Seeding without leading: making space for participant contribution in design elicitation techniques

As HCI embraces experience design, it will increasingly rely on new elicitation methods that are capable of drawing out the multi-faceted subjectivities of individuals without being overly prescriptive as to the final design or experience outcome. In this panel we wish to describe and discuss subtle elicitation techniques that allow the elicitation of participant ideas and interests with minimum prejudicing by the researcher. We argue that leaving space for meaning to be made by project nformants is a valuable approach to understanding both design requirements and use issues. We show work that has come from taking this approach and discuss why we have been concerned to keep a creative space open in our research and how we invite people into it