Probes & Provotypes

The Challenge

How might we generate more collective joy in shared moments when moving through space in New York City?

The Insight

Collaborated with team members from my graduate program at Parsons School of Design and showcased raw experiences of people's emotions across New York City through probing and prototyping.

The Solution

Designed and developed a prototype that served as a means for New Yorkers and tourists to share their secrets, desires, and feelings as they move through the city.

Date

August - October 2019

Role : Design Ethnographer

Design Research
Probes
Provotypes
Prototyping

Testing

HMW generate collective joy within public spaces for waiting?

In the Field

Our ethnographic research entailed observations in Washington Square, Union Square, Parsons campus and NYC metro; we observed people as they moved through space and interacted. Questions that came up during our research were: What brings collective joy to people in New York? What gets people to stop instead of carrying on with their day? How do performers build trust and rapport with audiences? What’s the role of anticipation?

Provotype Proposals

Provotype One: Wait + play

Crossing the streets is something that everybody in cities has to contend with. Particularly in New York City, the moments of having to wait for the signal to cross (or wait for a moment without cars) feel rife with impatience and frustration. What if we could disrupt those moments and feelings by introducing a game? What would be particularly interesting is a game that involved interacting with other people, strangers, and in a way that doesn’t feel forced?

Using a similar concept to interaction designers Amelie Künzler and Sandro Engel who produced ‘ActiWait’ (an interactive ping pong game on crossing posts), we could create a provotype of different interactive experiences (both technology-based and not) that involve people playing a game while waiting to cross the street.

Anchoring in a specific moment such a provotype experience would allow us to explore questions around whether people would engage, which interactions worked ‘best’, whether play could disrupt moods and linear patterns/ choreographies when moving through the city, and how people interact with strangers in an informal but new way.

Will people play? How will they know what to do? How do we open an invitation? Will people engage better with technology-based games such as ActiWait or ‘offline’ ones? Will people stay and play after the light has changed? What will the experience of playing with strangers be like? Will playing have a positive effect on people's day? Will people play? How will they know what to do? How do we open an invitation?

Provotype Two: Memory Landmarks

We rush past landmarks every day in New York. Not bridges or monuments or museums, but fragments of memory. Memories that may even hold more value than most monuments. Memories that are embedded in our minds; positive and negative. These seemingly ordinary landmarks hold different meanings to millions of people around the world.

That lamppost isn’t just a lamppost - it’s where I waited for my first taxi after moving to the city; where my entire perspective on the world changed in seconds. This same lamppost is also where my friend had their first heartbreak; the same lamppost different memories.

We want to know if displays of artistry and the introduction of a narrative around seemingly unassuming city structures would inspire people to stop in their tracks. Would it get them to share their memories? Do people gravitate towards certain narratives over others?

An eventual goal might be to create a treasure hunt around the city, with memories that real people share via geotagging, inspired by the “geocache” movement.

Provotype Three: Common Enemy / Common Ground

Isn’t it funny how people unite and have a clearer sense of collective when we encounter something displeasing? Whether it’s a mysterious odor or someone giving an impassioned subway sermon at 7 in the morning, there are both verbal and non-verbal ways in which an “us” or in- group is suddenly and spontaneously formed. This provotype might be a slightly dark look at our tendency to resort to this mentality by introducing an unexpected (and overall harmless) sensorial intervention (e.g. a smell, a sound, an obstruction) and giving people a forum to air their grievances and see those of others (e.g. a digital community wall.) We want to explore the tensions between “common enemy” and “common ground,” hopefully to get ideas that can be repurposed for more joyful purposes. However, as a probe, it feels ripe with provocations that might get various reactions from people.

Phase 2: Provotype Launch

Provotype One: Wait + Play

Provotype Two: Memory Landmarks

Create and externalize hypothetical narratives - both mundane and unbelievable - around objects and spaces in the city.

Provotype Three: Common Enemy

As a group, we gravitated toward Provotype Two: memory landmarks as the different directions and opportunities to ‘kick up dust’ felt exciting and promising. In addition to this, we discussed that Provotype One might take longer to produce something tangible (and we wanted to be agile within the time constraints) and Provotype Three could lead us into murky ethical water depending on how we developed the idea.

HMW generate collective joy within public spaces while Waiting?

Why Joy

When people consume themselves in activities that breed joy, their activity stimulates a part of the brain. If the activity is absorbing, people tend to be unaware of any biases while engaging in it. Joyful activities or ideas excite people and bring communities together. The compilation of “moments of joy” happens when what you are doing is perfectly in harmony -- with no thoughts of the past or future, and no biases. We hypothesize that these moments can help New Yorkers engage in a dialogue with one another and develop empathy towards each other throughout the city.

Session four

After choosing our provotype we pulled apart the idea of memories and how we wanted to develop the concept. Our interactions were key elements as we felt this would be where key insights would come from. In the session, we oscillated between very definite and abstract concepts, struggling to concretize them until PVC piping was mentioned. We decided we would ask people to share their memories by speaking into an assembled object of PVC pipes - almost like the contraptions on playgrounds or ’whisper walls’ in old churches.

Session five

Leading

What is your favourite thing about crossing the street?

What is the most fun experience you have had in this spot?

What is your favourite memory from this spot?

Take us back to an embarrassing moment in the street?

What has made you laugh in this spot?

Has something funny happened to you here?

Open

What does this place remind you of?

What do you remember happening at this location?

What is the first thing that comes to your mind as you walk these streets?

Whats the first thing that comes to mind when you think of this place?

In this session, we brainstormed questions that would prompt people to share memories. We grouped our ideas into leading/open questions and discussed having a variety of different questions to choose from.

