Probing the Pandemic: Participants as Ethnographers at Home

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Probing the Pandemic:

Participants as Ethnographers at Home

Barith Ball

Interaktionsdesign Bachelor

22.5HP Spring/2020

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Abstract

This thesis aimed to investigate ways to conduct participatory research practices that would gain knowledge of participants' relationships and experiences with/in their physical home environment by using a design probe. Through the probe, a new approach to participatory design research was formulated. This approach gives agency to participants through elements of auto-ethnography, thus shifting the traditional power structures that often exist between participants and designers. This new type of research could yield greater intimacy and mutuality between designers and their participants. Due to this, it has the potential to be meaningful when designing for the home environment, and therefore can be used for research and design within the Internet of Things.

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1 Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to thank Roii, my big brother, whose advice, support and wisdom has been priceless during the writing of this thesis (and sometimes, beyond it).

I would like to thank my fellow queers and radicals at S-Rummet - sharing a workspace with all of you has been a light during these dark times.

Thank you to Hagar for pushing me and keeping me company on Zoom. Thank you to all my other amazing friends: Asia, Moran, Maddie, Marie, Tali and Moriah.

Thank you to my fellow students at the IxD programme for the online help and amusement. And thank you to Lizette Reitsma, my supervisor, for not only being a source of knowledge and advice, but also encouragement. Thank you to those who participated one way or another in the project. And lastly, I am forever thankful and grateful for my lovely parents, who have always been supportive of me.

This thesis is dedicated to those of us who suffer from anxiety; we may struggle, yet we also persevere despite a society that values productivity over sensitivity.

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2 Foreword

One of my previous therapists once asked me to imagine my anxiety as a physical thing. She pointed to the seat next to me and said, “can you see it there? how does it look like?”. While I could not relate to the exercise nor simply see something random before my eyes, verbally describing how my anxiety feels like, as well as my reactions to it, is a daily experience. In fact, finding the accurate descriptions or metaphors for various mental moods and feelings has become almost an obsession. There is a sense of liberation in articulating a mental state and releasing your burdens unto the real physical world. In these instances, written or spoken words become a material with which I am able to create an embodiment of my panic or anxiety disorder. Yet in a way anxiety is already embodied; no matter the type of anxiety one suffers from or its associations, it almost always has physical manifestations, i.e. psychosomatics. These physical symptoms often become a source or a trigger for anxiety by their own right (i.e. panic disorder). And so anxiety is indeed embodied, but it is embodied in the individual who suffers from it, and therefore it disrupts one’s life and takes away their sense of control.

It is due to this explicitly somatic nature and experience of anxiety that I initially wanted to experiment with a more fitting digital sphere than screen-based interaction - tangible embodied interaction (TEI). This project originally aimed to realise and develop a TEI design opportunity within the theme of coping with situational anxiety by exploring possibilities to embody it. Situational anxiety refers to specific events (e.g. places, moments) that trigger anxiety - in contrast to anxiety that is continuous or ever-present. I wanted, together with other participants who suffer from anxiety disorders, to break down or map these events, e.g. when and where they occur, how they feel like, which coping strategies are used or anything else relating to the experience. The assembled knowledge could have then been translated to possibilities for interactions with an artefact, e.g. a deep breathing pattern may be complemented by a specific haptic feedback. Additionally, exploring material and materiality is important for a TEI artefact, and I therefore planned to also investigate how anxiety or living with anxiety feel like to people who suffer from it via a participatory design workshop. Exploring and playing with the borders between physical and mental feelings through a workshop could create a discussion that forms a basis for how an embodied anxiety interface could look like, e.g. size or shape.

However, the COVID-19 outbreak and the lockdown that followed it interrupted my plans for face-to-face interaction with participants. I could no longer conduct a participatory design workshop that revolves around materials and objects, nor have intimate discussions with participants. Yet I did find myself in a unique moment in time and wanted to take advantage of the global pandemic to create a project that is relevant for current events. I

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decided to focus on the challenge that the new reality created - designing for tangible interaction when it is not possible to physically experiment and interact with either participants nor objects, while still maintaining a participatory design approach. The project became a methodology exploration of how to conduct design research that is focused on material, materiality and tangibility, despite being distanced from participants. The specific context still revolves around mental wellbeing, since it is an inseparable part of dealing with the societal and personal implications of COVID-19.

3 Introduction

As the foreword implies, the starting point of this project was the outbreak of COVID-19. The global pandemic has affected academic research throughout the world, as researchers tried to cope with the inevitable changes to their work and lives. As a result, the new bodies of knowledge that were produced during the past few months are built more on personal experiences and streams of thoughts, rather than traditional research. For example, Interactions dedicated their entire July-August issue to the theme of designing during a pandemic (Taylor, Rosner & Wiberg, 2020). The main impact of COVID-19, however, is social distancing, which has caused researchers within the various fields of design - and beyond them - to be cut off from their participants and users. When Bill Gaver first created his cultural probes (Gaver, Dunne, Pacenti, 1999) it was also in order to compensate for geographical distances that stood between him, his fellow researchers and their participants. Taking inspiration from Gaver and his colleagues, and considering the circumstances of COVID-19, this project aims to focus on the personal physical experiences of people in their homes during lockdown, using a design probe and an exploratory participatory approach. The research question for this project is thus:

How can we use a tangible and material approach to participatory research practices in order to gain knowledge of participants' relationships and experiences with and in their physical home environment, when face-to-face possibilities are none, i.e. from a distance?

define these terms in the writing itself at the first point it’s encountered in each chapter.

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3.1 Research Structure

In order to attempt to answer the research question, I created a probe that is meant to actively trigger reflections in participants in regard to their mental and physical interactions in their lived spaces, i.e routines, habits, objects, various areas, materials and other people. The probe gave participants freedom in regard to materials and media, yet also instructed them about the overarching topic of the project. I participated in the probe activity parallel to participants. Using the probes, video talks were later conducted to facilitate an open discussion.

