Mapping the Experiential Context of Product Use Generative techniques beyond questions and

Pieter Jan STAPPERS*, Froukje SLEESWIJK VISSER*, Ianus KELLER*

* Department of Industrial Design, Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University ofTechnology, Landberghstraat 15, NL-2628 CE Delft, the Netherlands, p.j.stappers@io.tudelft.nl

Abstract: Generative tools and cultural probes are techniques for letting product users activelyparticipate in the knowledge that designers and user researchers gather about the context of productuse. Sanders has proposed that these techniques go beyond the classical user study techniques, whichfocus on either what people say (questionnaire and structured interview) or what they do (observationstudies, ethnographic methods). In contrast, users participating in generative tools studies are askedto make artefacts expressing meanings about concrete aspects surrounding product use to abstractaspects of their life, hopes and dreams in general. By allowing people to create these artefacts, andthen to explain them to a panel of peers, respondents take the initiative in determining the directionof the user study, thereby compensating for blind spots in the researcher or designer.

These techniques are gaining increasing attention of industry, designers, and researchers forintegrating the ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ design factors (Kansei) of people’s experience, understanding, andbehavior in situations. Although there is a general conviction that these techniques can help designersgain broader and deeper insights into the needs and wishes of the people for whom they designproducts, much needs to be explored and established about the way in which these studies should beconducted, how many participants are needed, the degree in which the researcher should direct thedirection of participants’ actions, the type of tasks that are most suitable, the ways of recording data,appropriate means of analysis, and last but not least, the method in which the findings arecommunicated through the whole of the product design and development process.

In this paper we discuss the above aspects on the basis of findings from a case study using generativetechniques.

Key words: participatory design, design communication, human factors,

1. Introduction

Knowledge of the user is becoming increasingly important for manufacturers and designers. These days, it isnot enough to create a product that is functional, durable, and inexpensive. Because many product categories, suchas automobiles and digital electronics, have matured technologically, aspects of user experience are becomingmain factors of competition. Designers need richer information about human-product interaction: how do peopleuse a product, how do they understand its functioning, and how do they experience it in the context of their

everyday lives. Early in the design process, designers need to get a rich picture of the experiential context inwhich a product is to function, and of the users that the product must serve.

Over the past decade, a number of techniques for getting insight into people’s lives have become popular.Examples are the cultural probes [1] and generative tools [3,4,5]. Cultural probes are small packages containingmaterials for expressive exercises, such as cameras, pictures, collage words and color pencils, which are sent topeople instead of questionnaires. They contain small exercises such as ‘take a photograph of something you trust’,‘draw a map of your neighbourhood and indicate the places where you feel safe’. These exercises are ambiguouson purpose, tempting respondents to come with personal answers. The results of these exercises, questions, andlittle tasks are then given to the designers as sources of inspiration. Generative tools use a similar pattern.Respondents are sent workbooks with little exercises, as in probes, in preparation of a group session. Theseexercises serve in part for answers, and in part as a means to let the respondents experience their lives moreconsciously. One such exercise might be ‘indicate on a clock the moments of the day when you talk to friends, andhow you feel at that time’. After the respondent has answered this question, he or she is likely to reflect on his orher own behavior in the period leading up to the group session. In the group sessions, respondents then receivesimilar expressive exercises (see Figure 1). First they make the exercise, then they present their creations to eachother, and discuss the topics raised in the presentations. The results of these sessions are not a definite answer to aspecific question, but rather a survey map of the contextual landscape indicating interesting places and theirconnections. These elements form the basis for the analysis afterwards; many of the anecdotal elements return inthe final communication phase.

Figure 1. Respondents in a group session creating a collage, starting from a set of pre-selected trigger imagesand trigger words; afterwards, they present their collages to each other.

The general methodology of a generative techniques session consists of three phases: sensitizing, making, anddiscussing. In the sensitizing phase, participants make ‘homework’ exercises of the kind used in cultural probes;these exercises provide information to the researchers and designers, but also serve to draw the participant’sattention to the topic of the study: participants will then observe and reflect more about what they do in theirpersonal life or during their work. In the making phase, a group of participants is brought together and each isasked to make an individual expression of an aspect of the topic of the study, for example in the form of a collageshown in Figure 1; these expressions are often ambiguous, but are made clear when the participant then presentswhat he made to an audience of other participants. In the discussing phase, participants react on each otherspresentations; this often brings out anekdotes, examples, and remarks that the participants would not have made if

they did not see the other’s presentations. Sometimes, the session ends by letting people make a foam-and-cardboard model of their ‘ideal product’ for the topic of the study, which they then present to the others. The formof this product may or may not be interesting, but often people will include and explicitly mention the aspects thatthey regard as most important.

