Within bounds and between domains: Reflecting on Making Tea within the context of design elicitation methods

Making Tea is a design elitation method developed specifically to deal with situations in which (1) the designers do not share domain or artefact knowledge with design-domain experts, (2) the processes in the space are semistructured and (3) the processes to be modeled can last for periods exceeding the availability of most ethnographers. We propose a set of criteria in order to understand why Making Tea worked. Through this criteria we also reflect upon the relation of Making Tea to other design elicitation methods in order to propose a kind of method framework from which other designers may be assisted in choosing elicitation methods and in developing new methods.