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BILL GAVER, TONY DUNNE AND ELENA PACENTI design

AAs the local site coordinator finished his introduction to the meeting, our worries were

increasing. The group had taken on a glazed look, showing polite interest, but no real

enthusiasm. How would they react when we presented them with our packages?

Would disinterest deepen to boredom, or even hostility?

Cultural ProbesHomo ludens impinges on his environment: He interrupts, changes, intensifies; he follows paths and inpassing, leaves traces of his presence everywhere. — Constant

Don Bishop ©1997 Artville, LLC

Of course an explanation had been necessaryfor this special meeting with us, three foreigndesigners. The coordinator explained that wewere there as part of a EuropeanUnion–funded research project looking atnovel interaction techniques to increase thepresence of the elderly in their local commu-nities. We represented two design centers thatwould be working over the next two yearswith three community sites: in the Majorstua,a district of Oslo; the Bijlmer, a large plannedcommunity near Amsterdam; and Peccioli, asmall village outside Pisa. We were at the lastsite, to get to know the group a little.

An important preamble, then, well deliv-ered by the coordinator, but the explanationwas of necessity fairly complicated. On ourarrival, the 10 elderly members had beenfriendly and enthusiastic, if a little puzzled.

22

Now they were looking tired.Finally the time came. I stood up and said,

“We’ve brought you a kind of gift,” as we allpassed the clear blue plastic envelopes to thegroup. (See Fig. 1) “They’re a way for us to getto know you better, and for you to get to knowus.” Already people were starting to unwind thestrings fastening the envelopes. “Take a look,” Isaid, “and we’ll explain what’s in them.”

An assortment of maps, postcards, cam-eras, and booklets began accumulating infront of them. Curious, they started exam-ining the materials. Soon they were smilingand discussing them with their neighbors.

As the feeling of the group livened percep-tibly, we started explaining the contents.Worry transformed to excitement. Perhaps theprobes would work after all.

Cultural ProbesThe cultural probes—these packages of maps,postcards, and other materials—weredesigned to provoke inspirational responsesfrom elderly people in diverse communities.Like astronomic or surgical probes, we leftthem behind when we had gone and waitedfor them to return fragmentary data over time.

The probes were part of a strategy of pur-suing experimental design in a responsive way.They address a common dilemma in devel-oping projects for unfamiliar groups.Understanding the local cultures was neces-sary so that our designs wouldn’t seem irrele-vant or arrogant, but we didn’t want thegroups to constrain our designs unduly byfocusing on needs or desires they alreadyunderstood. We wanted to lead a discussionwith the groups toward unexpected ideas, butwe didn’t want to dominate it.

PostcardsWithin the probe packages, people found 8 to10 postcards scattered among other materials.The cards had images on the front, and ques-tions on the back, such as:

✦ Please tell us a piece of advice orinsight that has been important to you.

✦ What do you dislike about Peccioli?✦ What place does art have in your life?✦ Tell us about your favorite device.

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Figure 1. A cultural probe package.

✱ Your home✱ What you will wear today✱ The first person you see today✱ Something desirable✱ Something boringAbout half the pictures were unassigned,

and the elders were asked to photographwhatever they wanted to show us beforemailing the camera back to us. (See Fig. 4)

Photo Album and Media DiaryThe last two items in the probes were in theform of small booklets. The first was a photoalbum, which requesting the elders to “use 6to 10 pictures to tell us your story.” Whenquestioned, we encouraged participants to usephotos of the past, their families, their currentlives, or anything they found meaningful. (SeeFig. 5)

Finally, each probe contained a media

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The questions concerned the elders’ atti-tudes towards their lives, cultural environ-ments, and technology. But we used obliquewording and evocative images to open a spaceof possibilities, allowing the elders as muchroom to respond as possible.

Postcards are an attractive medium forasking these sorts of questions because of theirconnotations as an informal, friendly mode ofcommunication. (See Fig. 2) Unlike formalquestionnaires, the postcards encouragedquestions to be approached casually, whichwas underlined by pre-addressing andstamping them for separate return.

