Digital cultural probes. Indagare il quotidiano, progettare tecnologie

Cultural Probes are a qualitative research technique developed in the field of Human Computer Interaction to design technologies by entrusting participants with tools to capture fragments of everyday experience. Here, a revisitation of the technique is proposed to support the investigation of the experience of health and illness, which are areas removed from direct observation and difficult to recall with a richness of detail by means of the most common investigation techniques. The most visible feature of the methodological innova- tion lies in the use of an instant messaging system (WhatsApp) as a “probe”, on the one hand allowing participants to share their respective fragments of experience with each other and, on the other hand, granting researchers the possibility of guiding participants with re-spect to the objects of observation. Here I present a use case of the technique and a reflection on epistemic assumptions, limitations and possible areas of application in health re-search.