Flipping Pages: Exploring Physical Workbooks as Reflective Method for Documentation

As first-person perspective methods gain popularity in the field of HCI, discussion about methodologies regarding their documentation has arisen due to the rich, context-dependent data that emerges from these methods. Reflective, multimedia documentation, along with annotation have been widely proposed in design research to address the qualitative and rich properties generated by a design process. In this pictorial, we analyze a workbook employing these practices as design case. It was used to document the design process of Undertone, a device designed for bodily awareness from a first-person perspective. Through identifying a page taxonomy, we reflect on how the practice of annotating supported the design process through continuous reflection practice and emphasizing relations between activities & decisions. We propose layered annotations as an approach to documenting first-person perspective design work that supports traceability of decisions, iterative working, collaboration and documenting the building of a practice.