People who change their cultural environment, for example by working abroad, experience transformations of their self even more extreme and therefore represent an interesting audience of my work.
As a result of my research which was focused on the quantified self, I started questioning storytelling and the approach of data transformation. Suddenly I saw myself confronted with a ‘tacit understanding of the digital self/ online persona’, which works almost in the opposite way to the quantified-self, which is keenly expressed in symbols (alphanumerical/data). This created an almost philosophical design problem:
How is it possible to motivate my audience with the help of digital media to mindfully reflect on emotions about data which we publish about ourselves?
Is it possible to evoke a feeling for the digital–self?
A previous project in a unit about critical design has shown me that asking people for metaphors is a good way to analyse complex concepts, like cities.
Based on this research I defined some personas and fictive scenarios.
In order to ground my scenarios in reality I wrote to participants of my event whether I could do a little skype follow-up interview with these people.
I only got one single return from Hong, a chinese expat in Berlin who studied in Germany.
Screenshot from the event
With Hong I did a skype interview and then I looked around in my private environment and I found two participants who fullfilled the criteria of my Personas. As my research was qualitative and hypothesis-generating this seemed to be an appropriate approach.
As a result of this ethnographic research I developed three maximes for the design of my work.
This was a qualitative research and absolutely not representative in a statistical matter. It should simply help me to understand a bit better who I design for and why it matters what I design. For this qualitative research I wrote an interview guideline upfront in order to make sure this excercise is meaningful.
Interview Guideline
Warm up…
What are you doing in your life?
Can you tell me a little bit about you?
What is important for you in your life?
Core Questions:
What kind of digital media do you use in your life?
What kind of digital media will you use in the future?
Did you ever hear about the term big data and the interconnected life…Digital Doors, Google Glasses, Digital Jackets? Your Opinion: What kind of data will we produce with these devices in the future?
How do you feel about these data?
Imagine these data, yours and all the others? How would you describe them?
- as a Person?
- as a sound?
- as a color?
Is there any information out there about you which you wish it wasn’t?
How would this information sound? Which color would it have? What person would it be?
Now I want to show you some screens.
(then I made a screenshare and showed the Photoshop Screens).
Some Key Insights I gained during this excercise
Tamir from Tel Aviv, Israel
Do you remember Minory Report, the movie? All the information is provided by biometrical information. H&M would welcome you with “Hello Mr. Shnider”.
[…] and I think this is really, really cool. I don’t need to work so hard anymore. I hope in the future this will be in the general life like that. I want my fridge to let me know when it is empty, etc…
I showed him this prototype in a screencast:
His reaction: “This is only good to a certain level. I am afraid that my mother one day will know when I am in the kitchen.”
Key Insight:
Loves the idea to find out more about himself. Is not so much concerned about Data Privacy. Doesn`t really know how data can be connected and what that actually means: Could benefit from more knowledge about the topic = provide knowledge about ontologies in a nice way.
Hong, China
Thinks she might use smart phones in the future for everything. Heard about Snowdon and Prisma, but she doesn`t consider herself as relevant for being spied. Describes her own data as a “Secret friend in the background”
When I asked her to describe that person with a sound she said: Dark, low-pitch. She doesn`t find a sound for bad data: She would never put dangerous or private data on the internet, as coming from China, she is used to censorship.
Key Insight:
The moment she saw her location in the screenshot tracked she felt unconfortable. Visualising tracked locations is eventually a wake up call for some people.
Marie, Spain
Uses digital media extensively to stay in touch with her boyfriend from Mexico.
Thinks digital media detach people from the here and now and she suggests to take a walk instead of using anything digital.
She thinks it is difficult to take privacy serious if you want to be social.
Considers her data like a guard: He always watches you, he will make you trouble when you do something wrong but he, the guard, can also help you out once in a while as well if you are already in trouble.
Insight: Generating and visualising data is perceived as good, if done in a controlled way. This can also be perceived control if the user doesn`t have enough background knowledge.
In the end I did a final usability testing of my animated prototype. I never tested the Processing sketch, but I always feeded insights from the testing with Flash into the Processing sketch.
[Reference]
A book about qualitative Research, unfortunately only available in german language:
Meyen, M., Lieblich, M., Pfaff-Ruediger, S., Riesmeyer, C., (2011). Qualitative Forschung In Der Kommunikationswissenschaft: Eine praxisorientierte Einführung (Studienbücher zur Kommunikations- und Medienwissenschaft). (Kindle Edition).
http://www.amazon.de/dp/3531173804