Cultural Probes

DESCRIPTION

Cultural probes are customer-made expressions of their thoughts, views, and interactions with a product or service, such as collages, scrapbooks, or sketches. They show beliefs or feelings that are difficult to articulate verbally.

HOW TO USE

Begin by holding a brainstorming session with your team to decide what you want to learn from the participants and assign them tasks. Send cultural probe packages to your participants so they can keep track of their interactions. Pens, scrapbooks, postcards, a camera, and audio recording devices are some of the items that can be included in a box. They can be used by participants to keep track of their feedback. Request that they finish the tasks within a certain amount of time. After that, hold follow-up interviews to get a better understanding.

TIPS & T RICKS

• Preparing cultural probes is a time-consuming process.
• Make the probe packages welcoming and encouraging, since there would be no direct interaction between designers and customers.