Dialogue Through Design: Visual Communication Across the Cultural Divide

This paper reports on the use of probes in a rural village in Rwanda. They were employed as a tool for dialogue and collaboration when working with underserved communities who do not share the same language and lack assumed technologies. The aim of this project was to invite a participant to engage in creative activities during the rituals of daily life in order to reveal ideas about improving the community. These activities were created to help a designer collaborate through a more democratic process and allow for the creativity of the underrepresented to surface when dealing with complex issues. The outcomes address how the probes can be used to sensitize a community for the next stages of a design process.