3.2 Thesis Structure

The literature review briefly presents notions revolving around the material lens in interaction design and HCI, with an emphasis on materiality in contrast to materials; then, a brief history and definitions of cultural probes are presented, followed by considerations for designing a probe; finally, sensory ethnography is explained, specifically via the works of Sarah Pink. The methods chapter describes the design of the probe, which was created according to the considerations formulated by Wallace et al. (2013), and the structure of the research and rationale behind it. The findings briefly describe relevant empirical data, as well as the two participants, i.e. who they are. Using Pink’s sensory ethnographic lens, as well as the general premise of the project, the analysis chapter discusses various themes relating to the materiality of the home. The first part of the discussion focuses on what was revealed in this project in relation to participation in design research, i.e. its characteristics and the way the probe facilitated it; the second part focuses on the implications of this research methods and methodology for the practice of interaction design and HCI, especially IoT.

3.3 Goals and Contribution

Taking into account the foreword, introduction and research question, the goals of this research are twofold:  

(1) to contribute to design research methodology pertaining to tangible and embodied interaction by investigating ways to conduct distanced research with participants, which succeeds in gaining insights related to materials, materiality and bodily experiences despite said distance.

(2) to attempt to create and investigate participatory research methodologies that enables meaningful participation and collaboration between designer-researchers and participants within the context of a global pandemic and social distancing

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4 Literature Review

4.1 Materiality and Material Approaches to Interaction

Design and HCI

Viewing the digital element as a design material like any other has become a well-established notion in fields of interaction design and human-computer interaction (HCI). As they continue to develop and become more intricate, materials move beyond clear distinctions such as physical or digital (Giaccardi & Karana, 2015). Accordingly, computers and screens are slowly growing beyond their concept as boxes, becoming a design material that works together with other physical materials. In that, a material lens allows designers to think more broadly about HCI, and its application can help explore the digital as a design material - both in relation to other materials and to people’s experiences with, through and of it (Wiberg et al., 2013). Drawing on ideas from material culture and philosophy of technology, Jung and Stolterman (2012) argued for a need to extend the HCI paradigm of computer-design-user to include the dimensions of artefact, form and materiality. They claimed that this could lead to design research that is more exploratory and critical in nature. They thus proposed a new approach - form-driven interaction design research - which focuses on “making forms through creative design intention and hands-on design exploration” (Jung & Stolterman, 2012, p. 651). This, they argued, can innovate the usually user and function centred HCI by taking on a more designerly approach “based on the understanding of material, meaning, and making of form” (p. 651).

Wiberg (2013) proposed a more methodological approach to conducting interaction design research through material lens. He incorporated material studies and methods that address wholeness and composition and materials, including the studies of texture and details, in a dynamic process. His model revolved around the notion that “crafting of ideas” is often achieved by “working back and forth”, i.e. from sketching of ideas to their manifestations and finally the “act of design” (p. 4). The model thus allows for a nonlinear, dynamic and iterative process that is a part of the overall research and consists of working back and forth “between details and wholeness, between materials and their appearance and texture” (p. 4).

Participating in a panel discussion during CHI 2012, it was Paul Dourish who claimed a distinction between materials and materiality. He emphasised the importance of the “forms of materiality at work” (Wiberg et al., 2013; p. 57), which include a range of material properties such as durability, malleability, density and more. In his

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eyes, the material is thus irrelevant; the importance lies in the materiality, i.e. the properties of the interaction. Giaccardi & Karana (2015) similarly think that the emphasis should not be on the physicality of artefacts, but on the properties of their materials, while also taking into account personal, societal and cultural associations. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty, their proposed framework is based on the idea that “neither people nor objects, but instead the mutual interaction between people and objects, gives rise to particular materials experiences” (p. 3). The implication of this is that the experience of material qualities is not a fixed thing, rather it is affected by, for example, one’s past experiences, the artefact’s material properties, social or cultural values and more. Their framework describes materials experience as a system that is composed of people, materials and practices, and the performances, encounters and collaborations between them.

4.2 Cultural Probes

Cultural probes, or design probes, is a method that was first developed by Gaver, Dunne and Pacenti (1999), which presented a new approach to both the way designers gain insights into users’ thoughts, feelings and lives, and how they perceive or view these insights. In the centre of their approach, which leaned more on traditions of the artist-designer than the common engineer-scientist, stand uncertainty, ambiguity, play and exploration (Gaver et al., 2004). As such, and unlike most methods within the field of design and technology, the purpose of the cultural probe is not to gain information or knowledges in order to be able to formulate a set of design requirements. “Probes are collections of evocative tasks meant to elicit inspirational responses from people—not comprehensive information about them, but fragmentary clues about their lives and thoughts.” (Gaver et al., 2004, p. 53). The outcome of these probes - what participant return or send back to the designer-researcher - is not meant to be analysed by way of summaries or categorisations; instead, it is “inspirational data” that demonstrates the various impressions of the people who created it, their concerns, hopes and lived experiences. The goal of this inspirational data is to be a source of imagination for designers, rather than used to define or solve problems. In that, conducting a probe project is in fact a designerly activity, which does not only include the designers’ professional skills, but also their subjective interpretation and insights (Mattelmäki, 2005).

A successful probe relies heavily on its ability to motivate participants to be active. Probes give user-participants tools to experiment, observe, reflect and even record their own experiences (Mattelmäki, T., 2005). As such, probes are designed objects, both curious and provoking curiosity (Wallace et al., 2013), and usually come in the

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form of a kit or a package that includes various materials and instructions that participants answer to, comment on or use to make something. The probe Gaver, Dunne and Pacenti’s (1999) created, for example, was an envelope that contained maps, postcards, a camera, a photo album and a media diary. Their research was part of an EU-funded project aiming to find ways of interaction to increase the presence of elderly in their own communities. Through the probe, they wanted to understand the local communities and unfamiliar groups in order to design for them, yet at the same time they did not want participants to only share thoughts and needs they are already aware of. Instead, the researchers wanted to create an open discussion to facilitate new and unexpected issues. For this reason, the probes were left with participants, accumulating “fragmentary data over time” (p. 22).

