We pursue practice-based research using design-led techniques in holistic encounters with real-world design settings. Choosing situations which resonate with topical research issues and carefully articulating our process and results has allowed us to make influential contributions with the research products we design and the methodological and conceptual innovations we develop in the course of our work. Here is a brief overview of a few:
Cultural Probes
Cultural Probes are a design-led approach to user research in which collections of evocative tasks are given to volunteers to evoke inspiring responses, with the result serving as hints or clues about peoples’ lives. Since the Cultural Probes approach was first published in 1999 it has been taken up across a range of disciplines, with the original paper showing 1000+ citations on the ACM Digital Library and 2500+ on Google Scholar. [Link to relevant papers at the end of each of these?]
Design Workbooks
Design Workbooks are thematically organised collections of research proposals generated early in projects as a hinge between research and making. Proposals combine visual indications of design possibilities (collages, diagrams) with text that ranges from brief annotations to fuller narratives. They are more developed than sketches, and technically plausible, yet open enough to spur discussion and further imagination. Collecting proposals together creates a design space from which our eventual designs usually emerge.
Research Products
We have from the outset designed and built highly developed ‘computational products’ that are technologically robust and aesthetically finished. This allows them to be deployed to volunteers to live with and use for extended periods, without the distraction of partially finished prototypes. Participants’ experiences and engagements with our designs informs insights both about technologies and people.
Batch Production
In order to pursue larger-scale field trials, we have explored batch production of our research products in numbers up to 130 technically-sophisticated units. Although resource-intensive, this methodology greatly increases circulation, allowing field trials with larger and more diverse users that give more people first-hand experiences with the things we make. This has a political dimension as well, as we explore how people can encounter digital products outside normal commercial channels.
Self-Build
Self-Build is another methodology for increasing the circulation of our designs, which involves designing computational products that can be made simply from off-the-shelf components by following detailed, highly accessible online instructions. Beyond DIY or open-source design, the self-build approach emphasises clarity and accessibility for makers with no previous experience. The My Naturewatch project has been a particularly successful example, with approximately 3000 people having made our self-build camera design.