Abstract
This exploratory paper aims to discuss how community is fostered in semi-public restrooms on a college campus. While previous research has been undertaken in similar semi-private environments, this paper differs by simultaneously offering the researchers’ reflective insights in tandem with participants’ input on the research question. We begin by unpacking the challenges around Participatory Design (PD) activities that are undertaken in sensitive and private interior environments. Gathering perceptions of these sensitive spaces required methods that allowed for both anonymity and a communal approach through the use of provocative and evocative probes such as comment boxes and graffiti wall posters. This paper not only catalogues the findings of this research but also documents the difficulties in utilizing a participant-led approach, gaining access to sites and participants, and countering our own biases throughout the study’s construction. Through researcher accounts and participatory data analysis, the researchers offer a focused reflection on a possible new frontier for advancing PD methods in sensitive environments through playful probes. The contribution of this paper offers six lessons on the efficacy of using probes in semi-private environments, with playfulness as a primary driver of engaging participants.
Highlights
To understand behaviors and perceptions around intimate spaces, research must be approached creatively to effectively engage users while ensuring that their responses can be kept private and authentic
The methodological efficacy of utilizing probes to address sensitive topics in sensitive settings was the main topic of investigation
Six lessons were learned through the investigation that are transferable to other research endeavors in sensitive spaces that require a modicum of playfulness: 1
Summary
To understand behaviors and perceptions around intimate spaces, research must be approached creatively to effectively engage users while ensuring that their responses can be kept private and authentic. Engaging participants is difficult to do in areas such as restrooms, which support social encounters within a typically private space. Many of us might recount times in which we might engage with strangers and friends in restrooms, creating a sort of community that is difficult to replicate in other environments. There, restroom spaces were utilized as strategic spaces to organize protests, where those participating “wanted to exploit a vulnerability in the interface between biophysical processes and infrastructure” [1]. The demonstration of these underserved populations illustrates the idea that semi-public spaces engender a feeling of significance for ensuring that such environments are open to all. While the necessity of restrooms is primarily tied to the support of natural human processes, their social significance and connotations with refuge, safety, and security come into play [1]
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