Riche, Y., Simpson, M., Viller, S. Zebra: Exploring user’ engagement in fieldwork,
Proceedings of DIS’08 the 2008 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive
Systems, 2008, ACM Press.
Zebra: Exploring users’ engagement in fieldwork
Yann Riche
Matthew Simpson
Stephen Viller
Univ. Paris Sud & INRIA
Univ. Of Queensland
Bat. 490, Univ. Paris Sud
91405 Orsay, FRANCE
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA, USA
School of ITEE
University of Queensland
Brisbane, Australia
msimpson@google.com
viller@acm.org
yann.riche@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Participatory Design is a design approach that provides a popular
set of techniques for designing interactive systems in
collaboration with end-users. Technology probes are one of such
techniques, developed recently to encourage users’ engagement
with design ideas while capturing interaction. In this paper, we
describe a technology probe called Zebra, which aimed at
exploring the design of an observation tool for fieldwork with
busy professionals. We deployed Zebra in the coffee room of our
lab and observed researchers’ reactions to the proposed concepts
it embodied, both as researchers and as participants. We found
that participants engaged with the probe in ways ranging from
playful performances, through to abandoning the social space.
Based on analysis of the collected qualitative and quantitative
data, we present our reflections on the Zebra probe, how it eased
the burden of engagement in the design process, and helped us
better understand the potential of the observation tool for
participatory design with busy professionals.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H.5.2
[User
Interfaces]:
Evaluation/Methodology
User
Centered
Design,
Keywords
Technology Probes, Participatory Design, Engagement
1. INTRODUCTION
Designing interactive systems that are adapted to people and their
environments is one of the challenges of User Centered Design
(UCD) and Participatory Design (PD). In order to support these
approaches, Human Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers seek
new techniques and methods to support the design process. While
UCD considers users as the core of the design process,
Participatory Design goes further in making users active
participants in the design process, alongside designers and
engineers. The Participatory Design approach thus leads to a
stronger engagement of users in design activities, which in turn
adds responsibilities and workload to the participating users.
Facilitating the engagement of users in the design process is one
of the key issues Participatory Design practitioners face. Field
observation is a method used in PD that involves observing users
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in their environments to better understand their inter-relationships
and the role of context in their activities. Other methods involve
users in design exercises and reflective discussions and actively
include participants in the design process. This work is motivated
by the need for compromises between conducting field
observations that place designers in the users’ space, and
engaging users in design/reflective activities that place them in the
designers’ space [17].
To respond to this need, we propose the use of a field observation
tool which allows an automated capture of video data while
providing users the ability to review, reflect and annotate the
captured data. This tool is intended to support the PD practice by
actively engaging users in fieldwork observations. Designing such
a tool presents many technical and methodological challenges,
such as reliability in an unknown physical environment [2], the
validity and usefulness of the collected data, and the reaction of
users. To better explore these issues, we have designed the Zebra
probe, a technology probe [12] aimed at exploring the design of
this tool.
To ensure the success of this tool, we involved HCI researchers in
our lab in a PD process using the Zebra probe as a core artifact.
Because of the researchers’ busy schedules, we tailored a study to
engage them in the design process while limiting the impact of the
study on their workload. We developed and deployed the Zebra
probe as a naïve implementation of the video observation tool,
designed to engage researchers longitudinally whilst minimizing
intrusion into their daily routines.
This paper describes the early stages of the design of this tool in
collaboration with HCI researchers. Building upon this study, we
present different approaches that the tool’s concept could
encompass. We then discuss how the use of the technology probe
methodology facilitated engaging busy researchers in a
participatory design process.
2. RELATED LITERATURE
Attempts to engage users in design are frequently limited by the
time and commitment available for any activity that is not directly
part of their jobs. In a previous study [20], we conducted
fieldwork in architectural firms to explore the physical nature of
collaborative design. We were permitted to observe two different
architectural offices for a period of two days each. Given this
limited time, we decided to use a mix of ‘quick and dirty’
ethnography [11] and interviews to gather maximum data. The
aim of the study was to gain initial insights about the design space
and identify ideas and general concepts to be investigated further.
