Data-Things: Digital Fabrication Situated within Participatory Data Translation Activities
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Research paper presentation at CHI 2015 in Seoul link to paper: https://makingdatathings.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/p2467.pdf
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Data-Things: Digital Fabrication Situated within Participatory Data Translation Activities
- 1. Data-Things Digital Fabrication Situated within Participatory Data Translation Activities Bettina Nissen | John Bowers Culture Lab . School of Arts and Cultures . Newcastle University . UK
- 2. Data-Things • Situated digital fabrication within shared, social data translation activities • Encouraging reflection and conversation within specific contexts • Receiving personal meaning through participants’ active involvement
- 3. Background Trajectory Situating fabrication within an exhibition trajectory as souvenir making activities to enrich audience experiences [Nissen et al.] ‘Social Fabrication’ as shared, public experience that stimulates conversation [Ogawa et al.] Data as Material Through personal data representations of physical activity this design space is opened out supporting the increasing research that will “print things from data” [Khot et al.] Nissen, B., Bowers, J., Wright, P. et al. Volvelles, Domes and Wristbands: Embedding Digital Fabrication within a Visitor's Trajectory of Engagement. In Proc. DIS '14. ACM (2014). 825-834. Ogawa, H., Mara, M., Lindinger, C., et al. Shadowgram: A Case Study for Social Fabrication through Interactive Fabrication in Public Spaces. In Proc. TEI’12. ACM (2012). 57-60. Khot, R., Hjorth, L. and Mueller, F. Understanding Physical Activity through 3D Printed Material Artifacts. In Proc. CHI '14. ACM (2014). 3835-3844.
- 4. Background Trajectory Situating fabrication within an exhibition trajectory as souvenir making activities to enrich audience experiences [Nissen et al.] ‘Social Fabrication’ as shared, public experience that stimulates conversation [Ogawa et al.] Data as Material Through personal data representations of physical activity this design space is opened out supporting the increasing research that will “print things from data” [Khot et al.] Nissen, B., Bowers, J., Wright, P. et al. Volvelles, Domes and Wristbands: Embedding Digital Fabrication within a Visitor's Trajectory of Engagement. In Proc. DIS '14. ACM (2014). 825-834. Ogawa, H., Mara, M., Lindinger, C., et al. Shadowgram: A Case Study for Social Fabrication through Interactive Fabrication in Public Spaces. In Proc. TEI’12. ACM (2012). 57-60. Khot, R., Hjorth, L. and Mueller, F. Understanding Physical Activity through 3D Printed Material Artifacts. In Proc. CHI '14. ACM (2014). 3835-3844.
- 5. First study Conference Tweets as Data-Things
- 6. individual’s tweets with the hashtag #TDC14 Conference Tweets as Data-Things Exploring how online social interactions could be translated into physical forms to encourage offline conversations overall amount of tweets with the same hashtag
- 7. Twitter username translates tweet data into digitally generated data-thing which was then 3D printed in situ Conference Tweets as Data-Things
- 8. Wearable ‘clip’ design as a suitable companion to conference material as well as visual clues for conversation Conference Tweets as Data-Things
- 9. “I’m not very good at talking to people at conferences if I don’t know anyone but this [shape] gave me something to talk to people about and start a conversation.” Conference Tweets as Data-Things
- 10. “It’s good that it’s abstract so you can make up your own interpretation” Conference Tweets as Data-Things
- 11. “Our awesome (and unique) 3d printed clip is now installed on our documentation. Thanks” Conference Tweets as Data-Things
- 12. Second study Craft Movements as Data-Things
- 13. Craft Movements as Data-Things Smith, T., Bowen, S., Nissen, B., Hook, J., Verhoeven, A., Bowers, J., Wright, P., Olivier, P. Exploring Gesture Sonification to Support Reflective Craft Practice. In Proc. CHI'2015, ACM (2015)
- 14. Craft Movements as Data-Things Sensor attached to the end of the crochet hook to stream movement data
- 15. Craft Movements as Data-Things Initial translations of movement data into thread engravings were questioned “Why doesn’t it look more like crochet?”
