Social
Spaces

Our Social Spaces researchers had an active day yesterday making and sharing stories about their research and personal work and experiences. We joined a workshop on Cultural Probes and a Pecha Kucha evening.

First Sanne Jansen and Jessica Schoffelen organized a workshop that wanted to reflect on the use of Cultural Probes in Design Research. Two articles were the starting point, namely Cultural Probes and the Value of Uncertainty by Gaver and collegues and How HCI Interprets Probes. To explore these issues we worked on a running research project that used cultural probes with persons with schizofrenic symptoms . Many interesting issues popped up, like the degree of information a researcher must have on a subject before making probes or what to do with probes that come back without being touched. But the most important issue appeared the difficulty for students to work with the probes in a proper way. Mainly they tried to use them as tools for inquiry instead of design. This triggered a whole debate on the fact that probes makes designers feel uncertain and that we should integrate this way of thinking even more in the educational programs so our students are able to deal with this uncertainty. To be continued…

Our assignment:
Although Cultural Probes have become an umbrella term, they prove a useful point of departure for discussing design research and the adaptation of methods from human centred sciences in design. We used Probes in Not Quite 100, a design research project where media, design, and psychiatry students design for and with people with schizophrenic symptoms. One in 100 people develop schizophrenia at some point in their life, yet what happens within the walls of mental health is often kept from society. While design is widely recognized as a human centred activity, this usually boils down to design for the so-called ‘average’ or ‘normal’ person.While we believe experimentation with methods is essential for design research to grow but also emphasizes the need for a shared vocabulary and debate within the design community, we ask you to read the two included articles as a preparation for thursday. At the meeting we want to discuss the use of Probes in Not Quite 100, what actually happened, some of the problems encountered, and some of the results, and maybe provide valuable insights for other design research designs within our Social Spaces group.

Later we all jumped on our foldable bikes to go to Hasselt, Pecha Kucha where three collegues of ours (Andrea Wilkinson, Nik Baerten, Simona Sofronie) were giving a performance.

The lecture by Nik Baerten - whose core business is exporation of the future via design thinking – was a visual impression of Hasselt in pictures, with the dreams for Hasselt drawn on them in white. We would love the fact that at least one of these ideas becoming reality.

Andrea Wilkinson played language and text in poetic, sad and humoristic ways at the same time. Text is a way in which she engages people in unexpected places and moments in our daily lives: a Pecha Kucha evening, a window, a tote bag. People who missed the Pecha Kucha should certainly pass by in Leuven, Diestsestraat: http://www.andreawilkinson.com/thirtysomething/2010/05/20/narrative-poster-series-leuven/

Last but not least, Simona Sofronie revealed her concept on locative urban games – relating to her Phd in PHL Architecture -  and the experiment she wants to set up with all people who love playing games in the city of Hasselt.

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