During the observations, we were sensitive to the impact our work
might have on their workflow. At the end of the study, we the
captured video and written data led us to a better understanding of
the design space. However, the time spent in the firms had
seriously limited our ability to engage users in the design process.
In planning further studies, we decided to investigate other
techniques to make better use of limited time with users in their
space. We need to find new ways to engage participants more
actively in design without unacceptably impacting upon their
usual activities.
Studies, such as Cederman-Haysom and Brereton’s study of
ubiquitous computing in a dentist surgery [8] highlighted the need
for compromises when actively involving users in PD processes.
In their study, they improvised, modified, and tailored their
methods to suit the schedule of “busy professionals” and achieve
a limited level of engagement. They describe how one of the
participants was late in his schedule and had to shorten the time
he could spare for the study, thus obliging researchers to
improvise and change their activities.
Through careful choice and tailoring of techniques, PD
practitioners seek to lower the engagement required from users
and/or increase users’ willingness to participate. Different
techniques for engaging users in the design process have been
developed over the years. Muller et al. [17] provide an overview
of such PD techniques, organized according to the “Position of
Activity in the Development Cycle or Iteration”, and “Who
Participates with Whom in What”, which relates to the
compromise between users reaching the designers’ world or the
designers reaching the users’ world. Examples of PD activities in
the early process stages include ethnography [11], which involves
designers in the users’ world for a long period of time, and many
design games [18], which allow designers and users to share
knowledge and experiences. Activities placed later in the design
process include prototyping [4]. Overall, gaining users’
participation is a difficult task. Design games and other playful
activities can help motivate participants and give them better
incentives for engaging in the design process [5, 18]. Seeing a
clear benefit to their involvement in the process also increases
users’ motivation. This is usually the case in designs for the
workplace where a system to be replaced is critiqued [3] or where
people have an innate curiosity about new technologies or design.
Typically, multiple techniques must be used together to achieve
adequate engagement alongside data collection, thus increasing
the user’s required commitment. Brandt et al.’s mobile queues
system for triggering online diary entry [6] provides a way to help
participants distribute the burden of participating in PD over
different times.
Technology probes are recent PD techniques developed for the
field of HCI. One of the strengths of that technique is that it
encourages triangulation [15] by providing data from different
points of view: design, sociology, psychology, engineering, and so
forth. Over the past few years, several projects have used the
technology probe methodology to involve users in the design
process. The interLiving project [2] created TP to conduct
participatory design with multi-generational, multi-households
families. Langdale et al. [13] have studied domestic
communications, and used a technology probe to elicit users’
responses to design ideas. Markopoulos et al. [16] have provoked
inspirational responses to the introduction of mirrors and video
recording devices in public spaces. These responses were then
collated to inspire design ideas and suggest further investigation
of particular aspects such as social aspects of mirrors and public
versus private spaces in using video and mirrors. Earlier studies at
Xerox PARC have also explored the design of Media Spaces in
public spaces such as coffee rooms of research labs [9], exploring
issues of privacy and acceptance.
3. THE ZEBRA PROBE
The aim of this study was to design an observation tool, which
empowered users to review and react to data. To help us design
such a tool, we decided to use a technology probe (TP) [2], which
is defined as “a robust, simple device that stimulates and captures
interaction between a system and its users”. TPs were created for
the interLiving project [2] as a method to explore a design space
by:
•
•
•
raising users’ interest and curiosity and stimulate their
imagination and creativity, thus supporting the design
process,
capturing users’ interaction with the system along with its
physical, narrative and interaction context, thus addressing
the human studies need for real, ecologically valid,
contextual data, and
allowing the setup, test and evaluation of a technology in
“real” settings.
The Zebra probe was created to help us explore the design of this
video observation tool. The tool aims to provide participants with
the opportunity to review and comment on video observations
while they are being made, without being too disruptive to their
existing workflow. The use of a technology probe for exploring
the tool’s design space allows us to better understand the different
aspects of the tool that would influence data capture, data review
and analysis, and participants’ experience (especially regarding
empowerment and engagement).