In contrast to regular methods of user research, such as questionnaires, these methods lay a great deal ofinitiative with the respondents: the researcher uses these methods not to answer precisely framed questions, but inorder to generate the questions themselves, in directions he or she does not control: in order to find the blind spots.Through these methods, which lay a relatively high degree of initiative with the respondents, it is possible to findout tacit and latent knowledge about people’s experience [3], as indicated in Table 1. A key ingredient is thatpeople first make an expressive artefact, such as a collage, and then present this to their peers. In the presentation,they will use semantic reasons to elucidate syntactic elements, e.g. “I put the picture of the sunny beach and thetraffic jam together, because I actually experience commuting to my work and back as moments of rest”.

Techniques such as…questionnaire, interviewvideo ethnography

cultural probes, generative tools

…access…explicit knowledgeobservable behaviortacit knowledgelatent knowledge

Table 1 levels of knowledge assessed by different techniques (After [3])2. Research and design techniques

Methods such as the ones just described are different from the popular ideas among scientists about howknowledge grows. In the classical methods of the sciences, the researcher formulates a theory, and conducts anexperiment only to find out answers to specific questions, i.e., whether hypotheses are correct or not. The inputfrom the respondents (or ‘experimental subjects’) is limited to answers that fit the theory. Similarly, in mostquestionnaire methods, the questions are formulated beforehand, and the form is restricted for reasons ofmethodological validity or efficiency of statistical analysis. These methods do not generate new knowledge, butmainly serve to confirm (or disconfirm) existing knowledge.

What is new about these new methods is that they do not so much ask questions in order to find answers, butset up a playing field for the respondents in which the latter can play and create new answers, questions, or merepoints of attention. The role of the respondent is no longer passive, but an active co-creator of the information. Forthese reasons, the new techniques are counted to the field of participatory design: users get to play an active rolein giving insight (information and inspiration) to support the design of new products.

The above is not to say that these methods are easy on the designers and researchers. Their role is, amongothers, to carefully prepare the playing field, facilitate respondents’ ideas, and save the findings from thesesessions in a form that can be carried through in the design process. First, this is not a trivial job. Preparing themethods, conducting sessions, and analysing the results are time-intensive creative processes in themselves.Second, it is important that the information from such techniques can be used throughout the design process. Veryoften, knowledge about the user (or knowledge about design decisions in general) is built up and retained during asingle part of the design process, but doesn’t survive the transition to new phases, which often implies different

…by letting people…say & thinkdo & use

know, feel, & dream

teams. Typically, different phases in the design process (e.g., strategic design, conceptual design, materialisation,human factors evaluation, marketing) all re-do their user studies. One risk of this is that each reinvents the wheel,which implies a waste of effort. Another risk is that the wheels they invent don’t match, and directions taken inone phase are negated by work in the next phase. There is a need in modern design for user information that canbe carried throughout the design process.

Given the unpredictability of user information that comes from the generative methods, it is not likely that asingle, all-encompassing framework will satisfy all. Research into information systems for designers in theconceptual phase of design indicates that more visual and associative techniques are needed than the currentkeyword-based systems that work well in some highly verbal domains [7,2]. Instead, designers still have moreuse for associative visual techniques, such as collages and moodboards. For one, our current knowledge aboutcontextual, experiential, and Kansei factors is still too much in an early stage for such a framework to be clearnow. Developing these methods requires intensive multidisciplinary efforts, bringing together the phases of thedesign process, and the roles of the designers, the researchers, and the users. In small projects, a designer may dothe usability research herself, whereas in larger projects, different persons carry out the roles of designer (oftenwith a more technical background) and (usability) researcher (often with a background in cognitive psychologyand qualitative statistics). This also depends on whether the study has an explorative nature, seeking newdirections, or rather a testing, quantitative analysis is expected. In the next section we elaborate on how these rolesare overlapping and where they differ.3. Researchers and designers

In the previous section we indicated how these techniques give a new perspective on the link between researchand design. In this section we discuss the different but overlapping roles of the designer, the user, and theresearcher in this information-formation process. We follow the stages used in a series of case studies carried outregarding questions on emotional and personal factors, such as ‘how men experience shaving their beards’(reported in [6]), and what factors are important in ‘the feeling of being at home’ (reported in [8]), and morefunctional questions such as ‘what should a diagnostic workstation look like to support a radiologist’s workpractice’. The stages are preparation of the probe and task materials, conducting the session, analysis of theresulting materials, and communication of the results. In each, we find that these roles of participants cannot bestrictly separated, but are interwoven.3.1 preparation

In the preparation phase, the main question is selected, and widened to a context. For instance, in the design ofan interface for a radiologist’s workstation, the widened question was ‘how do radiologists deal with patientimage data’. Creating the exercise workbook is primarily done by the researcher, but should involve the designeras well. The researcher has experience with what type of exercises work (such as asking for a diagram of theuser’s daily schedule, asking the respondents to make a collage expressing good and bad sides of digitaltechnology in their lives). In this phase, the designer begins to form a vision of relevant aspects that are part of theuser’s context. For instance, in mobile communication products, aspects such as privacy, place, moments in theday, and attitude towards technology are obvious ingredients for the study. Designer and researcher togetherformulate the main question, select compose the exercise set, and prepare relevant materials, such as trigger

images for collage exercises. In composing a set of trigger images, the designer is already inspired to gain newinsights on the problem domain.