MapsThe probes contained about seven maps, eachwith an accompanying inquiry exploring theelders’ attitudes toward their environment.(See Fig. 3)

Requests ranged from straightforward topoetic. For instance, a map of the worldincluded the question “Where have you beenin the world?”, and small dot stickers wereprovided to mark answers. Participants werealso asked to mark zones on local maps,showing us where, for instance,

✘ They would go to meet people✘ They would go to be alone✘ They liked to daydream✘ They would like to go but can’tA more surreal task was given to each group

as well; in the case of Peccioli, for example, amap was labeled “if Peccioli were New York...”and was accompanied by stickers showingscenes ranging from the Statue of Liberty topeople injecting drugs.

The maps were printed on a variety of tex-tured papers to emphasize their individualityand cut into several different envelope forms.When the elderly were finished with them,they folded them together and put them inthe mail.

CameraEach probe included a disposable camera,repackaged to separate it from its commercialorigins and to integrate it with the other probematerials. On the back we listed requests forpictures, such as Figure 2. A postcard (“what is your favorite device?”)

diary, in which elderly participants were askedto record their television and radio use,including what they watched, with whom,and when. They were also asked to noteincoming and outgoing calls, including theirrelationship with the caller and the subject ofthe calls. The entries were made daily, for atotal of a week.

ContextA number of converging interests and con-straints were involved in designing the probes.The Presence Project has been funded for twoyears under the European Union’s 13 initia-tive. Eight partners from four countries areexploring technologies to increase the presenceof the elderly in their local communities. Thisis a relatively unconstrained project, definedonly in terms of its overall goal and its flowover time. The first year has been spent onopening a space of possible designs; the secondwill focus on developing prototypes to be

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tested in the sites.The sites themselves constrain the sorts of

design explorations that might be meaningful.In Oslo, we are working with a group ofelderly who have been learning to use theInternet at a local library. In the Netherlands,the elders live in the Bijlmer, an extensiveplanned community with a poor reputation.Finally, the Italian site is in Peccioli, a smallTuscan village where an elder center is beingplanned. The diversity of the sites was clearfrom the outset. Our task was to better under-stand their particularities.

The openness of the design brief, and theavailability of more quantitative demographicdata from the local sites, meant that we couldfreely explore many different aspects of theelders’ attitudes. Of course, we might haveused more traditional methods to do this,including perhaps ethnographic studies, inter-views, or questionnaires. That we didn’t stems,in part, from how we think about doingresearch through design.

Design as ResearchWe approach research into new technologiesfrom the traditions of artist–designers ratherthan the more typical science- and engi-neering-based approaches.

Unlike much research, we don’t emphasizeprecise analyses or carefully controlledmethodologies; instead, we concentrate onaesthetic control, the cultural implications ofour designs, and ways to open new spaces fordesign. Scientific theories may be one sourceof inspiration for us, but so are more informalanalyses, chance observations, the popularpress, and other such “unscientific” sources.

Bill Gaver and

Tony Dunne

Royal College of Art

London, U.K.

w.gaver@rcs.ac.uk

a.dunne@rca.ac.uk

Elena Pacenti

Domus Academy

Milan, Italy

pacenti@domac.it

Figure 4. CameraFigure 3. A map (“if Peccioli were New York...“)

Geographic and cultural distances weremore specific problems for this project. Wedesigned the materials to be posted separately,both to acknowledge our distance and toemphasize our ongoing lives in other coun-tries (thus we used our names in the addresses,as opposed to an institutional title like “ThePresence Project”). We also tried to design thematerials to be as visual as possible, to someextent bypassing language barriers.

Respecting Our EldersA particularly important gap for us to bridgewas the generational gap implied bydesigning for another age group. Toencourage a provocative dialogue aboutdesign, we tried to reject stereotypes of olderpeople as “needy” or “nice.” This freed us, inturn, to challenge the elder groups, boththrough the probes and our eventual designs.

Moving beyond a view of older people asneedy or nice has allowed us to view them innew ways, opening new opportunities fordesign. For instance, elders represent a life-time of experiences and knowledge, oftendeeply embedded in their local communities.This could be an invaluable resource to theyounger members of their community.

Conversely, elders also represent a life freefrom the need to work, and thus the possi-bility of exploring life as homo ludens,humanity defined by its playful qualities. Ourdesigns could offer them opportunities toappreciate their environments—social, urban,and natural—in new and intriguing ways.

