Design Lab: Probe Kit 2 Testing and Findings

About a month ago, I sent out the probe kit mock-up to one of my students, Charis Tan as I wanted to see which results are most helpful in order to plan better questions for the 2nd probe kit.

The 2nd probe kit was designed with these 3 factors in mind: 1. The data from pilot study 1 and 2. Revision of 1st probe kit and omitting unnecessary probe materials, and 3. Research gaps from literature review:

1. Are we relying on mobile devices more than we should? What is considered too much screen-time? What is acceptable in the scientific terms?


2. The diagnosis of digital dementia is new and my pilot studies show that not many people are aware their increasing usage and reliance on smart devices are causing a decline in their intelligence until I share the scientific studies with them.


3. Despite proven scientific studies for loss of cognitive functioning, there are not many measures and guidelines on using smart devices with humanity’s best interests. It is mostly to get us glued to screens (Youtube's autoplay, Netflix declaration of competing consumers attention with sleep, etc).

From pilot study 1 survey, 4 groups of users are identified.
Group 1: Highly reliant and willing to change 58%
Group 2: Non-reliant, mindful and willing to maintain 23%
Group 3: Highly reliant and unwilling to change 17%
Group 4: Unclear and conflicting results - Analysis shows that they are highly reliant but they identified themselves as non-reliant and is unwilling to maintain/change. 2%

25 Probe kits are sent to:
Group 1: Highly reliant and willing to change - 19 pax
Group 2: Non-reliant, mindful and willing to maintain - 1 pax
Group 3: Highly reliant and unwilling to change - 1 pax
New Group: Participants who are unaware of my research topic- 4 pax

1st probe kit:
Click here to see the full set of 1st probe kit

Omitted materials from 2nd probe kit, it's too much work for each participant and some questions are redundant or repetitive.

21 probe kits targeting 18 – 35 year old working adults and students with different levels of reliance and openness to change (identified from pilot study) were sent out. 4 probe kits were sent to new participants who were unaware of Digital Dementia as early findings show that some participants may give biased answers. The objective of this 5-day probe kit was to address research gaps, understand their limits, values, concerns, priorities and preferences.

 Preparation of 2nd probe kit

Sending out the probe kits

 Getting back the probe kits for analysis

Till date, I've received 20 probe kits and I've started analysing them. The participants spent an average of 5 minutes for each day's set, so 5 days = 25 minutes.
Some of the findings:

Interesting findings:
3 of the participants couldn't remember some answers to the questions for 'The Recall Game' and broke the rules to google search immediately. 2 of other participants truly didn't know some of the answers at all but couldn't control as well and googled instantly.

Probe kit V2 materials can be found here