"Live like I do" - a field experience using Cultural Probes

Abstract

This paper describes a teaching and learning journey the authors shared as part of an undergraduate course the aim of which was to look at Participatory Design (PD) methods [19, 20], including Cultural Probes [8, 9, 10, II, 12], and to apply these methods in a real context. The authors are the educator who designed the brief and oversaw the process and the five students whose work is used as a case study in this paper. The case study unfolded a series of reflections on the teaching and learning of Participatory Design methods and tools: the necessity of adopting participative teaching and learning methodologies that are consistent with PD; the value of enabling learning processes within everyday contexts; the importance of engaging learners in designing processes where they need to deal with real people rather then personae or pre-determined scenarios; the necessity to embed in the teaching and learning process reflective mechanisms; and the learning potential offered to both teacher and learner. The paper is divided into five sections. The first section introduces the topic, providing some of the pedagogical theory underpinning the PD experience. The second section overviews both the context and the brief for the case study, while the third describes the case study in depth. In the fourth section an analysis of the experience is provided, including key reflections from the perspectives of both educator and learners. The final section concludes the paper offering ideas for the future development of PD and CPs in teaching and learning contexts.