Cultural Probes as a Carefully Curated Research Design Approach to Elicit Older Adult Lived Experience

Abstract

There is growing recognition that methods that elicit the perspectives of vulnerable and marginalized people are essential in understanding the needs and aspirations of this group and therefore necessary when developing impactful policies, services, and environments that support them. Creative elicitation methods, which privilege participant voice, can be useful for conducting research with such populations. This chapter explores how research informed by care ethics, appreciative inquiry, and communicative methodology can support participant self-determination through the achievement of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. By advancing deliberate, iterative, and care-full research design that emphasizes belonging, dignity, and justice, cultural probes provide practical potential and ethical utility as a research method. The effectiveness of this care-full cultural probe approach is demonstrated and examined through a case study of a co-design research project concerned with designing for health and well-being at home with and for older adults.