Theory instruments: Helping designers see the invisible

With increasingly complex technologies entering the daily lives of people, ‘user studies’ are becoming more difficult both to do and to make sense of. In this paper we discuss experiments with designing ‘Theory Instruments’ that allow designers to collaboratively try out multiple theoretical perspectives on field research material. We argue that the physical, tangible nature of these instruments helps to convey and experience the richness of theoretical frameworks and can make designers and researchers aware of easily overlooked aspects in ethnographic observations. We unfold the case of ‘charging electric vehicles’ across theories of Product Ecology, Rites of Passage, Exchange & Reciprocity, and Actor Network Theory.