Pat’s Point of View

I’m currently reading several books simultaneously, which is probably not the best method but I’ve been assured it’s quite normal. On the list are:

• Doing Visual Ethnography by Sarah Pink (2007) – quite an enlightening read, if a bit heavy going (although compared to most anthropology texts I’ve seen it’s pretty easy to read). I first picked it up because of the focus on using photography and video as part of field research, but covers many other topics too, including the generded nature of ethnographic research and the various theoretical stances underpinning this type of work. And I’m only part way through.
• Ethnographic Methods by Karen O’Reilly (2005) – which so far seems to be an excellent introduction to the topic. It has a less academic tone of voice and is thus easier to read than a lot of books on this subject (as I said above). Karen has included many excellent examples and anecdotes from real field research. Quite the practical reference book. Thanks to Stephen for the tip.
• Universal Principles of Design by Lidwell, Holden, Butler (2003) – an overview of 100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach Through Design. I was browsing the bookshelf at work and thought I’d take a look, as I am quite interested in ‘little d’ design. I wasn’t terribly impressed; it’s embarrassingly brief and superficial in its discussion of these principles. It’s definitely written for visual designers and I don’t think it does any of the content much justice. As one of the reviewers on Amazon says: better for the coffee table than the design desk.

Sadly, there’s a much bigger pile of books for me to read next. It just never ends…

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I was recently reading UX Magazine (from the The Usability Professionals’ Association) and they had an article on cultural probes and another on moving with a magic thing, both new methods of user research.

Essentially cultural probes are a technique where you hand over control of the user research to the users themselves. Rather than observing them you provide them with a ‘kit’ with which they record their own behaviour and experiences. Typically this kit would include a diary, a digital camera etc. It’s like ’scrapbooking’, where you write and stick stuff into a book to record what’s going on.

“Cultural probes are designed to prompt and elicit information from people about their lives and local culture.”

The original developers, William Gaver from the London Royal College of Art, suggest this technique is useful in non-work contexts or when more traditional techniques (such as lab testing or contextual enquiry) would either influence behaviour or be logistically difficult to perform.

The second technique, “moving with a magic thing” works according to a similar concept. It’s claimed to be useful when finding uses for new technology, by giving users the new thing (or a mock-up of it) and getting them to go away and discover uses for it. This beats a bunch of designers and engineers sitting around a table trying to think of how to use new technology, which is what most often happens. Why not employ the potential end-users to work out what it might be useful for?

“Users are met in their environment and given a ‘black box’ or a mock-up of a device. They are then told what functionality the device has and are asked to go about their life as they normally would…They are given a digital camera for a week and asked to take pictures of the situations where they would use the ‘magic thing’.”

Obviously this technique is most useful for technology-driven products/projects and only at the initial stages; different kinds of research would follow once the initial set of use scenarios have been collected.

I think these techniques are quite fascinating and could be valuable additions to the ol’ UX toolbox. I might have a use for the probe method soon, but the magic thing method might need to wait a little longer. It would be great to hear some feedback from people who have used these techniques and how successful they were.

Whilst the UPA don’t make the magazine articles available online—or at least not immediately—there’s plenty of stuff on the web. Gerry Gaffney has written quite a useful guide on using cultural probes, and Anu Kankainen has made her article on the moving with a magic thing technique available online.

See what people are blogging about: UX, UPA, moving with a magic thing, cultural probes, user research, usability

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