Probes and prototypes: a participatory action research approach to codesign

Abstract

Participatory Action Research (PAR) has a long history of use with disadvantaged groups in order to assist them to improve their living conditions, however its use with Information and Communications Technology (ICT) projects is less well known. This paper examines a case study where PAR was tied with the use of a technology probe by an Aboriginal group, with the goal of determining if culturally appropriate design of ICTs could help support individual well-being. The results of this project show that although PAR and probes can be used together, this combination has the potential to alter how probes are traditionally used in the design space. To support this premise, we review the history of the probes method in the literature and discuss changes in how cultural and technology probes have been implemented in recent years. We argue that as modifications are made to these frameworks due to the needs of the research, two sorts of project results should be fully elucidated: (1) the changes made to the original methodology and (2) how these changes have had an effect on the real-life environment to which they were applied.

Keywords::

• Information and Communications Technology
• Participatory Action Research
• Aboriginal women
• collaboration
• technology probe
• well-being

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, the authors wish to acknowledge and thank the Gugu Badhun women for their participation in this research. This research was conducted as part of a PhD by the first author at James Cook University (JCU). The authors also wish to thank JCU for their support of the study, and for providing resources to enable its completion, including a JCU Post Graduate Scholarship. Additionally, the authors would like to thank Dr Nicola Bidwell for her early and significant contributions to the study.