective could be: getting to know the environment where the respondent does a specific activity, or getting to know at what time of the day the respondant is most likely to feel a certain way, or the most relevant object when it comes to a specific topic. Each probe should have an objective, an information we're trying to get a grip on, or a path to explore.

Define the scope

For each probe, you are free to define the scope, depending on your project and your research. It can be specific, or it can be broad, or both. At the early stage of the research, usually we are exploring around a topic and we ask broader questions. Keep in mind that the more specific the question, the easier it will be to analyse the data and detect relevant patterns within the respondees.

The user journey

When you prepare the cultural probes, think about the steps that the respondant will take through time. What to do, when to do it, and how? The ergonomy is a crucial part in this experience that will engage the respondant in his daily life. In order to keep the commitment, you have to guide your user through easy steps, that are realisticly feasible, and of course, don't forget to provide the right tools for them to participate (example : pencils to write, cameras to take pictures, qr codes to upload files, etc...)'

The organisation

When crafting this set, you will go about different steps that require different resources. The ideation needs ideation tools