3.1 Description
The Zebra probe includes an autonomous video capture device,
thus allowing the researchers conducting the observational study
to be absent or focused on other tasks in the field. It automatically
captures images from a camera when motion is detected and
organizes and presents the video clips back to participants for
feedback. Direct feedback of the Zebra probe’s state is fed to an
external display (Figure 1). No sound is recorded in order to
reduce privacy issues. While audio would definitely be useful for
us as researchers, we felt that people would refuse to have their
conversations automatically recorded. To further reinforce
privacy, we fitted a button to the side of the feedback screen so
participants could disable recording at any time. When triggered,
the clip being currently recorded is deleted and the Zebra probe
waits for five minutes before starting to record again. We also
provide feedback on the screen to indicate when recording is
disabled (Figure 1c).
Automated video capture allows the natural segmentation of video
as it is being recorded. It reduces the amount of video collected by
automatically discarding moments with no motion, thus
facilitating subsequent video analysis. The drawback of using
automated video recording is that the viewpoint of the camera is
fixed and cannot be directed to record specific events or scenes as
a cameraman would do. However, the advantage is that it can
systematically record data without requiring anyone to operate the
device and can therefore work independently while the researcher
is away. The fixed viewpoint can be advantageous in another way:
we can detect repetitions and patterns that recur within the scope
of the camera’s view and we can also generate quantitative data
such as who occupies that space at which time. The Zebra Probe
can be deployed before and after fieldwork, allowing capture of
data over longer periods of time, with only minor disruption for
participants.
a)
b)
aimed to refine our design concepts, capture users reactions, and
detect potential issues and improvements to serve as a basis for
the observational tool’s design. Our interest is twofold:
understand how such a tool can assist us during PD fieldwork;
and understand how technology probes can assist us in designing
the tool. We expect this study to give us first insights into
participants’ responses to the introduction of such tool. We also
expect participating researchers to build upon their experience of
the Zebra probe to engage in the design of the tool itself, as
researchers conducting similar fieldwork in their own work.
The tool in this context was studied as a method for observing the
informal interaction in shared spaces between collocated
coworkers. This study was to inform and inspire design solutions
to support informal interaction in distributed environments. Points
of interests included patterns of use of the space, collaboration
taking place in the space, key artifacts and habits, and design
opportunities.
a)
b)
c)
Figure 1. Feedback display: non-recording (a), recording (b),
and disabled (c)
The Zebra probe uses a web interface to organize and present the
video clips, enabling both users and researchers add meta-data
describing the clips (Figure 2). It also provides users with a way
to review filter and sort the data (Figure 2b). Feedback can
include comments to the researchers (not disclosed to other
participants), discussions in a forum (shared with the rest of the
participants) and linking “tags” to video clips to sort and retrieve
them. These features provide two advantages: first, participants
are given the opportunity to add subjectivity, nuances, and
missing context to the raw data; second, the comments,
discussions and tags are a first step towards categorizing and
analyzing the data, by which researchers benefit from the users’
vocabulary and opinions to build their own coding and analysis.
In order to better understand the qualities and issues associated
with the introduction of the Zebra Probe in an environment and its
role in a design project, we conducted a study in our lab. We
c)
Figure 2. Web site overview with a) overview of the video clips
of the week, b) details of a video with comment, discussion and
tag tabs, c) the tag cloud from the study
3.2 Method
The Zebra probe study lasted for a period of about one month. It
included four workshops spread across this period as well as five
semi-structured interviews toward the end of the study. The study
started with an introductory workshop, which explained to the
researchers the nature of our work and the functioning of the
device prior to its deployment. The Zebra probe was then
deployed to study the informal collaboration taking place in the
informal space of our lab, namely the kitchen/coffee room. The
feedback interface of the Zebra probe was also deployed on the
lab’s network. After a period of two weeks, a second workshop
was organized that captured participants’ feelings, concerns and
feedback about the Zebra probe as observees under the scrutiny of
the tool. The Zebra probe remained in the coffee room for a
period of three weeks, during which time some changes were
made to the feedback interface to resolve usability issues and
respond to some participants’ insights. During this period, the
discussion feature was enabled. A final workshop was organized
one week prior to the removal of the Zebra probe from the coffee
room, to get additional feedback and insights. This workshop was
followed by a set of short interviews with key participants to
gather more detailed feedback and gain their researchers’ view on
the Zebra probe. During these interviews, we asked participants to
imagine how they could transfer the device into their own
research contexts and methods.