Gaver et al. believed that in order to extend the boundaries of the technologies around us, we must be speculative in our approach to design and research. By using cultural probes, one could “explore functions, experiences and cultural placements” (Gaver, Dunne, Pacenti, 1999, p. 25) outside of what is normative, thus opening a space for new understandings.

4.2.1 Considerations for Designing a Probe

In their 2013 paper, Wallace et al. look back on a variety of probe projects that they have conducted during a period of a decade, reflecting on them in order to attempt to formulate a sort of framework or things to consider when designing a probe. Their interpretation of probe characteristics is relevant for this project as it has a somewhat more material approach, or at least connotations. They note three aspects that one should consider regarding a design probe:

(1) Openness and boundedness; Wallace et al. see probes as “part-made objects awaiting closure” (p.4) and as such they offer participants both an openness - to explore and share whatever they would like - and a sense of boundedness to limit the myriad of possibilities exposed to participants, allowing them to feel that they can in fact complete the task and providing them with a safe space to be expressive in. This balance helps participants to feel more at ease, especially in relation to creativity, which tends to be an issue for non-designers.

(2) Materiality; much like a souvenir that reminds one of a past experience, a probe can be a conduit for associations, whether directly or more metaphorically. Materiality therefore refers to physical metaphors and to embodiments of the context of the probe, which can guide participants through the process by way of “reflection through

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objects” (p. 5). Additionally, it includes the material properties of the probe, as different properties have different affordances, and thus they can affect the structure of the reflection itself.

(3) Pace and challenge; the probe method has an inherent slowness to it. Probes “live” with participants for a period of time, inhabiting the same spaces as them. This allows participants to set their own pace in regard to the probe. Yet, it is also possible to create probes that enable both various and varying individual paces, which in turn affect participants’ perceived challenge. For example, a probe can include simple and more direct tasks that give the participant a breathing space; a probe can also be structured with segments that participants complete slowly over time. This also contributes to one’s feeling that the probe is completable.

4.3 Sensory Ethnography

“Ethnography is a process of creating and representing knowledge (about society, culture and individuals) that is based on ethnographers’ own experiences. It does not claim to produce an objective or truthful account of reality, but should aim to offer versions of ethnographers’ experiences of reality that are as loyal as possible to the context, negotiations, and intersubjectivities through which the knowledge was produced” (Pink, 2012, p. 124)

Many ethnographers or anthropology researchers have written about sensory ethnography (SE), yet this thesis focuses on the works of Sarah Pink, whose applications of SE within design practice, and especially the home, are relevant for the premise of this project. For Pink, to do sensory ethnography is to rethink ethnography in terms of the sense; it is a methodology that takes into account the sensory experiences and perception in the context of a project (Pink, 2011). The methods and tools used in SE are not necessarily different from those that are used in other ethnographic approaches, but the way in which the research approaches them is. Despite that, using innovative methods that are made to attune to the senses can be a part of a SE study.

in 2013, Pink and her colleagues published a study (Pink et al., 2013), in which they explored the application of SE within the context of energy consumption in the home in order to facilitate sustainable HCI. Approaching research for design through the SE lens, Pink argued, could enrich the practice of design research in two ways: (1) introducing a theoretical and methodological guidelines that would unveil the knowledge that ethnography can produce, by that showing its value for design, and (2) developing an analysis that focuses on the experiential, material and social aspects of the people and spaces the design is for.

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In the study, Pink followed the domestic life of families and how their energy consumption is influenced by their activities, habits, rituals and atmospheres in their homes. “To understand how and why people consume energy in their homes we ask how people live, move and know in these environments: what and how they experience, at this interface between mind, body and environment as they navigate, go through, participate in and contribute to the making of the place that is home” (Pink et al., 2013, p.5). The methods used in the study were built on collaboration and participant engagement. Participants collaborated with the researchers by retracing routes in their homes, and through that they discussed, reflected and re-enacted their daily activities as they move through and around the home. In their analysis, they focused on the processes in which the sensory aesthetic of the home is made and the circumstances that surround them, i.e. the material and human flows in the home, and the habits, routines, and practices that are a part of making a home. In relation to HCI, they specifically focused on “how media practices become interwoven with other everyday practices in the making of a sensory and affective aesthetic of a home” (p. 8). An example of this is the TV, which for one of the families in the study is connected with other sensory experiences, such as a bath on Saturday nights or getting into pyjamas and then to bed. In that example, as well as others, media are a part of the sensory environments, in which specific materialities, temperatures, social activities and temporalities intertwine with technologies to form “specific configurations of place” (p. 13). From this, Pink et al. can see that everyday uses of media are in fact a part of a process that requires additional resources in order to make whole the sensory aesthetic of the home environment, i.e. picking the right textures for the sofa or using hot water for a bath. These configurations, as Pink calls them, are a part of making a home or making atmospheres of a home. Pink claims, thus, that these atmospheres, created by a certain sensory aesthetic, emerge from processes of making, i.e. encounters between people, materials and other elements of the physical environments (Pink & Mackley, 2016). Moving is another way of experiencing the home. It refers to flows and movements of people, materials, technologies or otherwise. For example, light that is switched on and off as as a person moves between rooms in the night, or a mobile phone that a person always takes with them. Routines can also be understood as routes or flow of movements through the home, and thus another way for people, objects and environments to make atmospheres of home. These “routines of movement” (Pink & Mackley, 2016, p.11) are also the moment in which atmospheres are “known and experienced” (p. 11) simultaneously to their making. This connects to human perception and to the idea that knowing is a process that occurs in movement. Everyday routines and experiences are thus made of “embodied, tacit ways of knowing and sensing” (p. 11).