- 16. Craft Movements as Data-Things Concentric graph translations showing movement data more legibly while still adapting some of the craft aesthetics of crochet patterns
- 17. Craft Movements as Data-Things “I was thinking about my crochet, I do keep my hands quite still and quite close and that’s maybe why it [the shape] is kind of quite narrow”
- 18. Craft Movements as Data-Things Data being visibly captured on screen while crochet is performed
- 19. Craft Movements as Data-Things Participants laser cutting their designed shapes
- 20. Craft Movements as Data-Things “Going through the whole process of seeing it happening, seeing the difference, how it looked on screen, deciding and then printing [laser cutting]. So it feels like it kind of has more meaning.”
- 21. “it represented me struggling and (more or less) succeeding to learn a skill I'd always admired and associated with my granny and mum...I like that it visualises a tradition and is written in secret crochet code and placed on my mantel piece for me to feel proud of” Craft Movements as Data-Things
- 23. 1. Data Translation as Meaning Making • Relationship between the active involvement in the translation of data and the meaning invested in the artefacts • Participation in data generation, translation and fabrication processes enriches participants’ opportunities for meaning making
- 24. • Balance between meaningful data engagement and a level of ambiguity • Stimulating future uses and meaning that is mindful to the specific needs of the context 2. Situating Data in a Trajectory of Use
- 25. • Data is not a fixed but a malleable medium open to interpretation, translation and use • Active role of the participant in the making of the artefact and its meaning • Recognising our subjective role in the design of data translations 3. From Data Materialisation to Data Translation
- 26. We speculate on the possibility of ‘hybrid practices which combine craftwork with research practice’ in novel ways. 4. From Mutual Curiosity to Hybrid Research Practices
- 27. We speculate on the possibility of ‘hybrid practices which combine craftwork with research practice’ in novel ways. 4. From Mutual Curiosity to Hybrid Research Practices
- 28. Data-Things receive meaning through the participation in a shared making process, more specifically the data translation and fabrication processes 5. Data-Things
- 29. In Conclusion
- 30. Data-Things • Situated in shared, social data translation and fabrication activities • Encouraging reflection and conversation within their contexts • Receiving their personal meaning through participants active involvement
- 31. Thank you very much. With additional thanks to our colleagues Andrew Garbett . Tom Smith . Gavin Wood | Culture Lab . Newcastle University Arno Verhoeven | University of Edinburgh Bettina Nissen | Culture Lab . Newcastle University b.s.nissen@newcastle.ac.uk | @bettinanissen | www.data-things.com
Editor's Notes
- My name is Bettina Nissen from Newcastle University and I am presenting our paper ‘Data-Things: Digital Fabrication Situated within Participatory Data Translation Activities’ and I would to thank my co-author John Bowers at this point for his invaluable contribution.
- With this paper, we are introducing our notion of data things that we have developed through two design-led case studies which were concerned with extending perspectives on physical data representation and digital fabrication in HCI. We aim to explain how we have arrived at this concept of data-things as - situating digital fabrication within shared, social data translation activities, encouraging reflection and conversation within specific contexts and investing personal meaning through participants’ active involvement in the making of an artefact.
- In part, this paper is leading on from previous work where we have situated digital fabrication within an exhibition trajectory as souvenir making activity to enrich audience experiences. While that work focused on fabrication in a visitor trajectory of engagement, the projects I’m introducing today are not only an extension of this work but are also following what Ogawa et al introduce as Social Fabrication, highlighting the shared and social potential of fabrication to stimulate conversations and discussion. >>
- >> An increasing area of research in HCI is extending this discourse around social and shared practices of fabrication into physical data representation or as we here suggest, data translations, to investigate how and why we should “print things from data” to engage people, as suggested by Khot et al. I’m now going to show how we extend on these concepts by describing and discussing two design-led studies both situated in different social contexts.
- Our first study was situated in a conference programme at a national technology conference called thinking digital.
- Throughout the conference every year conference delegates form part of a fairly close knit community which engages with one another extensively online, in particular via twitter. For this reason, we were interested in exploring how these online conversations could be translated into physical forms in order to engage delegates in offline conversations. After a series of design explorations we developed a custom shape generating software that would create 3D shapes from the delegates tweet behaviour. The unique shape is generated by incorporating and creating two graphs of the amount of tweets over 24h, the inner showing the individual’s amount of tweets with the conference’s hashtag and the outer graphing the overall conference tweets in comparison.
