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Designers are facing new kinds of design tasks beyond their traditional expertise that call for tools and practices to facilitate design collaboration. This article focuses on the relations between probing and issues of collaboration and participation. It first introduces the probes approach and then describes how it has been applied to support collaboration and participation in case studies which have been conducted in the context of design research and company collaboration in Finland. The article also discusses the role of probing in enhancing collaboration. It proposes that the probes approach can have roles in supporting an iterative co-exploring of the design space, as well as in facilitating collaboration with various stakeholders in co-design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we describe a design study on how families in Los Angeles experience nature, with a particular focus on how using alternative formats for research analysis and presentation can enrich a design research inquiry. Conducted in Pasadena, CA as a part of Super Studio, the year-long design research class emphasized knowledge building and sharing through design methods of analysis, exhibition, and concept prototypes. After conducting interviews and engaging participants with probes, the class built the results into an open-ended knowledge environment. The main observation from the exhibition – that Angelenos have a limited vocabulary for describing nature and their interaction with it – helped to define the opportunity for design intervention that created connection points between Angelenos and nature. There are few attempts to describe how probe returns evolve into design concepts. Showcased is a process that depends on the unique affordances of design as the vehicle for discovery and invention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In user-centered design, attention has shifted from improving usability and addressing ergonomic problems to wider perspectives such as experiences in everyday life. This shift has forced user-centered practitioners to evaluate and develop tools for finding new means of understanding user experience for design. Visual, playful and open-ended probes have raised fresh interest in the design community. In order to create a deeper understanding of this approach, this paper presents the fundamental qualities of probes and, based on empirical data and literature, describes four reasons for applying them in the product development and concept design context: for inspiration, for information, for participation and for dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]