A Notebook of Data Imaginaries

The processes of data collection and transformation are often opaque to users. This means they rely on their imagination to make sense of the data they produce. The images data conjure up, however, tend to be homogenous and flat: black screens, ones and zeros, big server farms in the desert. For designers and researchers who work with data as a material, this small repertoire can be stifling. For device users, it can lead to a removal of agency in how they make sense and engage with the data they produce. In this pictorial, we draw from a two-year data fictionalization project to start building an expanded repertoire of data imaginaries. We worked with seven households and seven writers to transform smart home data sets into fiction stories. Based on the interviews we conducted, we present the images participants shared with us as a step towards more expressive and varied imaginaries of data.

[1]  William Odom,et al.  Data as a Material for Design: Alternative Narratives, Divergent Pathways, and Future Directions , 2023, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[2]  S. Ljungblad,et al.  Conversational Composites: A Method for Illustration Layering , 2023, TEI.

[3]  William Odom,et al.  Exploring Data Intermediaries as Infrastructure for a Human-Centric Data Economy: Speculations & Critical Reflections , 2022, Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction.

[4]  S. Bae.  Towards a Deeper Understanding of Data and Materiality , 2022, Creativity & Cognition.

[5]  Vasiliki Tsaknaki,et al.  Diffraction-in-action: Designerly Explorations of Agential Realism Through Lived Data , 2022, CHI.

[6]  Laura Devendorf,et al.  Sketching Across the Senses: Exploring Sensory Translation as a Generative Practice for Designing Data Representations , 2022, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[7]  Thuong N. Hoang,et al.  Exploring AltNarrative in HCI Imagery and Comics , 2022, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[8]  Miriam Sturdee,et al.  A Visual Exploration of Cybersecurity Concepts , 2021, Creativity & Cognition.

[9]  Paulina Yurman.  Fluid Speculations: Drawing Artefacts in Watercolour as Experimentation in Research Through Design , 2021, Creativity and Cognition.

[10]  Afroditi Psarra,et al.  Voices and Voids: Subverting Voice Assistant Systems through Performative Experiments , 2021, Creativity & Cognition.

[11]  Rung-Huei Liang,et al.  Neuromancer Workshop: Towards Designing Experiential Entanglement with Science Fiction , 2021, CHI.

[12]  Audrey Desjardins,et al.  Data Epics: Embarking on Literary Journeys of Home Internet of Things Data , 2021, CHI.

[13]  E. Moss.  Technologies of Speculation: The Limits of Knowledge in a Data-Driven Society , 2021 .

[14]  Natalia Kovalyova,et al.  Data feminism , 2020, Information, Communication & Society.

[15]  Sun-ha Hong.  Technologies of Speculation , 2020 .

[16]  Samantha Shorey,et al.  Crafting Everyday Resistance through Lightweight Design , 2020, Conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

[17]  Cayla Key,et al.  Parallels, Tangents, and Loops: Reflections on the 'Through' Part of RtD , 2020, Conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

[18]  Ben Matthews,et al.  Speculative Designs for Emergent Personal Data Trails: Signs, Signals and Signifiers , 2020, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[19]  Alessandro Soro,et al.  The Adventures of Older Authors: Exploring Futures through Co-Design Fictions , 2019, CHI.

[20]  John C.-I. Chuang,et al.  Emotional Biosensing , 2018, Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact..

[21]  Deborah Lupton,et al.  Feeling your data: Touch and making sense of personal digital data , 2017, New Media Soc..

[22]  Richmond Y. Wong,et al.  Real-Fictional Entanglements: Using Science Fiction and Design Fiction to Interrogate Sensing Technologies , 2017, Conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

[23]  David S. Kirk,et al.  Designing Documentary Informatics , 2017, Conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

[24]  James Pierce,et al.  Dark Clouds, Io&#!+, and [Crystal Ball Emoji]: Projecting Network Anxieties with Alternative Design Metaphors , 2017, Conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

[25]  Peter C. Wright,et al.  Anti-Solutionist Strategies: Seriously Silly Design Fiction , 2016, CHI.

[26]  Andy Crabtree,et al.  A Day in the Life of Things in the Home , 2016, CSCW.

[27]  Amon Rapp,et al.  Narrating the quantified self , 2015, UbiComp/ISWC Adjunct.

[28]  David Sweeney,et al.  Data-in-Place: Thinking through the Relations Between Data and Community , 2015, CHI.

[29]  C. Bottici.  Imaginal Politics: Images Beyond Imagination and the Imaginary , 2014 .

[30]  Matthew Chalmers,et al.  Personal tracking as lived informatics , 2014, CHI.

[31]  Stefan Saroiu,et al.  Home automation in the wild: challenges and opportunities , 2011, CHI.

[32]  David A. Kirby,et al.  The Future is Now , 2010 .

[33]  Paul Dourish,et al.  Yesterday’s tomorrows: notes on ubiquitous computing’s dominant vision , 2007, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

[34]  Phoebe Sengers,et al.  Making by making strange: Defamiliarization and the design of domestic technologies , 2005, TCHI.

[35]  S. Marshall.  Modern Social Imaginaries , 2005 .

[36]  B. Halpern.  Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life , 2000 .

[37]  C. Friend.  Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life , 1998 .

[38]  Paul P. Maglio,et al.  On Distinguishing Epistemic from Pragmatic Action , 1994, Cogn. Sci..

[39]  J. Drucker.  Materiality, Data Epistemology and Enunciation Visualization and Interpretation. Humanistic Approaches to Display , 2022 .

[40]  Noura Howell,et al.  Emotional Biosensing: Exploring Critical Alternatives , 2018 .

[41]  D. Robinson.  Freedom dreams: The black radical imagination. , 2003 .