3.3 Participants
Participants were selected from the researchers in our HCI lab.
Around 14 people were actively engaged in this study and
attended workshops and interviews. About 20 other people were
only peripherally engaged with the device and did not participate
in extra design activities. Participants were recruited in our lab
through email and informal chats. Their ages ranged from 23 to
45, with expertise in HCI ranging from Masters student to senior
researcher. Participants were sampled to include experienced
practitioners in the different disciplines of HCI; they included
researchers in interaction design, engineering, computer supported
cooperative work, human factors, participatory design,
anthropology and HCI research students.
Engaging with researchers as participants allowed us to benefit
from their expertise in their respective domains as well as get a
first insight into users’ reaction to the concept. We also
acknowledge that working with researcher participants influence
the qualitative data regarding their reactions toward the proposed
concept in a favorable.
Figure 3. Overview of Zebra's configuration and points of user
interaction
3.4 Apparatus
Figure 3 provides an overview of the Zebra probe’s architecture.
The capture side, labeled “Probe Machine” and the feedback side,
labeled “Web Server” run on an Apple Mac Mini using the Mac
OS X 10.4 operating system. The Probe Machine is fitted with an
Apple iSight camera to collect images. A custom-made program,
developed using the núcleo toolkit [19] and the openCV library
[1] provides motion detection and video clip recordings of the
images captured by the camera. A standard 17” LCD screen serves
to display the Probe Machine’s feedback: what the camera is
capturing and a feedback showing whether the system is recording
images (Figure 1b) or not (Figure 1a). A physical touch-sensitive
button is connected to the computer and interfaced to the software
using Phidgets [10]. It provides a privacy-enforcing feature that
disables recording for a period of five minutes. Feedback that
recording has been disabled and the remaining time before it
restarts is provided on the screen (Figure 1c). The Mac Mini uses
a Web Server using PHP and MySQL to organize the video clips
chronologically on a webpage accessible to participants where
they can review and comment on the clips (Figure 3). The website
was available to participants throughout the study, with some
additional functionalities changed or released during its course.
3.5 Procedure
Zebra was deployed in the coffee room of our lab, where people
engage in coffee chats, lunch get-togethers and, on occasion,
meetings (for example, between Ph.D. students and their
advisors). The camera was directed towards the door to capture
people going in and out while also capturing activities around the
table and beside the sink. The deployment lasted one month,
during which minor changes were made to the Zebra probe,
mostly with respect to camera position and the usability of the
feedback website. The coffee room is particularly suitable because
as a public space, it is shared amongst the whole group and visited
regularly by most of the lab members. Moreover, people usually
leave their work to go to the coffee room, leaving them potentially
more available to examine and interact with the Zebra probe.
A pilot in a seldom-used room preceded the deployment, enabling
some participants to preview the Zebra probe and test the system.
We announced the deployment via email, three weeks before
starting the study, to prepare participants and address potential
initial concerns. We also sent email when the Zebra Probe was
activated, including additional details about the study. Prior to the
deployment, we gathered ethical review and informed consent
from both lab managers and participants. Signs were also posted
in the coffee room to inform passers-by and visitors about the
experiment. Additional information sheets and informed consent
forms were made available outside and within the coffee room.