The respondent receives the preparatory workbook some time (e.g., a week) before the session, and worksthrough the workbook exercises over a longer period. The results in the workbook are taken to the session. Also,the exercises trigger the respondent to reflect and observe his working practice in the period before the session.After an exercise ‘mention three machines that annoy you and three that please you’, the respondent is more likelyto notice aspects of annoyance and pleasure around his working practice.

Figure 2. Examples of expressive collages made from trigger images and trigger words (left: on paper, right: on acomputer, from [8]). The collages themselves are rather ambiguous, but respondents’ presentations explain thereasons behind them and serve as starting point for a focus group discussion.3.2 session

At the session, a peer group of respondents sit together, make creative exercises, present the results to eachother, and discuss questions. Sessions require two incompatible roles from researchers. One role is that offacilitating the process of the group session; the other role is to observe and absorb what the respondents makeand say. Practice has shown that it is almost impossible to combine these roles in one person. Usually the wholesession, especially the presentations and the discussion, are videotaped and typed out for later analysis. The user’srole is one of domain expert: expert on the domain of his or her own experience. During the session, the creativeactivities of the respondent are similar to designer’s tools. For example in collage-making, which is typically adesignerly activity. But the main emphasis is on the discussion after the collages are completed, not the collagesthemselves, which remain quite ambiguous, as the ones shown in Figure 2. (Note: we found that collagetechniques actually work better for non-designers than for designers, because the latter make collages which‘speak for themselves’, whereas the former give elaborate explanations of the reasons behind their collage). Thesessions are very intensive and stimulating, and bring forward a list of considerations, anecdotes, opinions,observations, examples, motivations, practicalities. To a degree these can be captured in the later analysis by theresearcher. However, it is important that someone from the design team is present at some of the sessions, to get afeeling for the nuance of the discussion. Often, the way in which people speak, or the places where breaks in theconversation occur, carry a nonverbal stream of information which is lost in the later, often written,communication.

Figure 3. Analysis of collages and workbooks with researchers, designers, and respondents.3.3 analysis

The sessions and workbooks form a very large and varied source of information, which can be structuredafterwards by a variety of techniques. This is a difficult, time-consuming, and therefore expensive step. Becausethe discussions are left relatively free, one ‘can expect the unexpected’, i.e., many leads are found which do not fitinto prepared theoretical frameworks. Especially when the topic deals with human emotions and Kansei factors ingeneral, there are no ready-to-use theories for designers. But even on those aspects where there is a structure to theknowledge, it can be difficult to fit the diverse reactions into a coherent picture, or into a series of coherentpictures. The analysis is usually performed by the researcher with occasional consultation of designers, users, andexternal experts. The analysis can take up to several weeks for one session with half a dozen respondents, or canbe done in two days, depending on the scale of the research project. Often, these sessions are carried out to findout ‘blind spots’, unforeseen directions, and to paint a global picture of important considerations, and followed upby more formal research methods. In industrial practice, analysis is often confined to listing key aspects andselecting anecdotes, for reasons of speed and budget.3.4 communication

In the final phase, the results from the sessions are communicated with the design team. This communicationcan take different forms, e.g., a written report, a set of poster diagrams featuring key words and images, a videowith selected anecdotes. But often one-way reports fail to convey the richness of information from the sessions;interactive workshops between researchers and designers are a way to let the design team ‘make the informationtheir own’, by letting researchers and designers together ‘design’ the final information. Including some users inthese workshops can also work well.

Communication is an important step in the whole process, because whatever has been learnt in the previoussteps is worthless if it is not conducted further in the design. Moreover, if the information is carried through, itmay prevent the loss of valuable design and development work, as argued in the introduction.

Figure 4. A set of cards is one way to summarize the findings from the analysis. Each card represents theexperience of one individual user/respondent, and contains parts of their presentation and suggestions from theanalysis, emphasized by color coding and visualisations. The cards are laminated, so designers can writeannotations and sketches on them. The picture on the right shows the cards in use. (Pictures from [6])4. Discussion and conclusion

In this paper we discussed differences in design and research activities in explorative user studies, and how theroles of designers, researchers, and participants are related, where they are connected, and where they areoverlapping. The general finding is that more and more, the different phases of the design process are joining up,and that boundaries are getting vaguer. In the past, written documents could form the bridges between designerand user researcher, and designers might not meet users at all. Now the increasingly multidisciplinary nature ofdesign, and the current emphasis in product development on experiential, holistic, and Kansei factors, demandsricher forms of communication and collaboration between the people involved.

The users are given designerly means of expression instead of only check-the-box questionnaires, so they canhelp cover the blind spots in any theories, and draw the analysis into their world of experience. Researchers mustdesign and work with designers both in setting up the interaction with the users, and in preparing thecommunication with designers. The designers who receive information about the users should not be passiverecipients. They should become owners and co-creators of the information themselves. In this sense, participatorydesign is not just about letting the end-users participate, but rather in taking away barriers betweens differentpeople in the design process.References

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