Functional AestheticsThroughout the project, we have viewed aes-thetic and conceptual pleasure as a right ratherthan a luxury. We didn’t work on the aes-thetics of the probes simply to make themappealing or motivating but because webelieve aesthetics to be an integral part offunctionality, with pleasure a criterion fordesign equal to efficiency or usability.

We worked to make the probe materialsdelightful, but not childish or condescending.In fact, the aesthetics were somewhat abstractor alien in order to encourage from respon-dents a slightly detached attitude to our

Unlike most design, we don’t focus oncommercial products, but on new under-standings of technology. This allows us—evenrequires us—to be speculative in our designs,as trying to extend the boundaries of currenttechnologies demands that we explore func-tions, experiences, and cultural placementsquite outside the norm.

Instead of designing solutions for userneeds, then, we work to provide opportunitiesto discover new pleasures, new forms of socia-bility, and new cultural forms. We often act asprovocateurs through our designs, trying toshift current perceptions of technology func-tionally, aesthetically, culturally, and evenpolitically.

Inspiration, not InformationThe artist–designer approach is openly subjec-tive, only partly guided by any “objective”problem statement. Thus we were after “inspi-rational data” with the probes, to stimulateour imaginations rather than define a set ofproblems.

We weren’t trying to reach an objectiveview of the elders’ needs through the probes,but instead a more impressionistic account oftheir beliefs and desires, their aesthetic prefer-ences and cultural concerns. Using official-looking questionnaires or formal meetingsseemed likely to cast us in the role of doctors,diagnosing user problems and prescribingtechnological cures. Conversely, we didn’twant to be servants either, letting the elders setthe directions for our designs. Trying to estab-lish a role as provocateurs, we shaped theprobes as interventions that would affect theelders while eliciting informative responsesfrom them.

Combating DistanceTo establish a conversation with the eldergroups, we had to overcome several kinds ofdistance that might separate us, some endemicto most research, some particular to this pro-ject. Foremost was the kind of distance of offi-cialdom that comes with being flown in aswell-funded experts. Trying to reduce this sortof distance underlay a great deal of the toneand aesthetics of the probe materials.

25i n t e r a c t i o n s . . . j a n u a r y + f e b r u a r y 1 9 9 9

Figure 5. Photo album

requests. But although the materials were aes-thetically crafted, they were not too profes-sionally finished. This gave them a personaland informal feeling, allowing them to escapethe genres of official forms or of commercialmarketing. In the end, they revealed theenergy we put into them and expressed ourtastes and interests to the groups.

The aesthetics of the packages were thusanother attempt to reduce the distancebetween us and the groups. Through thematerials and images and the requests wemade, we tried to reveal ourselves to thegroups as we asked them to reveal themselvesto us. Not only did this make the probesthemselves enjoyable and communicative, butit meant that they started to hint at what theelders might expect from our eventual designs.

Applying Conceptual ArtThe conceptual concerns and specific tech-niques of various arts movements also influ-enced our design. For instance, our maps arerelated to the psychogeographical maps of theSituationists [1] (see the sidebar), which cap-ture the emotional ambience of different loca-tions. Unfamiliar with the local sites ourselves,we asked the local groups to map them for us.Not only did this give us material to informour designs, but, we hope, provoked the eldersto consider their environment in a new way.

We used other techniques from groupssuch as Dada, the Surrealists, and more con-temporary artists in the probes as well. Theyincorporated elements of collage, in whichjuxtaposed images open new and provocative

spaces, and of borrowing and subverting thevisual and textual languages of advertisements,postcards, and other elements of commercialculture. Finally, we tried to use, judiciously,tactics of ambiguity, absurdity, and mysterythroughout, as a way of provoking new per-spectives on everyday life.

Launching the ProbesWe gave the probes to members of the eldergroups in a series of meetings at the local sites,like the one described in the beginning of thispaper. We did not describe every item, butinstead introduced the types of things theywould find. We wanted them to be surprisedas they returned to the packages over the fol-lowing weeks.

Originally we had planned to send thepackages to the groups, but we were afraid theymight reject the unusual approach we weretaking. We decided to present them ourselvesto explain our intentions, answer questions,and encourage the elders to take an informal,experimental approach to the materials.

