What to ask

The first step in designing our probe was answering the question "What do we want to learn from our users?" We ultimately decided design an application to assist transportation/travel in some way. Some relevant points include:

• Where they go
• How they get there
• Places, people, problems they encounter along the way
• What they do at their destinations
• Small ways to improve "the journey"

The second step is determining how to get this information out of our users. Designing a cultural probe is tricky, as you want to obtain good information, but you want to keep the work load light and/or fun so the users will actually follow through with it. You also want something that is always accessible, so the user can record things on the go that they might otherwise forget about if they waited to fill it out until the end of the day. We decided to administer our probe using two separate approaches: one focused and one open-ended.

The Materials

Our final probe consisted of 3 main pieces of data: the notebook, the "magic stickers", and the map.

The notebook: we included a little green notebook that functioned as a daily journal for our users. We prompted the user with different questions each day that they were to briefly answer. This would ensure that we would get at least some focused feedback relevant to our project. Some example prompts include:

• "How did you get around today? Why did you choose this method of transportation?"
• "List 3 interactions you had today and the purpose for them"
• "What is on your to-do list for today? What about tomorrow"

The "magic stickers": the "magic sticker" idea gave our users the opportunity to be creative. We gave the users a pad of Post-It notes and told them that the Post-Its could "find any kind of information, answer any question, or solve any problem" they might have. The users would the query the "magic sticker" when they came up with something that would be useful to know. For example, a user might ask "Where are my keys?" or "Would it be better to wait for the crosswalk sign to come on or should I walk to the next intersection?" The magic stickers provided an outlet for users to express frustrations beyond the scope of the journal, while at the same time serving as a pool of potentially novel ideas for our design.

The map: the map was used in conjunction with one of the journal prompts. The users were asked to trace out their day on the map and mark places where they spent time. This was done to get them engaged in the process and help them recall that day's events in detail.

Administering the Probe

Our probe spanned over a total of 5 days. Each user started the probe on Wednesday and completed it on Sunday. This allowed us to get data from both weekdays and the weekend, as most people spend their weekdays much differently than their weekends. We also checked in with our users roughly halfway through the process (Friday) to make sure they were completing it and to answer any questions they might have.

In total, we probed 3 users, all of which were UW undergrads. Our user was a senior male business student who really values his free time. The second user was female freshman pre-med student, who is very focused on her academics. Our third user was a junior male CS major, who is an "optimizer".