ProbeTools: Digital Devices for User Research

该项目将开发一系列名为ProbeTool的计算设备，旨在为人机界面研究和更广泛的社会研究收集用户数据。利用用于计算和产品设计的快速原型技术的新发展，ProbeTools将探索开源数字工具支持社会研究的可能性。ProbeTools建立在文化探测的基础上，这是一种以设计为导向的社会研究方法，其中任务集合的设计旨在引起人们的反应，从而照亮参与者的生活、价值观和欲望。探头的设计具有吸引力、趣味性、美观性和开放性，可以有效地让设计师与参与者合作，了解他们设计的背景。自从大约15年前引入以来，文化探索已经成为设计师、研究人员、技术专家和社会科学家保留下来的一种既定方法。然而，电影和录音带等探测的传统媒体正在消亡，从业者更难利用智能手机或平板电脑等以功能为导向的技术来实现探测类活动的敏感性。该项目团队将与微软研究院和邓迪大学的研究伙伴合作，探索如何将ProbeTool设计为有利于商业研究以及学术研究和教学。我们将通过设计方法论进行研究，其中对ProbeTool的设计、制造和使用的思考将与设备本身一起为未来ProbeTool的设计提供指导。这将从回顾过去15年的数百项文化调查研究和材料开始，包括与我们的研究伙伴以及其他经验丰富的英国从业人员的研讨会，以了解ProbeTools设计空间的发展，体现在一本包含按主题组织的简单注释概念提案的设计工作簿中。我们将从最有希望的设计中挑选3-6个设计，同时探索ProbeTool应该有多复杂，哪些媒体将工作得很好，以及它们在功能上应该受到多大的限制。例如，我们设想开发一种可以轻松重新配置的相机，以提供例如延时摄影或为保护隐私而处理的图像，或者开发一种在听到异常响亮的声音时打开的录音机，或者处理语音以保持情绪语调但不是可理解的。我们预计每个ProbeTool将提供一系列选项，允许研究人员根据各种研究要求对其进行配置。每个设计的15-30个副本将批量生产，供内部使用，并由我们的研究合作伙伴为正在进行的项目收集数据。根据结果，我们将能够共同确定成功的ProbeTool的特征，以完善最终设计并为未来设备的开发制定指导方针。该项目旨在利用另一种最近的趋势--开源产品设计--产生尽可能大的影响。我们将以设计包的形式发布我们在适当的存储库上制作的ProbeTool的完整规范，其中还包括构建、编程和修改工具的手册，以及关于使用3D打印机和使用微处理器工具包和定制电路板批量生产产品的通用指南。这将通过展览、大众媒体和在线媒体以及人机界面、设计和社会科学的学术出版物进行宣传。最终的结果将是一系列可用于文化探索研究的设计，用于其他类型的用户研究，并展示快速原型和更广泛地开放源码制作的可能性。

This project will develop a family of computational devices called ProbeTools that are designed to collect user data for HCI studies and social research more generally. Taking advantage of new developments in rapid prototyping for computation and product design, ProbeTools will explore possibilities for opensource digital tools to support social research. ProbeTools build on Cultural Probes, a design-led approach to social research in which collections of tasks are designed to elicit responses from people that illuminate participants' lives, values and desires. Designed to be engaging, playful, aesthetically appealing and open-ended, Probes can be an effective way for designers to work with participants to gain an understanding of the context for their designs. Since their introduction about fifteen years ago, Cultural Probes have become an established method in the repertoire of designers, researchers, technologists and social scientists. However, the traditional media of Probes such as film and audio tapes are dying out, and it is more difficult for practitioners to achieve the sensibilities of probe-like activities using feature-led technology such as smart phones or tablets.The project team will work with Research Partners from Microsoft Research and the University of Dundee to explore how ProbeTools may be designed to benefit commercial research as well as academic research and teaching. We will pursue a research through design methodology, in which reflections on designing, making and using ProbeTools will be used to produce guidance for future ProbeTool design alongside the devices themselves. This will start with a review of the hundreds of Cultural Probe studies and materials from the last fifteen years, and include workshops with our Research Partners as well as other experienced UK practitioners, to inform the development of a design space for ProbeTools, embodied in a Design Workbook containing simple annotated concept proposals organised thematically. We will select 3- 6 designs from the most promising but also to explore how complex ProbeTools should be, what media will work well, and how constrained they should be in their functionality. For instance, we envision developing a camera that can be easily reconfigured to provide e.g. time-lapse photography or images processed to protect privacy, or an audio recorder that turns on for a period when unusually loud sounds are heard, or processes speech to preserve emotional intonation but not intelligibility. We anticipate that each ProbeTool will offer a range of options to allow researchers to configure them for a wide variety of research requirements.15 - 30 copies of each design will be batch produced for use in-house and by our Research Partners to collect data for ongoing projects. Based on the results, we will be able to work together to identify the characteristics of successful ProbeTools, both to refine the final designs and to produce guidelines for the development of future devices.The project is designed to make the largest possible impact by taking advantage of another recent trend, towards open-source product design. We will publish the complete specification of the ProbeTools we make on appropriate repositories, in the form of design packages that also include manuals for building, programming and modifying the tools, and generalisable guidance on batch producing products using 3D printers, and using microprocessor toolkits and custom PCBs. This will be publicised via exhibitions, the popular press, and online media as well as academic publications in HCI, Design and the Social Sciences. The end result will be a series of designs that can be used in Cultural Probes studies, appropriated for other sorts of user research, and which illustrate possibilities of rapid prototyping and open source making more generally.