Run an Effective Cultural Probe on your Project - UX Australia 2013

How to run an effective Cultural Probe on your project

Matt Morphettmatt@amberdew.com.autwitter: @mattmorphett

Cultural Probes

Rob McLellanrobert.mclellan@team.telstra.com.au

What is a Cultural Probe?User research methodGaver et al 1999 (inspired by Situationist International)Package of artifacts (e.g. post cards, camera, diary, sound recorder)Evocative tasks for participant to perform & report upon

http://www.sfu.ca/~nrz/333%20website/index.html http://www.worx.at/blog/cultural-probes/

Our Brief

Mobile enablement of Enterprise capabilities“We need to put in place measures to counter the proliferation of Enterprise Mobile apps, and ensure they make sense and serve real needs…”

Where to start?

Design & Research Scope

Devices + Context + Tasks

Why we did a probe?

AM PM

Validate and pressure test our hypotheses

Day in the life

AM PM

Longitudinal view...

Day in the life

AM PM

Build evidence to understand context preferences

Day in the life

Designing the Probe

1. Day 1 (Wednesday) diary

2. Day 2 (Thursday) diary

3. Camera (24 shots)

4. Pen

5. Briefing Pack (contact details)

How to Prep

1. Choose reporting times wisely2. Give participants tasks3. Ask them to imagine4. Poll for feelings and opinions.

Recruiting Participants

How to Recruit

1. Pay a little extra2. Recruit at least 7 participants3. Set participants expectations

- 30min / day- Photos- Carry diary with you- Briefing before, call after.

Briefing Participants

How to Brief Participants1. Brief participants together in person2. Include instructions in their pack3. Call them after the first day.

Briefing and debriefing process

Tuesday

Take your packs home tonight

Wednesday

1. Take your pack with you through the day

2. Fill in the entries at the specified times

3. We will call you Wednesday evening to check everything is OK

Thursday

4. Take your pack with you through the day

5. Fill in the entries at the specified times

Friday

Rob will collect packs from you at work/home

Tuesday

1hr debrief by telephone.

What are we Asking You to do?Carry and make notes in a diary…

• Take the materials to work / uni

with you.• Please try to complete the

pages at the times indicated:• 8am• 11am• 6pm• 8pm

• Be very aware of your

environmental context.• Summarise your thoughts at

the end of the day.• Be candid:

• We’re just as interested in

what you don’t like!

So how does this work?Follow the numbered steps in the diary…

So how does this work?Follow the numbered steps in the diary…

So how does this work?Example entry

Because it would be handy to have all my meeting notes with me at any time – I could go back and review. I might not have to carry a notepad – one less thing to carry.

I wouldn’t want to feel like a show-off with an iPad at a meeting in the office.

I’ve tried those stylus things and they aren’t great.

I can’t imagine it would be as fast an easy as writing on paper.

So how does this work?Summarise the day

The Challenges You Will Encounter

Challenge 1 - You can’t convince management to let you do one.

1. Communicate: “It isn’t risky” – one part of overall research approach2. Communicate: “It gathers unique insights” – contextual & longitudinal &

less influenced by research method3. Provide early findings to stakeholders (pepper with photos)

Presentation made weekly communicating findings as they evolved.

Challenge 2 - Participants don’t fill in the diaries1. Make awesome diaries2. Look participants in the eye at the briefing3. Call them on day 14. Tell them you’ll call after it’s done

Challenge 3 – Results hard to form into recommendations or designs1. Allow side-by-side comparison for trend finding2. Affinity diagram the main themes3. Ask them to perform tasks & talk about how they feel in that context4. Follow up call and ask “Why?”5. Use findings to drive quant. research

Other lessons

1. Don’t get too smart with technology2. Allow a full day for production and assembly3. Don’t cheap out on the cameras4. Balance need to see tasks performed across time with providing variety.

Matt Morphettmatt@amberdew.com.autwitter: @mattmorphett

Thanks

Rob McLellanrobert.mclellan@team.telstra.com

Full 52 page diary template (covering 7 day period) with worked examples available now at…

www.amberdew.com.au