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5 Methods

One of the main problems faced in this project was my own bias. Although it is difficult to remain fully objective within one’s own research, this work stems solely from my own mental issues, namely my experiences with anxiety and panic. As such, objectivity is inherently more questionable. Despite that, I did not want to ignore or avoid that bias, both as it is the inspiration and drive behind the project and because it made me more empathic towards the two participants. Therefore, I decided to utilise my bias in the methodology itself. In order to do that, I created and participated in a design probe, which Gaver and colleagues explicitly state is an “openly subjective” (Gaver, Dunne & Pacenti, 1999, p. 25) approach, making it more relevant and appropriate for the subjective and exploratory nature of this project.

5.1 The Probe Kit: Postcards from Home

The probe kit, or probe folder, consisted of a PDF presentation, digital postcards with prompts and an empty version of the digital postcards. The PDF presented the purpose of the project, the instructions for the exercise and various examples on how they can follow these instructions, i.e. examples of “completed” postcards and how they could send or document them digitally. These examples presented the various media participants could use, e.g. draw postcards, take pictures, use physical objects and so on. The presentation ended with important points about how the assignments should or could be approached. Attached to the presentation were 28 postcards with

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prompts inside them (figure 1), provoking and inspiring participants to think about various themes, e.g. “staying so much at home is…” or “it would be nice if…”. These prompts were meant to be both triggers and examples, but participants did not have to specifically answer or react to them. Finally, there was a file with empty postcards that participants could use if they wanted.

5.1.1 Probe: Design Considerations

In order to design the probe, I considered Wallace et al. (2013) three characteristics or aspects one should pay attention to when designing a probe: (1) openness and boundedness, (2) materiality and (3) pace.

Openness and boundedness: much like The Self Tree probe conducted by Wallace et al. (2013), I decided to bound the openness of the design probe using the physical or spatial constraints of a postcard. A postcard usually has space for a short text, and in the case of my postcard design, it included space for a visual element (e.g. a photograph) and for a few words or a sentence. Even if participants decided to use a different postcard, e.g. a real physical one or a snapshot mobile application, these spatial constraints remained. Materiality: while the probe itself was sent digitally, it still held a common physical metaphor. The idea to make postcards represented the recording and sharing of memories and experiences, as well as the feeling one is far away or at a place different than that they are usually in. While during the lockdown we were at home, supposedly the place that is the closest and most familiar to us, the general atmosphere and experience was entirely out of the ordinary; in many ways, we were indeed far away, and the postcards were used to symbolise and even embrace that fact.

Pace and challenge: the instructions in the probe kit attempted to convey a pace that is non-specific and very individual. They encouraged participants to fill or make postcards according to how and when they see fit, and the assignment required no minimum number to be made. In order to alleviate participants’ apprehension of creativity or ingenuity, it was made clear that simplicity or complexity played no part in the assignment, and that the only important thing was that they feel comfortable reflecting and sharing their experiences.

5.2 Experiment Structure

Initially, four participants were recruited, yet two dropped out due to stress and low mental capacity. These participants were recruited on specific groups on Facebook, relating either to mental health, gender or feminism. The remaining participants, Katrine and Laura (pseudonyms), self-reported that they suffer from some form of anxiety, currently or in the past, and have dealt with other mental issues such as depression and insomnia. Official or professional diagnosis was not provided or discussed. Both participants

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signed a letter of consent regarding participation in the project, which is in line with the GDPR guidelines.

The participants had access to the probe kit via Google Drive, and had approximately two weeks (mid-late April 2020) during which they could send me the material they created. I did the same probe exercise parallel to participants and sent it to them at the deadline for the exercise. Approximately two weeks later, I conducted a video discussion (Zoom) with each participant; both lasted about 1.5 hours and were recorded.

The decision to do the probe assignment myself felt natural due to the strong “collective” feeling of our existence within the “new order” created by the pandemic. The main reason behind this decision, though, was the importance of attempting to tackle the fact that I could not meet participants face-to-face, which was the key cause of the project’s shift and reframing. Allowing myself to become a “pseudo-participant” and to share very sensitive parts from my daily life under lockdown (see figures 2 and 3), created a more intimate connection with the two participants, as discussed later in the thesis. This later allowed me to have a more mutual and equal discussion with participants, rather than a simple open-ended semi-structured interview.

5.3 Zoom Discussions

The Zoom discussions aimed to be a mutual and equal exchange of feelings, thoughts and experiences. As such, they were not constructed as an interview; rather, a guide was made. It included a small introduction of the purpose and motivations for this project, as well as myself, a section about their general experiences of the probe activity and finally a discussion about our experiences within the home, including objects, spaces, habits and rituals, mental states and more. As the conversation was in the form of a discussion, I also invited participants to ask me questions freely and to ponder aloud or stir the direction of the conversation. Additionally, I encouraged participants to move around relevant places in their homes or to show me examples of the physical things or elements that we spoke of.

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5.4 Findings and Analysis

The findings presented in the next chapter stem directly from the probe itself, and do not include the video discussions. They include empirical data to provide a context and a starting point. The analysis focuses on the inspirational data that rises from the experiences of participants, addressed both by the probe assignment and video discussions. The decision to situate the inspirational data in the analysis chapter is due to its subjective nature, which represents not only findings per se, but strong impressions and small interpretations that somehow stood out within the context created by the direction this research aims to take (and to some extent, the reality in light of COVID-19).

My approach to the analysis is influenced by Sarah Pink’s ideas and application of sensory ethnography. I focus on participants’ emotional and bodily relationships and interactions with and within the home environment, i.e. its objects, spaces, movements and atmospheres.

