week 8. probes as methods

References:
Gaver: Design: Cultural Probes, 1999

Gaver:  Cultural probes and the value of uncertainty, 2004
Wallace: How Design Probes Work, 2013

Recent cases:

Robots for Those in Transition: Exploring Mental Wellness through Design Probes (HRI'26)

Existential Probes: A Method to Elicit Existential Concerns in HCI (Nordic CHI 2026)

Data Probes: Reflecting on Connected Devices with Technology-Mediated Probes (TEI'24)

Pop-Up Probes: Using Pop-up Paper Elements for Cultural Probes to Understand Domestic Routines (MuC '22)

How Design Researchers Interpret Probes: Understanding the Critical Intentions of a Designerly Approach to Research (CHI'21)

Tricky Design Probes: Triggering Reflection on Design Research Methods in Service Design (DIS'20)

Towards a Probe Design Framework (OZCHI'19)

more detail examples in

Probe Tools (Task Cam)

TaskCam: Designing and Testing an Open Tool for Cultural Probes Studies (CHI18)

Making design probes work

Designing for an other Home: Expanding and Speculating on Different Forms of Domestic Life (DIS 18) (Diversifying the Domestic: A Design Inquiry into Collective and Mobile Living, DIS19)

Designing Memory Probes to Inform Dialogue (DIS18)

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Evaluation Probes

Perspective probe: many parts add up to a whole perspective

Medium probes: exploring the medium not the message

Urban probes: encountering our emerging urban atmospheres (CHI05)

See you on the subway: exploring mobile social software

Vulnerability of displacement: challenges for integrating refugees and asylum seekers in host communities

Making history: intentional capture of future memories

Researching sensitive topics: Adjusting cultural probes to research and identify design spaces for sensitive HCI.

situated visualization & co-speculation

Sketching and Ideation Activities for Situated Visualization Design (DIS19)

Bespoke Booklets: A Method for Situated Co-Speculation (DIS19)

Botanical Printer: An Exploration on Interaction Design with Plantness (DIS18)

Exploring The Future of Data-Driven Product Design (CHI20)

IoT Data in the Home: Observing Entanglements and Drawing New Encounters (CHI20)

student example:

A World Following Farmer Almanac

Expected-Experience Entanglements
Confabulation Radio
Craft consciousness

Report:

1.  Each student present one type of probes in "How HCI Interprets the Probes" 

2. X-Probes:

(1) identify probes
(2) urban probes
(3) domestic probes
(4) value probes
(5) empathy probes
(6) mobile probes
(7) digital cultural probes
(8) cognitive probes
(9) technology probes

  (canceled)