The Bespoke Booklets—A method to explore non-stereotypical homes and alternate avenue for domestic internet of things

In this design research group lead by Professor Audrey Desjardins, we questioned how visions of Internet of Things could be expanded through the lens of non-stereotypical homes. In current representations of IoT devices for the home, the homes represented are often single-family, detached homes (a stereotypical home). We sought answers to the question of what alternative visions of domestic connected devices could be generated through designing for homes beyond the single-family, separated home. For instance, which connected devices best suit a boat house? Or a micro apartment? Or a van?

Research Questions

How could non-stereotypical homes (homes other than detached, single-family homes) be used as a way to broaden avenues for domesic IoT?

Research Methods

• Home Visit / Interview

• Bespoke Booklets for Co-Speculation

• Exit interview

• Thematic analysis
  

Recruitment
Drawing from our personal networks, craigslist and facebook groups, we contacted and interviewed a diverse set of people who lived in non-stereotypical homes ranging from a boat, a van, a micro apartment an eight person shared home, to a carriage house.

Home Visit
Each co-speculation started with visiting the participant at their home and conducting a tour where we took photos and asked about the purpose of each room, the history of the home, and what qualities made it unique and non-stereotypical.

Crafting the Bespoke Booklet
We then created a bespoke booklet for each participant using the information and photos we gathered from their initial interview and home tour. Half of the booklet was comprised of five connected device concepts drawn directly over photographs we took which meant the concept was hyper specific to that participant’s home. One benefit of this method was that each concept was specific to each participant, thereby generating a diverse range of solutions once viewed as a collection of concepts generated for all the participants together.

For the second half of the booklet, we picked another five pictures from the home tour and interview to leave blank for the participant to sketch on. We then gave the booklet back to the participant for them to add reflections and their own sketches.

Exit Interview
Finally, once the participant had filled our their booklet, we held an exit interview to review the participant’s responses to our concepts and review the concepts the drew over the blank photographs. Each stage of the process was meant to have an element of back-and-forth between designers. The process of co-speculation honors and values the knowledge of the participant as a type expertise. In this case, it was the knowledge of their unique home.

Thematic Analysis
Overall, we found that relationships to non-stereotypical homes and this particular form of research brought to light new ideas to think about when developing IoT or connected devices for domestic settings.

Findings

We defined 5 areas for further exploration in developing domestic IoT:

• Acknowledging porous boundaries;

  • We explored indoor outdoor relationships—for example creating an ‘indoor sun lamp’ for a woman who lived in a basement apartment. The lamp would mirror the light quality of whatever light was like in the park across the street in the apartment.

  • We explored relationships with urban wildlife and plant life—for example creating a messaging service that would alert members of an 8-person shared home of when birds were eating the plums off the plum tree in their front yard.

• Exposing Neighborly Relations

  • We discovered that many ‘home’ include relationships (even if subtle) with neighbors and created devices to explore those relationships—for example a floor rug, that when lifted, shows what news the neighbors are reading.

• Extending temporality

  • Many homes have long and meaningful histories, a fact we discovered by designing a IoT that remembers the history of a houseboat for a houseboat owner who had just undergone a big renovation and discussed how the houseboat areas of Seattle have changed substantially in the last 40 years with incoming wealth.

• Revisiting Agency in the Home

  • Some of our design solutions played with agency, like a microwave designed for an 8-person shared home that took it upon itself to list duplicate appliances on craigslist to find them new homes. The participant found the amount of agency granted this device slightly concerning.

• Embracing imaginary and potential uses

  • We discovered home is also an aspirational space. Working with someone who lived in a micro apartment and kept project materials stacked away in a tight space, we created a project-or, a projector that projected potential project ideas to help her imagine potential uses for her stuff.

We also uncovered the method reflected core feminist principals which can be applied to HCI/d research:

These principles were set forth by seminal thinkers in HCI and STS such as Shaowen Bardzell, Donna Haraway, and Lucy Suchman.

We found the method to be:

• Situated: grounded in unique, individual, embodied experiences;

• Partial: representing individual perspectives from many points of view, not presenting a totalizing or universal perspective;

• Collaborative: requiring and building in participant feedback and ideation;

• Post-functional: removing requirements of functionality allowed participants to critique and play with qualities of their home through imaginative technologies that aren’t limited by usefulness.