6 Findings

6.1 Participants

Katrine is originally from Slovakia. She is currently a student working on her master’s thesis. She lives with four other roommates and a toddler in a flat in Copenhagen. She has her own room in the flat, and the common areas are only a bathroom and a large kitchen. She’s working two jobs, in an office and a restaurant, but during lockdown she was not needed at the restaurant, and performed her office duties from home. Katrine defines herself as religious, and is very close with her family back in Slovakia. She has been suffering on and off from insomnia.

Laura is Danish. She lives in her Copenhagen flat by herself. She has been unemployed for more than a year after having a mental breakdown. This was triggered by her father’s illness and death, as well as stress. Since then, she has been recuperating, focusing on herself, her home and her social network. She found enjoyment in being home a lot, and used the COVID-19 reality to do various DIY and home improvement projects.

6.2 Empirical Data from the Probe

In total, 21 postcards were sent back: Katrine made 14 postcards, and Laura seven. I sent them back 15 postcards. Katrine used drawing/sketching techniques exclusively, while Laura mostly utilised photography (sometimes mixed with simple digital enhancements or edits). While both used the written word, for Laura it has mostly been a means to caption or headline

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photographs. Katrine, on the other hand, had much more written content. In most of her postcards this comes in the form of streams of thoughts or diary-like entries, but a few of the postcards also use words almost as a material, or as shapes that are a part of the sketch. Like Laura, I used photography almost exclusively. However, I used the space for caption on each postcard as means to express myself more often than the attached photographs, resulting in more abstract or poetic lines.

6.2.1 Themes

There are distinct differences between the two participants, which demonstrate not only their unique personalities - but also their lifestyle and life circumstances (see figure 4). Katrine is consumed by her work and thesis writing, and therefore the most prominent theme in her postcards is productivity, which also directly relates to other themes that appear in the postcards, such as sleep and feeling capable. Katrine’s probe revolves so much around this theme, that it is easy to follow the ups and downs in her mental state, which is tightly related to focus and productivity. Laura, on the other hand, is more focused on self-care within the home environment, and therefore has time to also notice objects around her and be reminded of life before lockdown. She often does this with a lot of humour and irony.

The only two themes that are common for both participants are perceptions of the objects around them and relationships with other people. But even these commonalities express themselves differently; the only time Laura mentions others is in relation to an embroidery that was probably made by a friend, while Katrine mentions more repeatedly and specifically her family,

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friends and therapist. Regarding objects or physical things, Katrine only mentions her bike as a positive experience that makes her feel better, while Laura’s probe is filled with various types of things in her house, some functional (sunglasses) and others almost imaginary (“dust bunnies”). Examining my own postcards, I find similarities with both Laura (objects, perception of the self) and Katrine (productivity, family).

7 Analysis

In this chapter I write about the inspirational data that came to light through the probe and subsequent video discussions In line with the cultural probe approach, the inspirational data is not an analysis of data per se, rather it is a subjective and “fragmentary” dissemination of participants’ experiences in their homes during lockdown. It focuses on the lived environment, i.e. space, objects, areas, movements, and the relationships these have with the life, experiences and mental health of the two participants. The inspirational data presented here is done in consideration of Pink’s sensory ethnography (2015) and her papers that specifically focus on ethnography in the home (Pink & Mackley, 2016; Pink et al., 2013).

7.1 Moving Through Memory Cues

Many of the physical objects presented by participants in the returned probes, and/or later in the video discussions, were memory cues or various reminders that are scattered in their home. Some of them reminded participants of “the before”, i.e the outside world and the life and its realities prior to COVID-19’s arrival. Some of these objects remind participants of the normalcy because they are directly related to the outside world, i.e. their function or experience usually occurs there, e.g. sunglasses or a bike. Other objects are reminders because of the way we experience them aside from their function, i.e. how they make us feel. For example, a dress with a cleavage is a thing one wears outside, but it is also something that can make them feel more attractive and confident, and by wearing it one is reminded of these feelings.

Other things in the home seem to hold memories that bring comfort, especially in relation to other people and the sudden switch into a lonelier lifestyle with less social relationships or with ones that are based on distant communication, such as texting, video and phone calls. To cope with these changes, or as reactions to them, Laura sought out these memory cues actively in order to alleviate the negative feelings of uncertainty and loneliness. For example, one of the postcards in her probe included a picture of an embroidery that says, “you BADASS you” (figure 5), captioning it as a

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reminder that she matters to people. During our Zoom talk, Laura talked more elaborately about the various things in her apartment that remind her of the people in her life: “I have many things in my apartment, remainders that people actually care about me…”. She even created “routines of movement” (Pink & Mackley, 2016) in her apartment by way of guided tours that were constructed from these memory cues: ”I gave myself a guided tour in my apartment - ‘here is Tanya, here is Mette - and they like me...finding remainders that I matter”. As a part of this routine, she switched the placements of these objects-remainders to make them more visible: “One of my favourite trinkets right now is a [gets up to show me] painting my friend and I did once when we were very very high on weed...I really love it. So, remainders all over the place, making them very visible to remind myself I’m not alone” (figure 6).

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Katrine stumbled across memories accidentally, while going over various boxes she had in her room. In one of them she found a blanket (figure 7) that she had brought with her when she moved to Denmark. Her parents had two of these blankets. “My dad told me it was his mother that bought them in the 60’s. He said that when she brought them, they were like ‘what is up with these colours?!’, but I think they are so great and timeless. So I started using it more. Before, I wanted to take care of it, you know, so it was in the box...It brings me home...We had it on the sofa and I have good memories of coming home from high-school and lying down for a bit, watching TV.”