In the initial workshop and emails, we asked participants to
engage with Zebra when they wanted. We encouraged them to
give feedback as they reviewed the posted data. The feedback
interface was available at all times, using computers within the
local network. We organized a second workshop two weeks into
the study to engage participants in consultation over the project
direction and gain feedback and participants’ perceptions about
the Zebra probe. This enabled us to reiterate the aims of the study
and to discuss any concerns and questions the participants had
about the study (on both a deployment and an interaction level).
After the workshop, we enabled discussions on the feedback
website and revised how participants interacted with the Zebra
probe based on the workshop discussion. New features were
implemented, including a tag cloud and the ability to search and
view videos based on tags to enable faster tagging and discussion
(Figure 2b). The final workshop held at the end of the study gave
participants a preview of the results and included a discussion of
the methodology with the participants as co-designers of the tool.
Participants’ schedules strongly influenced participation in
workshops and interviews. Typically, between 8 and 12
participants collaborated during workshop sessions and 8 key
participants were interviewed towards the end of the study.
Interviews lasted between 30 and 90 minutes.
4. RESULTS
gathering feedback on the presented tool, considering our HCI
researchers as participants in an observational study using the
tool.
4.2 Reactions to the Zebra probe’s
introduction
P1:
P2:
P2:
P3:
P4:
P5:
Nice throw over the shoulder :)
I like the non-distracted waiting for coffee time. It
lets my ideas percolate.
(that last comment on ideas was me)
can someone tell me what the squares of different shades
or red a blue mean? i have been wondering for somet time…
I think you look bored, we should introduce distractions
so that people can do stuff while waiting for the coffee
machine to heat up or produce the magic juice.
As the room is now, no wonder John looks like he can’t
wait to get out of there. The kitchen feels a bit like a
sterile surgery, maybe a flowery tablecloth would do the
trick ;-)
Figure 4. Example of video discussions and associated video’s
keyframes.
4.1 Probe data
Over the course of the study, participants entered 13 comments,
11 posts in discussions, and 27 tags. Tags were posted by
participants only on the 27th and 39th days, dates of workshops.
We, as investigators, posted 5 comments, 36 discussions, and 140
tags. A further 2 comments, 3 discussions and 477 tags were
unidentified (Investigators’ estimated being responsible for about
75% of the unidentified tagging). 51 unique tags were identified
in total. The most used tags were the names of the lab members
visiting the coffee room regularly that we entered to help us
analyze the occupants of the coffee room and helped the
participants review the videos concerning themselves. 351 unique
videos were tagged, representing about 10% of the overall
collection. Participants’ tags included descriptions of the events
such as “walking past”, “coffee”, and “waiting”. Figure 4 gives an
example of participants’ posts on one of the videos.
Figure 5. Volume of video captured each day
3677 video clips were recorded for a total length of 49 hours
(almost 130 times less than a 24/7 recording). 2149 of the clips
were hidden because they were irrelevant to the study, e.g., caused
by a light flicker. This left 29 hours of video in 1528 clips (Figure
5). We estimate we reviewed around 95% of videos using the fast
browsing function described later. Participants used tags more
than other parts of the feedback interface. Workshops allowed
Participants in this study were occasionally asked to react as
researchers from the Zebra’s perspective, but were primarily
observed by it. They therefore provided interesting insights on
reactions of participants to the introduction of a video recording
device in a space. One user suggested that we should remove the
screen with the always-on feedback as it was thought to be too
intrusive, or “in your face”. In talks with participants, we realized
that one sub-group had decided not to use the coffee room
anymore to avoid being recorded. Further investigation led to the
understanding that the recording per se was not the main cause,
but the fact that they were always reminded of the video capture
made them too self conscious about their actions. The review of
the videos allowed us to observe their gradual desertion of the
coffee room. However, after the second workshop where we
addressed some of their questions on the finality of the study, this
sub-group returned to the room, though never as extensively as
before the study. This suggests that removing the always-on
screen feedback would probably lower the impact of the tool on
the environment, and prove to be less intrusive as a result.
