Digital cultural probes : indagare il quotidiano, progettare tecnologie

Cultural Probes are a qualitative research technique developed in the field of Human Com puter Interaction to design technologies by entrusting participants with tools to capture fragments of everyday experience. Here, a revisitation of the technique is proposed to sup port 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 reflec tion on epistemic assumptions, limitations and possible areas of application in health re search. [Publisher's text].