7.2 Making Meaning, Making Sense; Making Things,

Making Space

Whether due to boredom or a heightened sense of observation caused by spending too much time in the same space, some physical objects seemed to gain new or different meanings. These things, perhaps initially useless, annoying or with negative connotations, have suddenly become cute, functional or relaxing. An example for one such thing is dust that gathers into small balls or blobs in flats, which Laura affectionately called “dust bunnies”, adding to the picture a caption that says “low-maintenance pets” (figure 8). During the Zoom talk she told me that she put the “most impressive” dust bunnies on display for a while, and even planned on dressing them up. There seems to be a lot of playfulness in Laura’s approach to coping with the situation, and this also reflects in the ways she makes and remakes her environment. “Having fun in this is the only way to keep sane”, she said, adding that she tries “to play even though I don’t have playmates”, right before showing me the four Lego figures that she made and represent different versions of herself.

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Laura also used the time at home to work on various DIY and home improvement projects. She admitted that although she also had the time to make changes or DIY projects for her flat before COVID-19, her mental state of fraught, and even self-loathing, externalised itself to her physical surroundings. But recently she realised that improving and working on herself does not only mean changing thought patterns; making changes in her physical environment - her home - is also a form of improving her mental health and relationship with herself. “I cut off the straps from a backpack with a hole in it and saw it on my laundry basket...aesthetically it is not beautiful, but it helps me out. Doing home improvements you can actually use - it really helps me, I figured out”. By making things and spaces, she is able to also make new meanings and perceptions of herself. Moreover, the home improvement projects that she has been doing reminded her of her father, which she had lost a year before, and allowed her to find something of him inside of her: “I feel like I have been doing this in a way my dad would have done. My dad was this weird inventor guy. He always invented a solution to a problem he had, instead of just buying a product...In a way, through that I have been keeping his spirit alive and claiming that in myself as well”.

Unlike Laura, Katrine seems to look at her room through more a spatial lens, noting various areas and not so much objects and their meanings. If Laura focused on making things, Katrine focused on making space. For example, she mentioned that she has a round carpet in her room that she did not pay much attention to normally (figure 9), yet since she had only her own room as a living space, during lockdown it had turned into a spot for relaxation, placed between her bed and desk. Despite being an object, for her it marked a specific area within the confines of her room; a space she made out of want or need. On that carpet she would sometimes put some pillows to make it more comfortable and write letters, read a book or sit and call somebody. Yet even in these instances, the objects she interacts with are only a part of a

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spatial arrangement, wherein the meaning resides not within each object but within the assemblage as a whole.

Katrine’s changes in the perception of the place she lives in, a shared apartment, goes beyond her own room. She mentioned that the corridor that connects all the rooms of the flat suddenly felt very long; there were instances in which she did not feel like going to the bathroom because the walk there seemed “like a journey”. She also mentioned that sometimes the prospect of meeting one of her roommates on this journey was not appealing.

Having only one room for herself, Katrine also had difficulty having no separation between the place she slept, worked, studied, relaxed and worked out in. While she did create a little “bubble” on her carpet, she described this experience as “always being in between” things and never being able to immerse herself fully in anything, which caused her stress and unease, and also lowered her productivity. The moment it was possible for her to go back to work at her physical office, she immediately did so.

Laura’s perception of her space changed for the better after she started to make her various little projects of home improvement. She felt more in touch with her home than before and became more observant of it and of how she really wants the place to be like. She found a sense of pride in having things she made around her and felt that she “started inhabiting the space more”. One could conclude that while Laura experiences her lived space through the objects inside it, Katrine experiences her lived space through the spatial arrangements or assemblages it is made of.

7.3 Bedtime

The moment at the end of the day when one gets into bed was mentioned by both Laura and Katrine. Katrine, who is religious, used this time to pray, which she felt was a way to connect to God but also a form of meditation. This gave her comfort, which helped her relax and fall asleep.

Laura was sometimes reminded of being touched as she was lying in bed and looking at the ceiling, as it reminded her of getting a massage from her body therapist. “I missed being touched so much that I actually...When I have to calm down for bed...I have a body massage therapist, and the lamp in her ceiling - I envision lying on the bed in her working space, having a massage.”

7.4 Temporality

Examining the returned probes, including my own, in relation to temporality reveals significant differences. Katrine’s postcards (figure 10) are diary-like; each postcard has a date on it and the content always reflects the happenings of a single day, as well as the feelings and thoughts that flooded Katrine on that day. Contributing to this is the fact that she made a postcard every day,

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creating a very organised and continuous chronology. Laura’s postcards behave almost like snapshots of her home and of being at home, without any seemingly temporal consideration, as if it is all one concoction. They also do not correlate to any temporal themes, such as time of day, routines or otherwise. My postcards were done partly post factum; most pictures were shot regardless of the postcards, as I was continuously searching for my emotions in the physical surroundings of my home. Yet the text, or captions, were written later, as I was assembling the postcards. And so, the finished probe was assembled in chronological order, but the process of making it included going back and forth in time, re-experiencing the lockdown at home.

7.5 Perceptions of the Probe Assignment

Both participants expressed very positive reactions towards the probe during our talk on Zoom. The probe seemed to have provided them with a way to both take a break from their life at home, and also reflect on it. Laura described it as a fun activity that provided an alternative to the boredom or repetition that she felt was abundant during that time. She expressed similar feelings even before the study had commenced; her interest in participating in the project was partly motivated by thoughts that it would be a nice and different thing to do when one is stuck at home. Katrine’s positive feelings related more to the thoughtfulness that the probe promoted inside her. She appreciated the opportunity to be more reflective, which she also seemed to be during our video discussion.

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By providing a break from the life at home, which under lockdown has become more limited and mundane, while also incorporating an air of uncertainty and loss of control - the design probe acted not just as a design intervention, but as a welcomed disruption.

