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CONCEPT

Overview We live in a world where sophisticated communication systems allow us to keep in touch and access information with ever increasing ease. However despite the huge advances in digital communications and mobile communication systems the vast proportion of our communication with each other is through standard devices (telephones/PCs) that still attempt to siphon a wide range of human expression through a limited interface. As telecommunications infrastructures and computer networks gain more sophistication and ubiquity this situation does not seem to be changing. In designing and creating networks of the future, the main concentration to date has been on the technical infrastructure with some attention paid to the potential applications and services that will be on offer. Beyond adding more multimedia features to existing communication devices (e.g. MMS features to mobile phones, network connectivity to PDAs) little attention has been paid to the method of interaction and innovative and creative approaches to this field are limited. This project aims to address these limitations by focusing on the method of communication and not just on the communication itself. Theme The main theme of the project is connectivity, connectivity between people and other people and between people and spaces. We plan to explore (1) exactly what being connected means and (2) how different methods of being connected can lend themselves to new forms of expression and communication. The project will take the form series of experiments based on alternative methods of interaction between individuals and groups. These experiments, which we call Connectivity Probes, will investigate how different communication spaces can be linked and will explore the resulting experiences of the connected users. Design Approach The Connectivity Probes are designed for both fixed and wireless networks. The probes explore communication in its most basic form and allow the theme and method in which people communicate to become as important as the communication itself. The idea of probes has been articulated in various forms over the past few years. Gaver, Dunne, and Pacenti [3] originated the notion of "cultural probes" as a way to engage in a sort of dialogue with users of potential new technologies and to inspire new ideas and insights into an ongoing design process. Cultural probes can take a myriad of forms, but they most often ask the subject to engage in playful experiments or to document in an unusual way various aspects of their lives using specifically designed and structured packages of materials that are distributed to them by the researchers and gathered at a later time. A "technology probe", as described by Hutchinson et. al [7], is similar to a cultural probe except that it takes the form of a provocative digital technology or early prototype of some kind that is given to a subject in order to illicit unusual reactions and feedback that might serve as a resource for design. Definition We define a "connectivity probe" as a sort of cultural or technology probe that specifically involves connecting two people or locations in an unexpected or provocative way with the hope of revealing unusual behaviors and inspiring feedback that may provide insight into the nature of human communication and serve as a resource for creativity and ideas in the development of new communication technologies. In its purest form, a "connectivity probe" is not a "prototype" that is meant to be formally analyzed and studied from a usability perspective in a process of iterative refinement leading to a product. Connectivity probes, like all probes, exist for the purposes of inspiration and feeding ideas into a design process in which the final products may take forms very different from the original probes that inspired them.