- Attendees could create their personalised conference tweet translations throughout the conference by simply entering their Twitter username to generate their shape on screen which was then 3D printed live for the attendees to watch while engaging in conversation.
- We developed this wearable clip design for two reasons: (1) to keep the artefact suitable for the conference context, where delegates already wear name badges while also taking into account the time constraint of the fabrication technology itself in terms of size and shape of the artefact. And (2) we wanted the shapes to be wearable in order to act as visual clues to support engagement with other delegates while leaving the artefact itself somewhat ambiguous and open for different applications and uses. I’m now briefly going to highlight a small number of findings relating to this study but would like to refer to the paper for further details.
- As you could see in the last slide, conference attendees were wearing their shapes in different ways but they also used them to compare their twitter behaviour through the printed artefacts with one attendee telling us that he is “not very good at talking to people at conferences if he doesn’t know anyone but this shape gave him something to talk to people about and start a conversation.“ Not only did the artefacts instigated conversation, but were additionally …
- … used to create different interpretations, e.g. this attendee showing his twitter fangs, another imagining a murder mystery or a participant more personally describing their data as “embodied tweets about technology, innovation, beer and cake”. This suggests what one participant emphasised, that “It’s good that the design is abstract so you can make up your own interpretation”.
- In some cases, the created data-thing found different uses beyond the conference, for example one company placed their unique artefact quite dominantely and proudly on their business logo in their office.
- < 5min // While our experience at the conference setting gave promising indication that people shared conversations and invested meaning in their data-things, we moved on to a longer term, more focused setting to explore this potential in more depth. The limitations of the short term engagement with participants and duration times of ‘live’ fabrication in such a public setting, led us to explore a more iterative design process in a more personal setting extending participation to additional aspects of the translation process. We therefor selected a case study translating movement data from craft practitioners into a range of artefacts which allowed us to to engage participants with their data in numerous ways and develop a range of different data translations and activities.
- More specifically we worked with a local group of 6 crochet practitioners over an extended period of time where we experimented with different ways of engaging the practitioners with data collected from their movements. Over the course of roughly 3 month, we also worked with colleagues who were interested in exploring sound as reflective data feedback tool for craft practice. However, I won’t describe these sonification explorations here as they are the subject of another paper.
- Throughout our workshops we collected data via a small accelerometer/gyroscope device that we attached to the practitioners crochet hook as least invasive in order to stream data to a laptop. We explored not only different ways of translating this data into physical artefacts but also different levels of interactive engagement and participation. We iteratively developed a set of artefacts and activities to explore in response to practitioners’ feedback.
- In an initial design we translated the accelerometer data as coordinates drawing out the movements as threads which we then fabricated into a range of different materials to also get insights into materiality of fabrication in relation to craft practice. In this first step, the participants were not involved in the translation or design process and although the different shapes lead to conversation and discussion of their crochet techniques, one participant raised her concern “why doesn’t it look more like crochet?” which we considered for our next design iteration
- In this second design we chose to translate the x, y, z accelerometer data into concentric radial graphs or data rings as a more direct, potentially more legible translation of the data by still creating a unique shape that adapted some of the aesthetics of the craft, similar to doily crochet patterns. When comparing these translations with the first iteration…
- … participants found these more ‘legible’ as they could almost see the stitches which allowed them to better reflect on their techniques or practice in correlation with others, for example one participant states: “I was thinking about my crochet, I do keep my hands quite still and quite close and that’s maybe why it [the shape] is kind of quite narrow”
- After exploring these pre-designed data translations, we took the participants through the entire process of interactive data generation, selection and fabrication as transparent as possible. Overall this gave them a better understanding of the data capturing and translating processes...
- …as well as the creative/aesthetic choices we made in our designs. They had creative input into the forms and materials they wanted to make. The participants drove this design process of their own data-things and were involved in the more transparent process of data generation, selection, translation and fabrication which lead to more meaningful artefacts…
- As one participant stated “Going through the whole process of seeing it happening, seeing the difference, how it looked on screen, deciding and then laser cutting, it felt like it has more meaning.” // <10 min
- Beyond the duration of these workshops, we also found that the artefacts in some instances did take on more personal meaning than we had envisioned, with one participant describing her artefact as “ representing her struggling and more or less succeeding to learn a skill she had always admired and associated with her granny or mum. She liked that it visualises a tradition and is written in secret crochet code, placed on her mantel piece for her to feel proud of ”. This is highlighting a very personal meaning and emotional value that these data-things stimulated.