8 Discussion

The discussion chapter starts with brief thoughts regarding the probe methodology as a form of disruption of the everyday life under lockdown. It then focuses on insights regarding participation and power relations between researchers and participants. Finally, it touches upon the possible implications and applications of this thesis within the fields of interaction design and HCI, namely the Internet of Things.

8.1 Disruption of the Mundane

The lockdown that followed the rapid spread of COVID-19 made our lives smaller, limiting us spatially and socially. These new constraints enhanced the mundanity of everyday life, making boredom and repetition more than just aspects of our daily routines. Similarly, the temporal perception metamorphosed into a similar shape as the uncertainty that engulfed it. In one of her essays as part of The Self-Reliance Project - a collection of daily essays documenting being “a maker during a pandemic” (Helfand, 2020a) - Jessica Helfand writes: “Time is shapeless. (Weekends are meaningless.) And quarantine means navigating days that end, presumably, just where they began” (Helfand, 2020b). Yet within this temporal blob, Helfand believes that are stories to be observed and found. “Observing is truth-telling”, she writes, adding that it “is not about passive consumption”, but “paying attention”.

The design probe turned out to be a conduit for observing. It managed to create a disruption of the mundane, while simultaneously encouraging participants to observe it anew. It provided them with a break from an uncertain reality, but it did so by provoking self-reflection and enabling them to make something. Through that process of reflecting and making, they did not simply do something that is out of the ordinary and thus appealing; alongside making the probe, they also made sense and meanings of all that is going on in and around them.

8.2 Design Probe and Participation

COVID-19 infected the very context of human existence, and similarly the context of this project too. One of the main impacts of the pandemic was the distance that it suddenly put between people and places, including myself and

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the two participants. Yet despite the extremity of the current situation, it is not unique; when Bill Gaver first formulated the cultural probes, it was also as a reaction to the constraints of geographical distance between his fellow researchers and participants (Gaver, Dunne & Pacenti, 1999). Through this project I am able to reflect and discuss matters of participation in relation to the probes. Firstly, I discuss the idea of power relations between researchers and participants inside the participatory process. Then, I talk about auto-ethnography as a way to give participants more agency in the design process.

8.2.1 Power Relations and Hierarchy

Power structures, or power relations, is a concept that participatory design puts an emphasis on, and its methods often aim to find ways to empower weak or marginalised groups (Bannon & Ehn, 2012). More than that, in its core is a commitment to designing futures that challenge various status quo and power relations, which often include exclusion and social injustice (Robertson & Wagner, 2012).

Throughout this project, it was repeatedly evident that while the virus put a physical distance between people, it also created a collective bubble that engulfed us all - participants researchers and others - in similar feelings, experiences and thoughts. These collective feelings influenced the power structure between myself, the researcher, and the two participants, Laura and Katrine. It flattened the hierarchy that usually exists between designer-researchers and participants, highlighting mutuality instead - just as their probes triggered me, mine triggered them.

Within this more mutual sphere of research, an unexpected intimacy was created despite the lack of face-to-face interaction, which I perceived as so important that my research shifted because I could not produce it. The deep collective experience, whether on a national or global level, created a scenario that we could all relate to, and within it new forms of equality, intimacy and openness could be developed, explored and used. As a result, I see a potential to develop a new approach to design research, which attempts to question and shift power structures between participants and designer-researchers, by emphasising a relationship that encourages not only mutual learning (Robertson & Simonsen, 2012), but also mutual vulnerability.

8.2.2 Participants as Ethnographers: Auto-Ethnography and Agency

Contributing to the shift in the power structure within the study was the agency given to participants in relation to the probe’s own making in terms of methods, media, materials and eventually form of documentation. Probes are usually physical packages that include a variety of materials or objects. These packages are chosen and assembled by the the designer-researcher, giving them more control over how participants can interact with the probe, and thus how and what and make out of it. In that lies a critique towards probes as a participatory method (Boehner et al., 2007).

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The probe presented in this research, however, is not a physical assembly of materials and objects chosen carefully by a designer; yet it is also not entirely a digital form of the probe as a method. The probe was encapsulated within a digital folder, which included prompts (postcards with incomplete statements), examples (completed or filled postcards, as well as empty ones) and instructions; yet the package did not include specific materials or objects with which participants must work with. Instead, the digital folder - the probe - emphasised elaborate explanations and instructions regarding the assignment, and to some extent - the project as a whole. This is unique, as design probes usually include little guidance or explanations (Sanders & Stappers, 2014). Additionally, the various examples that were included in the probe did not promote a specific physicality, material or medium. Instead, participants were instructed to use whatever is accessible to them and feels right for them. As a result, the two participants, as well as myself, used a variety of materials to make the probes, and thus different methods for documenting our lived experiences, creating a variety of types of ethnographic materials. Katrine created a diary: her postcards always had a date on them and she filled one a day, usually using many words and some sketching; Laura created a photo-journal: her postcards were in fact snapshots of her life at home, accompanied by few words; and I created a gallery of photographs and words that correspondence with one another through descriptions, metaphors, contrasts and poetry.

The decision to create a probe that promotes agency in relation to methods, materials and documentation turned the two participants into their own (auto)ethnographers. Auto-ethnography is a method and an approach to research that seeks to describe and analyse personal experience, utilising ethnography and autobiography in order to do so (Ellis et al., 2011). The method is thus “both process and product” (Ellis et al., 2011, p. 273). In this project, participants conducted their own research process as they did not only reflect (process) on their daily lives under lockdown, but also analysed and gave it form (product) by choosing media and materials for making documentation. Later, in the video discussions, this auto-ethnography took on a collaborative perspective (Roy & Uekusa, 2020), as we attempted to make sense of our documented realities together.

