cultural probes

design process- gathering inspirational data about people's lives, values and thoughts - by a sort of artifact who evocative tasks to record specific events, feelings or interactions

Homo ludens - Man develops his cultural skills mainly through play - In narrative "play" man supplements his pragmatic experiences with the dimension of an imaginative search for meaning. In this respect Homo ludens is an anthropological counter-concept to Homo faber.

Research not with traditional methods (ethnographic studies, inter- views, or questionnaires) - playful - because from how they think about doing research through design

Research Project - The coordinator explained that we were there as part of a European Union–funded research project looking at novel interaction techniques to increase the presence of the elderly in their local communities.

• two years - three community sites (in the Majorstua, a district of Oslo; the Bijlmer, a large planned community near Amsterdam; and Peccioli, a small village outside Pisa)
• 10 elderly members - each group received en envelop (maps, postcards, cameras, and booklets)

Cultural Probes

• material - were designed to provoke inspirational responses from elderly people in diverse communities
• understanding the local cultures
• to lead a discussion toward unexpected ideas

Postcards(connotations as an informal, friendly mode of communication)

• 8-10stk. - with images and questions
• The questions concerned the elders’ atti-tudes towards their lives, cultural environ- ments, and technology