- To summarise, I will draw on the more in depth findings in our paper, joining 5 key threads we have formulated from these two contrasting studies…
- Firstly, we have found that participants in both studies made their own interpretations and created meaning throughout the making processes in different ways highlighting the important relationship between the active involvement in the translation of data and the meaning invested in the tangible artefacts and the overall experience. Although data translations were encountered more ‘ready-made’ in the conference setting than the real-time data generation in the craft context, a curiosity and interest in the translation processes we designed in both cases indicates that the Participation in data generation, translation and fabrication processes enriches participants’ opportunities for meaning making
- By reflecting on conversations with the participants about the creative and aesthetic judgments involved in data capture, selection, scaling, mapping, display and fabrication of their data-things in addition to possible future uses imagined or suggested by participants (printing blocks, brooches or coasters) we found that a balance between meaningful data engagement and a level of ambiguity to stimulate future uses and meaning is important to situate data in a trajectory of use that is mindful to the specific needs of the setting.
- This led us to consider our work as data translations and I wish to clarify here our reasoning for this term rather than using more common phrases of ‘data materialisation’ or physical data representations. We refrain from using the simplistic divide of ‘material’ and ‘immaterial’ because it often reduces the digital or virtual to the immaterial, and artefacts as fixed, material embodiments of immaterial data. We don’t consider our data-things as fixed representations of experiences, reflections and conversations they may inscribe, but as more personal interpretations. In that sense, we see data not as fixed but as malleable medium open to translations and interpretation. With this perspective we not only suggest a more active role of the participant in the translation of their artefact, but we also recognise our active and subjective role in the interpretation of and design with this data.
- This prompted us to further reflect on the overall, extended engagement we conducted as part of our research practice. In particular in the extended second study, we found that we aesthetically learned and were inspired by the practitioners just as much as they learned from our practice, materials and design ideas. Our approach of not merely printing out data we had gathered from ‘measuring’ participants’ practice but more actively and creatively engaging them in what we have come to consider as our ‘craft of data translations’ fostered a more reciprocal relationship. For example, one participant making a block print from her data-thing in her print studio, which you can see here. >>
- Other research in HCI has considered hybrid craft practices combining, mediating or facilitating traditional craft practices with or through digital technologies. We however speculate that the practitioners’ curiosity in our research practices became increasingly reciprocal and intertwined highlighting the potential of ‘hybrid practices which combine craftwork with research practices’ in novel ways.
- Lastly, I would like to emphasise and explain the notion of data-things that we would like to introduce with this paper. This concept is extending perspectives from social sciences, such as Ingold, who argue deeper meaning is invested through partaking in the making processes of an artefact which shifts a mere, mass produced object to become a ‘living thing’ for someone through their participation in the making thereof, or in our case translation and fabrication. We believe that the conference attendees and crochet practitioners we worked with orient towards our artefacts as data-things by investing their own personal meaning through the direct involvement in the shared making of their data-thing.
- To conclude, we have shown with our work, that…
- … the notion of data-things is a novel approach to viewing physical data representations as participatory and meaningful practice and that by referring to our work as data things we hope to open out further conversation in HCI around data translations as richer, more participatory engagements of audiences with and through data. We would like to emphasise the qualities of data-things as – being situated in social, shared data translation and fabrication activities, - encouraging reflection and conversation for people within specific contexts and – receiving their personal meaning through people’s active involvement in their making.
- With additional thanks to our colleagues, …, for their help and advice in the development of this work. --- Thank you very much. QUESTIONS: What aspects of the designs makes the artefacts social? – comparability, shared making, abstract nature for personal interpretability How did people respond to the data? Did they agree or not? – twitter, ‘I tweeted more’ – came back later OR crochet – they liked their own shapes, “I don’t understand it” Participatory Design/Co-creation – Reciprocal Design? More of an exchange or back and forth… Materiality – craft practice… ?? We initially intended to investigate this as part of this project, but had difficulty to get partcipants to articulate this so we still think it’s interesting but needs a separate study. did data generation distract from their craft – performativity… Sonification – when analysing findings took different direction Future work? – other craft practices / more in hybrid practice /