Probes as a People-Oriented Method

This paper discusses some methodological aspects of the use of Probes as a people-oriented method. Different kinds of Probes are reviewed and two separate deployments are documented–Technology Probes and Informational Probes–in a care setting. The authors argue that Probes reflect a post-disciplinary era and a shift of attention beyond ‘the social’ to concerns with individual variation, materiality and the visual in technology design. It is suggested that in an era of ‘everyday development’, Probes can play an important role in providing useful insights concerning the product and potentially the process of programming-type work.