Participants used the feedback side of the Zebra probe
moderately. Most discussions concerned funny clips and some key
aspects of a day, a particular meeting that had occurred in the
coffee room or a lunch. After the second workshop, we modified
the capture side feedback display to include a thumbnail of what
was being recorded as well as the webpage of the feedback side,
thus allowing participants to provide feedback on the site.
However, overall the effort for sending feedback proved to be
high and only a limited number of contributions were made.
4.3 Analyzing collected data
Towards the end of the study, discussions with participants led to
suggestions and critiques of the data review and analysis. The
current web-based implementation of the system inspired many
responses. The tagging capability was suggested as a way to sort
the videos into categories and support qualitative analysis. As
participants themselves created the tags, they could provide
categories and a vocabulary that can be re-used by the designers
in discussions with users or to “code” the data. The analysis of the
tags generated by the participants themselves could reveal
interesting insights into their perception of their environment.
Participants also suggested that they would like to easily retrieve
every video in which they appear to help them comment on their
actions. As a result, study researchers started to review data from
the server regularly during the day in order to tag them with the
names of the people appearing on them. At the same time, we
implemented the tag cloud feature (Figure 2c). Viewing the tag
cloud allowed us to observe which users were using the coffee
room more often as by doing so their name would be tagged more
often and therefore appear larger in the cloud.
While reviewing videos, we observed that most participants
glanced at the clips instead of playing them. They would hold the
video marker and slide it to view an accelerated version of the
video, efficient to recall memories and most interactions taking
place. This fast browsing of videos was later suggested in the form
of selected key frames allowing participants and researchers to
highlight important moments in a video for later discussion, but
also to create a summary of the video.
For further data analysis, participants suggested implementing an
interface to compare interaction over different days. Using tags as
filters, we could compare lunch times, types of informal
interactions, etc. to observe and analyze temporal patterns. Key
moments of an interaction sequence could be displayed as stills to
provide a contextual overview for those not wishing to review all
the video footage.
4.4 Workshop and Interview outcomes
Using the interviews and the workshops, the study led participants
to discuss different approaches to the observation tool tailored for
different research and design audiences. We also made a
distinction between researchers’ perception of the tool as
observational study participants and their critique and review of
the concepts Zebra incorporates as experts in HCI. We
highlighted these points of distinction between roles played by
participants during workshops and interview sessions by focusing
questions on either aspect subsequently.
In interviews and workshops, participating researchers provided
comments on how the data could be used, other deployment
contexts, and aims for potential extension of the tool’s
capabilities. The following alternatives summarize the
researchers’ re-interpretations of the tool according to their
domain of expertise. The two most interesting alternatives are
presented here: a participatory design alternative, and a human
study alternative.
4.4.1 Participatory Design Alternative
The low level of engagement with the feedback interface
motivated us to investigate how the tool could be designed to
encourage, motivate or provoke more engagement. Participants
suggested two variations of the Zebra probe focused on enhancing
the engagement of participants through maximizing exposure,
stimulation and motivation. The first suggestion was to create an
observation tool to engage people with it and confront them with
the previously recorded videos. Instead of providing systematic
recording and feedback, the device would randomly switch
between two modes when motion is detected: playback of
previously recorded video, upon which room occupants are then
given the opportunity to comment; and recording (as described
previously). This system could still provide the systematic
recording ability of the Zebra probe, and would significantly
increase the provocation of participants and their access to the
recorded data. This technique effectively addresses the issue of
exposure (how you get exposed to the collected data so that you
can comment on it).
The second suggestion was to design a tool that maximizes
exposure of participants to the collected material and lower the
threshold necessary to take part in the data analysis. In this
alternative, the feedback screen would be removed and replaced
by printed keyframes from the videos that have been tagged by
researchers and organized, then pinned on the wall of the coffee
room. Participants would be free to write additional tags and
comments on the prints and review particular videos by scanning
a tag printed with the keyframe to identify. The corresponding
video would then be played on the screen. Eventually, people
rearrange the printed keyframes any way they feel appropriate.
