The UK e-Science programme is relying on the evolution of the paper lab book into a pervasive data gathering lab system. To date take up of existing commercial or research lab book replacement systems has not been great. In this paper, we reconsider both the role of the lab book in the experimental cycle, as well as its affective and experiential properties as an artefact, in order to design an e-Science lab book that will be acceptable to the scientists who will use it. To this end we combined and extended existing design analysis models in order to assess the artefact functionally and experientially. We present the approach we developed, the prototype we designed based on our analysis, and the results of the formative study we performed of the artefact in real use. We show that our design elicitation method strongly contributed to the success of our prototype?s take up.

The success of translating an analog or manual practice into a digital interactive system may depend on how well that translation captures not only the functional what and how aspects of the practice, but the why of the process as well. Addressing these attributes is particularly challenging when there is a gap in expertise between the design team and the domain to be modeled. In this paper, we describe Making Tea, a design method foregrounding the use of analogy to bridge the gap between design team knowledge and domain expertise. Making Tea complements more traditional user-centered design approaches such as ethnography and task analysis. In this paper, we situate our work with respect to other related design methods such as Cultural Probes and Artifact Walkthroughs. We describe the process by which we develop, validate and use analogy in order to maximize expert contact time in observation, interviews, design reviews and evaluation. We contextualize the method in a discussion of its use in a project we ran to replace a paper-based analytical chemistry lab book with an interactive system for use in a pervasive lab environment.