8. Final Outcome: Probe Kit

Task: To design and make a toolkit for researching money.

Methods:

Team: Tanya Singh, Zuzana Galova, Roshni Suri

Timeframe: 13th - 23rd November

Situating ourselves as researchers, our final outcome is a toolkit to be used for design researchers to investigate people's responses to money. The most successful parts of the project have always been the research with participants, and therefore designing and testing a research kit felt the best use of time for us as a team.

Toolkit

The name Circus had occurred when we were initially dicussing cult-like experiences, and we still felt like it had relevance. A circus can be defined as a loud, noisy activity, and we felt that our research had determined this was in parallel with the effects of money.

The toolkit contains three tasks:

• Notebook: Tasks as shown in the image below

• Blank public and private receipts to list out purchases participants would or would not want to show to others

• Infinite pound task: If you had unlimited money today only, what would you spend it on? On the reverse of this task is a place to create your own design for currency.

Notebook task slips. Designed by Tanya Singh and Roshni Suri

The image above is from the notebook elements; I give full credit to my teammates Roshni and Tanya for the design of these. My contribution here was working with Zuzana in the ideating and editing of the text to create a tone of voice that was friendly and engaging.

We asked people outside the creative field unfamiliar with the project to test our toolkits. We asked for the items to be returned to us when the participants had completed the tasks.

Returned probe kits from two participants. Images by author.

Our first returned kit came from participant DP, who works in economics. and the second was from participant EB, a counsellor.

Their collective feedback included:

• The instructions were clear and easy to follow; however, as people who aren't creative, they were initially daunted by the requirement to 'decorate' the notebook. Both participants reported that once they had started the decoration, they enjoyed the chance to do something outside their normal realm.

• They didn't initially have any purchases they would want to hide, having only chosen to do the most recent purchases. They advised that more clarity would be helpful in understanding the timeframe and context for this activity.

• They reflected that these prompts and activities had encouraged them to think about money, privacy and value in a new light.

• They enjoyed the tasks and the quiet time they took to complete the toolkit and were pleased to have taken part.

The above feedback was been incorporated into the next version sent out to the next wave of participants. At the time of writing, seven more toolkits are being tested; we are awaiting their return.

Final toolkits. Image by author.

Final toolkits. Image by author.

The Receipt Printer

To develop the toolkit into an engaging exhibition piece, we decided to elaborate on one of our tasks within the toolkit. We discovered through our testing that receipts can tell stories, and something a participant had said sparked the idea.

We decided to centre around this concept and create an exhibition wall full of receipts donated, collected and curated into the exhibition. Upon the table in front sits a box with a button.

Testing receipts and grad show sketches. Images by author.

The button press prints out a receipt with a set of purchases and a prompt at the bottom. I took the lead on the printer's design, coding and assembly.

Building the Arduino, coding and test prints. Images by author.

Soldering and using heat shrink. Video by author.

Testing the printed prompts. Video by author.

The final design of the container for the printer is yet to be designed; being purely for the graduate show, the focus has been on the toolkit production. However, the testing of the functionality has been successful, and the written responses have validated the interaction and iterated the purchases and prompts.