The resulting organization would be recorded every evening for
record keeping and other videos are arranged on the wall. This
technique is strongly related to the video card game [7], a
technique for analyzing video in collaboration with participants in
a study which uses raw clips of video from the design setting to
identify interaction themes.
4.4.2 Human studies alternative: Augmented diaries
Participants also suggested the use of the tool to conduct diary
studies. Instead of pen and paper diaries, video would be
automatically recorded by the device and serve as a prompt for the
researchers to inquire about the details of a particular interaction
It could also be a powerful medium to help users recall a specific
instant. However, diaries involve the user making the entries and
choosing what to report instead of relying on systematic data
collection, making them susceptible to omissions and other
misreporting of events. During our interviews, an alternative was
suggested in the form of a bookmark button, which would allow
users to create diary entries in the recording. These entries would
take the form of a marker to particular moments of the video.
Researchers or participants would then review the clips for further
discussions on particular scenes. Researchers would still have
access to the full body of collected data, but could prompt users
based on their own markers as well.
One suggested benefit would be the ability to run the study
remotely, reviewing data and prompting users automatically.
Bookmark entries would also be easier for the participants to
make, and because the context of the marker would be recorded as
a video, it would be rich in details to support remembering. This
technique would also empower users, giving them the ability to
highlight moments in their day that they consider important.
This alternative echoes previous work in the use of videos for
research and fieldwork, such as Mackay’s EVA [14] system, that
allowed the use of meta-data to search, sort and explore video.
However the proposed approach allows users to be actively
involved in the collection of meta-data, making the process more
oriented towards a PD approach. Brandt et al.’s work [6] also
provides similar approaches where participants in a diary study
use short messages or pictures while mobile to complete the
entries online when the are at home and more available.
4.5 Informal interaction and social networks
An informal analysis of videos showed many aspects of the space
that could trigger ideas for designs. It provided both inspiration
and information on how to use the space to enhance remote
collaboration. For example, people waiting for the coffee to brew
often look for something to occupy themselves, such as reading
old newspapers. Once Zebra was installed, we observed that
sometimes occupants of the coffee room would go to considerable
effort to create a funny video for the people watching it. This
could inspire the creation of non-work related links between
collaborators to occupy themselves and encourage interaction.
On preliminary analysis of the data, patterns of social networks
began to emerge. For example, many participants would take a
coffee at regular times of the day, and sometimes coordinate their
coffee breaks while some other times meeting in the coffee room
by accident. Often, participants willing to discuss while in his
coffee break would leave the otherwise locked door of the room
open to facilitate informal interaction (Figure 6).
The use of tags as markers of participants’ involvement in video
files enabled an overview, which not only aided the participants in
annotating their own experiences, but also revealed a rich
relationship of groupings of people to activities in context. This
activity while revealing people’s daily routines in the space also
gave the participants insights into each other’s activities,
interactions and engagements. This situated social network was
raised in the workshops as an insight into colleagues’ activities
and had helped people adapt their own activities in response to
their colleagues’ routines. Revealing this previously hidden data
had given participants new insights and opportunities to interact
with their colleagues.
Figure 6. Captured informal interaction in the coffee room:
lunch between staff and students
5. DISCUSSION
5.1 Engaging users in fieldwork
“I have been on [the website]. […] Usually to read the comments
that other people make. They’re quite funny sometimes.” (Zebra
study participant)
Despite our assumption that researchers would be more prone to
accept and interact with the probe, the limited number of
contributions through the feedback interface raises strong
concerns about engaging users in fieldwork observations with
such tools. In our study, we identified provocation as a strong
motivator for participants. We encouraged discussion and use of
the interface by making funny videos, which would introduce the
system to participants and allow them to get familiar with the
system. Through challenging or entertaining aspects of the Zebra
probe, we were able to temporarily elicit participants’ reaction to
its deployment. These reactions served to fine tune the available
interaction with the device and raise issues of navigation in the
provided web interface. Provocation seems to be a particularly
suitable motivator when engaging users in fieldwork and PD in
general. However, the nature of provocation raises issues of data
validity and usefulness. An example of suitable provocation for
engaging user is given in the participatory design alternative
described earlier. By feeding the video data back to the observees
while they are available to interact with it, a system could prompt
users to react on it and record reactions.