By becoming auto-ethnographers, participants did not only participate in the project, but also in the design of its research. This extension of participatory practices into stages of research or development that are traditionally reserved for designers and their colleagues, does not only contribute to a shift in power structures - it has the potential to disrupt paradigms altogether. I would argue, that this application of participatory practices is in its core a process of democratising research, and thus - design. In addition, this research demonstrates that there might be a hidden value of creating a probe that emphasises verbal instructions over designed objects and sets of specific materials, as it promotes more participatory practices.

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8.2.3 Implications on Interaction Design and Human-Computer

Interaction

One of the aspects of SE in the home that Pink focuses on are the movements that occur in it (Pink & Mackley, 2016; Pink et al., 2013), referring to various flows, such as the ritual of going to the bath, putting on pyjamas, getting into bed and watching TV. In my research, this is evident in the way participants arranged their spaces in order to cope with COVID-19’s stay-at-home routine. For Laura this meant creating a “guided tour” around objects that remind her of friends; for Katrine it meant changing the flow of movements in her room by creating an oasis of relaxation (her oval carpet). These examples demonstrate the relationship we have with the objects around us and their spatial arrangements, especially in relation to memory cues (van Gennip et al., 2015) and making atmospheres (Pink & Mackley, 2016). But, taking Dourish’s (Wiberg et al., 2013) and Giaccardi and Karana’s (2015) definitions of materiality as a point of reference, I would like to suggest a perspective that reinterprets Pink’s notions of movement and flows as aspects of the materiality of the home. More accurately, I would like to suggest viewing the home - the lived space - as an example of materiality in itself.

The home continuously shifts, as we make and remake spaces, routines, aesthetics and eventually atmosphere. In that, the home is malleable at its core; other material properties which together form the materiality, e.g. density, may change from one home to another, as well as over time. Viewing the home as a materiality has the potential to benefit research within HCI and interaction design, especially in light of Giaccardi & Karana (2015) framework for materials experience. It could allow us to explore the lived space as a system that emphasises the interconnectedness between people and their physical home environment, i.e. the interactions and encounter between them. Yet here are many perspectives and methodologies that view the home as a system of one kind or another, for example Pink’s SE, and thus it seems that it is not the material lens that matters as much as our approach to conducting the research itself.

The growing pervasiveness of technology within the domestic environment requires us to innovate in regard to research. This is especially so in light of developments within embodied/embedded tangible interaction and IoT, fields whose relationships with their users are arguably more personal or intimate. The next paragraph discusses briefly the IoT, which is through this research is uncovered as more relevant that issues of materiality for the interaction designer.

The Internet of Things (IoT), with its core aim of improving human life and well-being, has become more embedded in our daily lives in the past decade or so (Bastos, Shackleton & El-Moussa, 2018). An example that has gained popularity in recent years are voice-controlled assistants like Amazon Echo

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(Alexa) or Google Home (Lopatovska et al., 2019). These voice assistants are both a software and a physical hub in the home that people use for various tasks. In fact, many of our encounters with these networked “things” appear in the domestic environment - the home. As these products become more pervasive within these spaces that are inherently more intimate and sensitive, there is a need to rethink, or at least question, current methodologies within interaction design and human-computer interaction (HCI), which are still relatively focused on analytic approaches to investigate user needs and functional qualities, as well as efficiency (Jung & Stolterman, 2012).

The home, which has a main role in this project, is arguably the most private place for most people. As one could see through this research, our mental states, memories, aesthetics and routines are all present in that environment. The home is therefore a place of intimacy, and in order to design for its technologies or interactions, we must find ways to understand it in a way that does not only accommodate that intimacy, but encourages and gives it a place. This study demonstrated that it is possible to make room for intimacy, but it requires of the designer-researcher to open up in ways that are untraditional.

Based on this study, I propose a different approach to design research within interaction design and HCI. The new approach is based on participatory practices, but unlike participatory design - which maintains the hierarchy between the designer-researcher and the stakeholders or participants - it aspires to achieve a flatter power structure. It does this by allowing participants the agency to influence parts of the design of the research, and not only the content of research itself. In the case of this project, this was done by creating a design probe that did not include specific materials or objects, but rather instructions and examples. This allowed participants to choose their own methods and materials for documenting their daily lives, and by that they became auto-ethnographers. This later made it possible for the two participants and myself, the researcher-designer, to collaboratively discuss the issues triggered by each other’s probes from a more equal and mutual place.

9 Conclusion

Inspired by the reality of COVID-19, this thesis aimed (1) to contribute to design research within tangible and embodied interaction by investigating ways to conduct distanced research with participants, which succeeds in gaining insights related to materials/materiality and bodily experiences; and (2) to attempt to create and investigate participatory research methodologies that enable meaningful participation and collaboration between

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designer-researchers and participants within the context of a global pandemic and stay-at-home routine.

These two goals were addressed and investigated using a design probe and a participatory and collaborative research structure that aimed to create closeness and intimacy between participants and myself, the designer-researcher, in a reality that does not allow for face-to-face meetings. The uniqueness of the probe lied in the fact that it was built using verbal instructions and communication and did not include designed objects and sets of specific materials that are meant to be used by participants. This allowed participants to choose their own methods and materials for the documentations of their everyday life under lockdown, thus making them their own ethnographers. This research structure goes beyond what traditional participatory design aims to achieve, as it does not simply consider power relations - it disrupts them. The hierarchy between the designer-researcher and participants becomes more flat, and therefore more equal and mutual. This has the potential to create an approach for research that revolves around vulnerability and and collaboration, and through that relationship, a new type of knowledge production may arise.

Despite the initial focus on material and materiality, the real relevance of this project for the field of interaction design and HCI was revealed to be in relation to IoT and designing for interactions in the home. A research approach that promotes vulnerability in both participants and researchers, and thus generate intimacy and trust, can be of great relevance to investigations related to designing for the home, our most intimate and private place.

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Probing the Pandemic: Participants as Ethnographers at Home