Context and description

I’m interested in the way we sub-consciously divide our time up into moments and events that we treat as if monetary values. This currency then dictates on how we view how our time is best spent, what our time is worth, what we consider a waste of time, what units we allocate to certain events.

I’m also interested in how we position these events on the simple analogue clock, cycling through each day.

The time probes were formed around the principle of an analogue clock. The first iteration of the probes were constructed out of a quartz clock movement, a clip board and piece of card with a task and a clock face. The tasks were a set of questions based around how people perceive their sense of time from a moment, a day or a lifetime.

In certain tasks, the participant was asked to attach the second, minute or hour hand to the analogue movement and wait for a time in which they felt compelled to fill in the clock face. Other tasks simply asked them to look back in time or look forward and make plans.

The second iteration of the time probes came through observation of the first. I decided to package all the clock faces into a book so new participants could choose a task and also have a reference on what to do by looking through the book to see what others had written.

Outcomes.

After extracting ideas from the probes, I devised a series of digital clocks that looked at providing possible answers to some of the questions that arose. These clocks were meant more as a reference for further discussion than solutions to the problems.

Time probes and outcomes was a response to a 6 week cultural probes and design exploration project.

Aims and objectives

The original aims of this project were to try and understand how people divide their days up, how they plan future events, what they hold dear in the past, what they consider a waste of their time etc… However, and although these ideas did seem to come through from the probes return, I found that the probes became much more of a means of conversation. I felt that I gained access into the participants past and futures, of which my own family seemed the most surprising.

I found that I was beginning conversations with my family that I would never usually step into under normal circumstances, such as my brother’s and his fiancée’s future plans to have triplets!

These conversations and probe returns led me onto creating some simple designs and prototypes aimed at provoking further discussion.