TINK - sketching product experiences of connected objects

User research - 57
3.2 Research setup
The research was structured as a generative
session organized in 7 phases alternating
idea generation with synthesis phases.
A facilitator had the role of explaining
the different exercises and assisting the
participants when they where in doubt or
stuck. The research involved 4 sessions and
2 participants took part in every session.
Most of the participants were interaction
design students at the end of their master,
one of them was a student of computer
science at the end of his master. The
participants were chosen based on different
levels of technological skills:
• 2 participants never had programming
experience;
• 2 had a very little, never done a project
without assistance or following a step
by step tutorial;
• 3 had Arduino programming
experience; they were able to program
simple software autonomously
• 1 was a software developer
In a step-by-step approach the participant
had to, first, design a complex system and
then make a representation of it.
Markers and different exercise sheets for
the different phases of the session were
given to the participants. A set of card
was also designed to help the participants
generate idea on different topics.
Phase 1 - Imagine that a specific
object is connected to the Internet
what will it do?
The session started by asking the
participants to brainstorm on the possible
design that could arise from connecting a
simple object to the internet (Figure 32).
Different objects were used as starting
points in different sessions (coffee mug,
coffee machine and a plant).
Phase 2- summarize your concept
The participants were then asked to choose
one idea from the brainstorm session and
summarize it either graphically or in words.
Figure 32. A result from phase
1 (Imagine a coffee maker
connected to the Internet,
What will it do?)