This turned out to be an extremely fortu-nate decision, because one of the unexpectedstrengths of the probes was in sparking a dia-logue between us and the elderly. What wefeared would be polite group discussionsturned out to be spontaneous and personal,and we learned a great deal about the groupsin discussing the materials. Even after we left,some of the elders sent us personal greetingsbeyond the materials themselves—postcards,letters, even personalized Christmas cards.

The ReturnsFor about a month after we left each site, westarted receiving the completed materials, at arate that seemed to compare favorably withthat for other methods. Every day or so, wewould find another few postcards, maps, orcameras in our post, which allowed us to scanand sort them in a piecemeal and leisurelyfashion. (See Fig. 6)

Some of the items that the elders returnedwere left blank or they included notes aboutwhy the given request was difficult. We hadencouraged this in the meetings, as a way ofkeeping the process open to the elders’ opin-

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DESIGN COLUMN EDITOR

Kate Ehrlich

Senior Research Manager

Lotus Development

Corporation

55 Cambridge Parkway

Cambridge, MA 02142

+1-617-693-1899

fax: +1-617-693-8383

Kate_Ehrlich@crd.lotus.com

Figure 6. Some of the returned items.

ions. And in fact, we redesigned the materialsfor each group as we received returns fromthe last.

Sorting through the masses of maps, cards,and photographs that we received, strong anddifferentiated views of the three sites began toemerge. Some items acted as beacons for us—a photograph of friends at an Italian café, amap of the Bijlmer with extensive notes aboutthe “junkies and thieves” in the area, a jokeabout death from Oslo. They seemed to cap-ture particular facets of the cultures, clearlysymbolizing important issues. (See Fig. 7)

The return rates from the groups added toour impressions of their differences. The Oslogroup returned almost all the materials, andthus seemed enthusiastic and diligent. TheBijlmer group returned a bit more than halfthe materials: they seemed less convinced bythe project but willing to take part in tasksthey found meaningful or provoking. Finally,the Peccioli group returned less than half thematerials, despite being enthusiastic whenthey received them. We take this as a sign thatthey are well meaning but happily distractedby their daily lives—an important factor forour designs.

From Probes to DesignsThe probes were not designed to be analyzed,nor did we summarize what they revealedabout the sites as an explicit stage in theprocess. Rather, the design proposals we pro-duced reflected what we learned from thematerials. For the Royal College of Art, theprobe materials allowed the different charac-ters of the three sites to emerge, which we arereflecting in quite different design scenarios:

✦ In the Bijlmer, our ideas respond to theparadox of a strong community in adangerous area: We have proposedbuilding a network of computer dis-plays with which the elderly could helpinhabitants communicate their valuesand attitudes about the culture.

✦ The group in Oslo is affluent, welleducated, and enthusiastic: We areproposing that they lead a community-wide conversation about social issues,publishing questions from the library

that are sent for public response toelectronic systems in cafés, trams, orpublic spaces.

✦ Finally, the elders in Peccioli enjoy arelaxed social life in a beautiful setting.We plan to amplify their pleasure bycreating social and pastoral radioscapes,allowing them to create flexible com-munications networks and to listen tothe sounds of the surrounding country-side. (See Fig. 8)

For the Domus Academy, the returns sug-gested a range of nonstereotypical profiles ofelders that were less focused on the particularsites. For instance, many elders are experts on

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Figure 7. A returned map showing zones of safety and fear in the Bijlmer.

the current status and history of their com-munities and might serve as local informationresources, perhaps by guiding tourists. Theyare eager to keep in touch with friends andfamilies, and thus new technologies might

support relationships with distant relatives orwith children and grandchildren closer tohome, or might provide forms of “soft surveil-lance” or informal help chains to combatsocial isolation. Finally, the elderly might pro-vide a living memory of a particular commu-nity, enriching the physical environment withvirtual traces of its history.

These proposals were our reply to theelders’ responses to the probes, integratingwhat we learned about them with suggestionsfor new possibilities. The best evidence thatthe returns from the probes spurred valuableinsights into the local cultures was that theelders clearly recognized themselves in theproposals. Although some of our suggestionswere intended to be strange or provocative,the elders became readily involved with them,making suggestions for reshaping the ideas,but without breakdowns in the conversationthat would have indicated our perceptions

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T h e S i t u a t i o n i s t s

One influence on our work is the Situationists [1, 3], a collective

of artist-provocateurs based largely in Paris from the late 1950s

to early 1960s.