What do you look forward to today?

How long has it been since you were here last?

Whats your secret?

Who were you with last time you were here? What was happening?

What is your last memory in the city?

What does the street smell like to you?

Favourite food restaurant?

Session five

In this session, we brainstormed questions that would prompt people to share memories. We grouped our ideas into leading/open questions and discussed having a variety of different questions to choose from.

Session Six

Potential question list:

What has made you laugh in the spot?
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of this space?
Who were you with last time you were here?
What was happening?
What do you look forward to today?

We ultimately decided to pick one question that was neutral, allowing people to interpret the question and potentially giving us more insight. We led with the phrasing ‘take us back to’ because it evoked feelings of storytelling. We discussed whether to record the responses and whether we would tell people we were doing so and the ethical issues around that.

Potential question list:

What has made you laugh in the spot?
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of this space?
Who were you with last time you were here?
What was happening?
What do you look forward to today?

We ultimately decided to pick one question that was neutral, allowing people to interpret the question and potentially giving us more insight. We led with the phrasing ‘take us back to’ because it evoked feelings of storytelling. We discussed whether to record the responses and whether we would tell people we were doing so and the ethical issues around that.

Building the Prototype for Testing

The Prompt: Building the narrative

Findings

Take One

Union Square | 13th & 5th crosswalk | UC elevator waiting area

In the initial launch of our provotype, we expanded on our idea of a memory landmark with an invitational prompt to speak memories into our golden memory tube.

Questions asked: Take me back to what happened the last time you were here

Insights While we had different levels of interaction with the tube in each of the three locations where we deployed the prompt, it spurred a lot of discussion between us concerning the nature of our provotype and our instincts when something goes not as expected.

Fields Notes - Day 1

We collected quotes and wrote down the behaviors/interactions we observed from a distance.

Take Two

Two locations at Union Square Park

In our second deployment of the provotype, we modified the prompt; specifically, we changed the orientation of the prompt from memory to the present. We now asked:

How are you feeling at this moment?

The mic was visible to people, the person shooting video and photos was not. This generated some more participation and allowed us to collect some interesting responses.

A Day at Union Square

We highlighted some of the voices who participated in our probing, giving us a dose of their feelings at that moment -- from New Yorkers to tourists.

Discomfort in Ambiguity

A provotype is as much about the provocateur as the ones they intend to provoke. What kicks up dust in the designer? We noticed in ourselves the instinct to fix, to modify, to iterate when people didn’t interact with our object the way we thought they would. We discussed amongst ourselves the possibility of changing our prompt, of adding new elements, or of finding a new and “better” location, clearly underscoring our desire to make our provotype more successful rather than absorbing what we observed.

How do you sit with discomfort when the thing you have made defies your hopes for it? How do you let it be what it is?

From Curiosity To Participation

In our first three locations, our object generated a lot of curiosity in unexpecting passers. People stopped, read the prompt, walked around the tube, and started conversations about it to their companions. But very few of them responded or tried speaking into the tube. We wondered if the object aroused a level of suspicion -- questions about where their responses were going, or whether there was a consequence to engaging. In particular, one older sibling yanked away his younger sibling who had approached the tube. What takes a person from piqued curiosity to the action of participation or engagement with a probe?

Visibility Of Purpose Or A Destination

In our first deployment, the provotype looked like a tube to nowhere. We observed the public reaction to an object whose purpose was ambiguous or even non-existent. We debated whether to add a note suggesting different destinations for the collected responses. We also wondered whether the visibility of a recording device or a filming crew would encourage people to participate or deter them from sharing personal stories. We experimented with this in the second launch.

Total confusion!

What is the articulated or visible ‘purpose’ of talking into this tube? Why should people feel motivated to do so?

Rooting the prompt In the present

By creating a more spontaneous prompt, directed at emotion rather than recalling a past event, our second deployment at Union Square opened a space of interruption and provocative gestures throughout the time we were there. People wanted to know if someone was listening as they walked by and saw this mysterious mic in the middle of the square. Many voiced their frustrations, many voiced their wins. Some children were happy and some unhappy with their parents. We heard students struggling with their classes and foreigners showing the excitement to be in the city. Our provotype became a tool through which many people could communicate their feelings as they traveled through space and time.

Sense Making

Field Observations & Themes Of Interaction

It appeared that the question ultimately generated an awareness of the self while moving through time and space. Parents encouraged their children to voice their feelings as well as enforcing them to follow the signage posted at the scene. The reactions of the public varied, depending on whether they were aware of their interactions being recorded; which gave insight into how people react and perform knowing they are being recorded, watched, or filmed. Those who voiced their feelings without first knowing they were being filmed, gave more of a genuine response. Some adults were just as playful as the children in some cases due to the bizarre nature of the device. Lastly, individuals voiced the belief that this was a social experiment, revealing some sense of the public’s interest in the culture of learning about the world around them.

Ghost Images and Ideal Types

Some people saw it as a break from whatever world they were in: a stop to escape, a stop to intervene in something else. The bystander effect -- other people stopped as they saw other groups there then other groups were more likely to stop too. Groups began unintentionally inviting individuals after looking at our provotypes.

With lots of feedback, our day at union square opened a space of interruption and provocative gestures throughout the time we were there. People wanted to know if someone was listening as they walked by and saw this mysterious mic in the middle of Union square. Many voiced their frustrations, many voices their wins. Children expressed happiness, and some expressed unhappiness with their parents; students talked about struggling with their classes and foreigners shared the excitement of being in the city. Our prototype became a tool -- a tool which these people used to communicate their feelings as they travel through space and time.

Fas Lebbie