Photography is one of my favourite user-centred research tools. Simply put, a photo allows you to show someone else who wasn’t there. Often we get asked in workshops about getting permission to take photographs at a client’s business. Or how to get access to someone in their home, which is a personal space. The answer could be as simple as give a camera to the person instead.

Anthony Levin-Decanini reconnected after meeting a few years back at a design conference. He worked on a project called Aphasia Talks, that used photography as a method to give a voice to stroke victims who suffer difficulty producing, using or understanding words. Aphasia can impair any or all of the abilities to speak, read and write. What a fantastic approach to empower people to communicate, as well as build empathy with a particular group that would have difficulty communicating their needs.

PhotoVoice is a research technique, as well as non-profit organisation whose mission is to bring about positive social change for marginalised communities through providing them with photographic training with which they can advocate, express themselves and generate income.

What have we been up to over the few weeks between this and our last blog post? Doing a lot of thinking about service and pulling together a day-long workshop to help organisations better understand the why, what and how of service design. One of numerous tools we experimented with was the ubiquitous napkin sketch. In order to make up for the gap in posts, here are PDF downloads of the card decks we give to participants from all three of our workshops:

• User-centred Design (170KB)
• Why Brand? (241KB)
• Why Service? (217KB)

You also might like to read about the “revival” of the napkin sketch over at FastCompany.

This past week in Waterford we took a group of companies and individuals from the WIT Research and Innovation Centre through a user-centered design workshop. During our workshops, we intend to teach organisations simple tools to better understand their customers and their needs. One of my favourite exercises is the day in the life photo journal. Participants are given a pack of photos taken by a person through the course of one day. With only the photographs to work from, small groups distill detailed information about that person. It is amazing how much insight can be gained in ten minutes from a few photos. Many people learn more about a stranger than they do about those folks they each lunch with on a daily basis.

How much more simple can you get than handing out a few disposable cameras to your users? I have included a copy of our brief to complete the exercise, as well as the worksheet from the workshop.

Photo Journal Brief (Word, 42K)
Whose Life Worksheet (PDF, 119K)