Like the Dadaists and Surrealists (e.g., [2]), the Situationists

wanted their art to be revolutionary, reawakening passion and

unconscious desires in the general public. Fundamental in this

approach was their analysis of the ways that commercial culture

expropriates people’s experience into the “Spectacle,” an all-

encompassing, media-fueled show. As the Spectacle subsumes

ideas, desires, even protests, people are forced into an alienated

position, as consumers of their own experience.

The Situationists used artistic strategies both as a radical

critique of the Spectacle and as concrete research into the

promise of new cultural possibilities. Art was to be liberated

from the safe enclave of established galleries and used to

seduce and confront ordinary people. They mass-produced paint-

ings sold by the yard; altered prints, comic strips, and advertise-

ments; and created new architectures to be changed at will by

the people who lived in them. Throughout, they embraced dis-

orientation and confusion as methods for liberation.

Psychogeographical maps were developed to represent the city’s topology of desire, fear, isolation and

sociality, to challenge the cultural homogeneity assumed by commercial interests. Situationists took

derivés, meandering around the city guided only by the landscape of impulse and desire, and mapped

what they found. We have borrowed from this technique for the cultural probes. More generally, we

approach our design in their spirit of functional pleasure.

Figure 8. From the proposal for the bijlmer.

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were crude or mistaken. This notion of a con-tinuing conversation with the elders has beenpivotal to our understanding of the probes asa method.

User-Centered InspirationAlthough the probes were central to ourunderstanding of the sites, they didn’t directlylead to our designs. They were invaluable inmaking us aware of the detailed texture of thesites, allowing us to shape proposals to fitthem. But we were also influenced by our pre-existing conceptual interests, our visits to thesites, anecdotes and data about the areas fromthe local coordinators, and readings from thepopular and specialist press. Just as manyinfluences went into designing the probes, sohave they been one of many influences on ourdesign process.

The cultural probes were successful for us intrying to familiarize ourselves with the sites ina way that would be appropriate for ourapproach as artist–designers. They provided uswith a rich and varied set of materials that bothinspired our designs and let us ground them inthe detailed textures of the local cultures.

What we learned about the elders is onlyhalf the story, however. The other half is whatthe elders learned from the probes. They pro-voked the groups to think about the roles theyplay and the pleasures they experience,hinting to them that our designs might sug-gest new roles and new experiences. In theend, the probes helped establish a conversa-tion with the groups, one that has continuedthroughout the project.

We believe the cultural probes could beadapted to a wide variety of similar designprojects. Just as machine-addressed lettersseem more pushy than friendly, however, somight a generic approach to the probes pro-

duce materials that seem insincere, like officialforms with a veneer of marketing. The realstrength of the method was that we haddesigned and produced the materials specifi-cally for this project, for those people, and fortheir environments. The probes were our per-sonal communication to the elders, andprompted the elders to communicate person-ally in return.

“The game should be played for some lengthof time to arrive at the most curious results. Thequestions, as well as the answers, are to be con-sidered as symptomatic.”

— J. Levy, Surrealism

AcknowledgmentsThe Presence Project is supported by a grantfrom the European Union under the I3 initia-tive. We are extremely grateful to the membersof the three groups and to Sidsel Bjorneby,Simon Clatworthy, Danielle van Diemen, andCecelia Laschi, the local site coordinators. Wethank Ben Hooker and Fiona Raby for helpwith the design and production of the probematerials and Anne Schlottmann for helpfulcomments on this paper. Finally, we thank ourpartners from the Domus Academy,Netherlands Design Institute, Telenor,Human Factors Solutions, Scuola SuperioreSant’Anna, and IDEA.

References1. Andreotti, L. and Costa, X. (eds.), Situationists: Art,

Politics, Urbanism. Museo d’Art Contemporani de

Barcelona, 1996.

2. Levy, J. Surrealism. Black Sun Press (1st ed.), 1936;

reprinted by Da Capo Press, New York, 1995.

3. Plant, S. The Most Radical Gesture: The Situationist

International in a Postmodern Age. Routledge, London,

1992.

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