Our methodology is to work with individual people, to learn from them things that are personally meaningful and to reflect elements of these meanings back to the individual in the form of pieces of digital jewellery.

We seek to make pieces that will resonate for an individual, extend the meanings already shared with us and become something that fits within and invigorates these meaningful aspects of the individual’s life and relationships.

Our way of getting to know participants and opening up an iterative process around personal meanings is through the use of probe methods (Gaver et al 1999), which are now widely used in human-computer interaction. As a design tool, probes are creative processes originating from interaction design and inspired by fine art practice in the creation of objects to ask questions. This structure gives a wide space within which to create questions.

Our way of using the probe method is to build an empathic relationship with participants, where we make objects that enquire around facets of experience and meaning. We invest time and attention to creating objects that pose questions in inventive, creative and fascinating ways and that give participants many varied and creative means to respond. Our approach is supportive of inner identity and what is meaningful to someone in this respect as well as bringing in a social and relational context, where the person is considered in terms of their relationships with others.

The variety of methods in which a participant may respond offer him/her the space to share stories and feelings in many different ways, this aspect of well designed probes is highly valuable for various reasons. Firstly the range of forms that the questions can take not only enable us to enquire around a theme from many different angles, but offer a participant ways to think about something in unobvious ways. Secondly a participant can gravitate toward the questions and modes of response that feel comfortable to them. Thirdly whilst some probes may require consideration and reflection, others may involve far more immediate response or action, meaning that some probes act as ice-breakers or spurs within the response process and that less explicitly cognitive responses can be given. And finally that the variety opens up the responses to the participant’s own creativity as in the safety of the specific context and already half completed probe a participant can respond in ways that feel right for them