Richmond Y. Wong

Real-Fictional Entanglements: Using Science Fiction and Design Fiction to Interrogate Sensing Technologies

We present a set of design fiction proposals related to sensing and tracking technologies, inspired by the 2013 science fiction novel The Circle. By creating design proposals that explore connections between the novels imagined world and our present and future realities, we show that we are able to explore, expand, and articulate a range of social, technical, and legal configurations of the future. This paper contributes a set of design fiction proposals and a case study of a design project that uses design fiction inspired by a science fiction text to engage issues of privacy and surveillance. The paper also provides a new approach to creating design fiction, by using science fiction texts as a starting point.

These aren't the autonomous drones you're looking for: investigating privacy concerns through concept videos

Regulators and privacy advocates increasingly demand that privacy be protected through the technical design of products and services, as well as through organizational procedures and policies. Privacy research by computer scientists and engineers are producing insights and techniques that empower a new professional in the technology sector---the privacy engineer. Despite great enthusiasm for this approach, there has been little effort to explore if and how this new direction in privacy protection is influencing the design of products. Understanding how design is being used to protect privacy requires analysis of sociotechnical systems, not de-contextualized technical artifacts. We analyze how privacy concerns in public policy debates about drones are raised and addressed in two concept videos from 2013 and 2015 developed by Amazon that depict fictional scenarios involving its future automated drone package delivery service. Drawing on design and communications methods we find that the concept videos reveal increased attention over time to privacy concerns. Our findings offer some evidence that privacy concerns are influencing Amazons product and service design. Representations about the service offered in the 2015 video shape consumer expectations about how it addresses privacy concerns. While the videos reviewed do not represent an existing product, we discuss the shifting role such concept videos might play when Amazons drone delivery service comes to market. As consumer facing representations of product functionality, concept videos, like other public statements, if misleading could form the basis of a deceptive statements claim by the Federal Trade Commission or state consumer protection agency. Finally, reflecting on our review, we suggest that concept videos are a useful tool for engaging regulators and other stakeholders in contextually specific considerations of when and how to enlist product and system design to protect privacy.

An Interface without A User: An Exploratory Design Study of Online Privacy Policies and Digital Legalese

Privacy policies are critical to understanding ones rights on online platforms, yet few users read them. In this pictorial, we approach this as a systemic issue that is part a failure of interaction design. We provided a variety of people with printed packets of privacy policies, aiming to tease out this forms capabilities and limitations as a design interface, to understand peoples perception and uses, and to critically imagine pragmatic revisions and creative alternatives to existing privacy policies.

Speculative Design in HCI: From Corporate Imaginations to Critical Orientations

In this chapter we analyze the rhetorical work of speculative design methods to advance third wave agendas in HCI. We contrast the history of speculative design that is often cited in HCI papers from the mid 2000s onward that frames speculative design as a critical methodological intervention in HCI linked to radical art practice and critical theory, with the history of how speculative design was introduced to HCI publications through corporate design research initiatives from the RED group at Xerox PARC. Our argument is that third wave, critically oriented, speculative design “works” in HCI because it is highly compatible with other forms of conventional corporate speculation (e.g. concept videos and scenario planning). This reading of speculative design re-centers the “criticality” from the method itself to its ability to advance agendas that challenge dominant practices in technology design. We will look at how practitioners trade on the rhetorical ambiguity of future oriented design practices to introduce these ideas in contexts where they may not otherwise have much purchase. Our chapter concludes with a call for critically oriented practitioners in this space to share their experiences navigating speculative design ambiguity and to document the disciplinary history of the method’s development.

Interrogating Biosensing in Everyday Life

This workshop seeks to expand our understanding and imaginations regarding the possible roles biosensors (sensors measuring humans) can-and should-play in everyday life. By applying a critical lens to issues of interpretation, representation, and experience around biosensing and biosensors, we aim to shape research agendas within DIS, and generate new recommendations for designers working with biosensors or their data.