The low level of engagement of users with the feedback interface
reveals that more could be done to ensure the capture of data, as
suggested both in the participatory design and augmented diary
alternatives given above. The mechanism of entering feedback
should also be improved and tailored to ensure ease of use and
input. Brandt et al. [6] provide one possible alternative for
facilitating users implication in observations. The use of different
medium and feedback types could also be investigated. The use of
different input points (dedicated website, on-site audio or video
commenting, …) can support the participants when they wish to
provide feedback on the available data. For example, a console
could be provided just next to the capture device for the user to
easily enter comments and tags, or possibly just mark this video as
“of interest”.
5.2 Engaging users in design exercises
The nature of the participatory design process around the study
deployment enabled participants to engage in a manner that was
less intrusive to daily activities and routines. The background
deployment of Zebra in a commonly-used public environment let
participants become familiar with the presence of the device,
interface and main system features. The extended period of the
study deployment let participants engage in their own time,
choosing when and how they wished to be involved with collating
and analyzing data.
The gradual deployment of the Zebra features over time helped
renew interest in the tool, while gradually building participants’
knowledge of the possible interactions and increasing the level of
control they had over reflection of the captured moments. The
formal sessions of researcher-participant engagement and
feedback were short, considering the one-month deployment of
Zebra. The three hours cumulated reflection on the device (during
interviews or workshops), its usage and use outside of the
deployed context, required a minimal investment from
participants while efficiently maximizing the feedback and
dialogue to ensure participants felt both informed and engaged in
the process. By using this process, most of the shared
understanding about the design was built over time through
participants’ exposure to the Zebra probe and opportunistic
discussions as well as the formal workshops.
Our belief is that using a technology probe as at the beginning of
a design process allowed participants to fully engage in it without
requiring lengthy introduction. By experimenting with the probe,
they are challenged in their way of thinking and are given the
opportunity to begin an informed reflection about the design
space in which we are designing.
Conversely when the focus of the technology probe is narrow, the
researcher would benefit from ensuring that what it gathers is data
directly analyzable. Clearly, a compromise needs to be found
between the “inspiring” and the “informing” aspects of the
technology probe prior to its deployment.
6. CONCLUSION
This paper has described a study that used a technology probe we
called Zebra as the centerpiece of a participatory design for an
observational tool for fieldwork. The study took place in a
common space of an HCI research lab, whose researcherparticipants were both participants in a study using the tool, and
collaborators in the design of the tool. During the study,
participants became active collators of contextual data on
recorded video clips, ranging from adding single comments and
tags to leading discussions. Researchers drew upon personal
experiences with the Zebra probe and explored their familiarity
from a research perspective to inform the design critique.
Engagement during workshops enabled a continuous flow of data
to be collated on both the material captured in the study of
informal interaction and the discussion of the study and
technology probe deployment. This was made possible without
extra burden on participants through timed workshops and subtle
encouragement to interact with the system (as well as personal
motivation and investment).
The results of the study are presented as alternatives to the
proposed naïve approach of the observation tool, grounded in
both the interviews with the participants and their recorded
experience as raw video and as tags and discussion through the
web interface. Moreover, the study illustrated how a technology
probe was used to ease the cost of engagement for busy
participants in the design of the tool. It illustrated the potential of
using the tool in fieldwork. It also highlighted the critical need to
find ways of engaging users to provide feedback using
motivations and provocations. Future work will allow the
refinement of the tool to converge on a suitable design. Such work
will certainly involve a prototype being used in a study with
different users.
7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to the staff and students of the IDRD lab for their
participation in this study. Thanks also to Lesley Jolly for
providing insightful comments on this work. Many thanks to the
in|situ| team members who provided feedback on successive
version of this paper, in particular the Dr. Wendy Mackay.
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