PROJECT DETAILS

Advisor: Peter Scupelli

COLLABORATORS

3 Designers - Deepika Dixit, Jisoo Shon, Jiyoung Ohn

ROLE

Research: Interviews, Synthesis and Problem Definition, Workshop Design, Participant Workbooks, Card Sorting

Design: Concept Development, System Design, Wireframing, Visualization, low-fi UI

Others: Defining Vision and Strategy, Facilitation, Project Management, Multi-level Perspective

TOOLS

Illustrator, Photoshop, Adobe XD, Premiere Pro

category

UX Research   |   System Design

overview

Our future is becoming increasingly digital and deeply intertwined with data. This is also raising the concern for Data Privacy.

the context

Varied perspectives, Universal concern.

End users are rarely aware of the data practices hidden behind the convenient and 'free' use of apps. Even when they have some awareness, their perceptions are different based on their socio-economic status, professions, or cultural contexts. However, the big tech has made this a universal concern.

the challenge and opportunity

Users lack autonomy over their digital data.

Users, or 'Data Makers', generate data through their macro and micro-interactions online. The companies, or Data Takers, use this data to monitor and target the makers, often without their explicit consent, This creates an unbalanced relationship between the two, where the Data Makers lack awareness as well as autonomy over their data.

iPrivacy is an exemplar of what should be integral to every OS and is situated in the near 'preferable' future.

01. System Design

Under this system, an independent regulatory body modulates the data practices of the Data Takers (service companies and/or government). The takers generate a set of preferences for the user data they’d like to access. The regulatory body deliberates over it and suggests changes if needed. The Data Takers thus generate a final set of preferences that is shared with users. 

02. OS Feature

Data Makers set their data preferences for what they are comfortable giving access to by creating their own privacy policy. This policy functions as the single point of reference for all apps. Therefore the Data Maker is notified of the mismatches between their policy and that of the respective Data Takers. This transparency gives them the autonomy to make a decision as they see fit.

Check out the concept video below ↴

YOUR Data, YOUR Decision!

Generate your own Privacy Policy applicable for all apps!

Use iOS's centralized feature to generate your personalized privacy policy. Answer simple questions regarding your preferences and data concerns.

Changed your mind? Change your preferences!

We understand that preferences change, view and update your policy anytime. You may also help out a friend by sharing your privacy policy with them.

Manage your Digital Persona and Footprint.

Access, review and modify your digital persona by managing the tags that different apps have used to categorize you.

Find Alternatives!

Review all apps that don't match your privacy policy and find aletrnatives.

Keep up to date for conflicts with your policy!

Get notified of conflicts with your preferences or changes in a company's privacy policy.  Choose to give limited access to any similar policy.

Scroll down for key Process milestones 👇🏽

process highlights

scoping an open ended brief

This project was facilitated by The Index Project, a Danish nonprofit that awards grants to innovators who leverage design methodologies for solving the problems that matter. The brief was to ‘design to improve life' and create a product, service, or system that has a realistic chance of adoption if instantiated. 

This open-ended brief had negligible constraints and an undefined scope. As a team of 4 international students, we decided to work on a search field that would improve lives of people irrespective of who they are and where there are.

Data Privacy is a growing concern that would improve people’s lives, irrespective of who they are and where they are.

Territory Mapping

Before jumping into user research, we conducted a literature review and exploratory research to understand the key stakeholders involved in digital data transactions. Based on the research, we created a territory map to understand the relationships between these stakeholders.

expert interviews

The territory map was followed by in-depth interviews with the stakeholders which gave us 4 key insights and identify the appropriate means of intervention.

Key insights

01. There is a lack of transparency in the data transaction process.

02. Unilateral and unbalanced trade between Data makers and Data Takers.

03. Having agency over data is more important than data ownership.

04. Even if users have some awareness, there is a gap between awareness and exercising agency.

PRoblem definition and research question

How might we create a balanced relationship between the Data Makers and the Data Takers who collect/use this data?

generative workshop

This HMW question meant we should intervene in the blurred boundary between the Data Makers and Data Takers. We decided that it would be ideal to design a participatory workshop to co-ideate with both these groups. We designed the first version of the workshop and tested it with one group while simultaneously looking for the right audience. We realized quietly quickly that:

Access to Data Takers is hard.

So we had to work quickly to adapt our goal and work with Data Makers. Although not exactly what we wanted, we realized that we could use this as an opportunity to dive deeper into the mental models and habits of Data Makers. This led to a second iteration of the workshop which we tested with a different group in the design studio.

Recruiting the right demographic

Young adults have grown up in the digital age and are the future workforce. They are the future, and the future is data. We decided to recruit this key demographic for our workshop as data privacy forms an important aspect of their lives.

The 10 final participants were CMU students from undergraduate and graduate programs. We were careful in filtering the participants being mindful of the fact that some departments that deal with data regularly might have greater exposure to the subject than the others and that we needed a diverse mix.

Workbook as a stepping stone to the Workshop

We saw it fit to understand the participants’ level of understanding of privacy before they came to the workshop. The workbook was the size of half an A4, printed on office paper and with an overall minimal design. The intent behind these decisions was to ensure that this was not seen as an artifact by the participants and hence they felt free to write or scribble the answers as they pleased. In terms of the content it had two key elements:

1. Starting from the idea of privacy in the physical realm to introduce the concept of digital privacy and data agency.
2. Help participants to reflect on their digital patterns before coming to the workshop.

Workshop Design

We designed the workshop around 3 digital services that our target demographic would be familiar with - Venmo- a payment app, Uber- a ride-hailing app, Youtube- a video sharing platform. The 10 participants of the workshop were divided into 3 groups and assigned one of the three services.

Part 1: Each participant was provided a deck of value cards specific to the service they were assigned. They were also provided with blank cards to write any additional values that were relevant for them in using the service. The participants were then asked to prioritize these value cards arrange the cards-starting from the most important to least important. The goal was to understand what participants considered crucial with respect to the use of the service and why. This was followed by a share out and discussion within each group.

 Part 2: Each group was introduced to a dystopian scenario involving privacy violations specific to the assigned service. They were then asked to reconsider their choices and re-arrange their prioritization if they'd like. This was followed by a share-out and discussion within each group.

 Part 3: Lastly, we opened up the conversation at each table to talk about early ideas that the participants think would help. A variety of themes came up like users' access to sell their data at will, the use of technologies like block-chain, the need for protocols and aggregators, the extent of agency and ownership, etc.

PARTICIPANT insights

01. Users interpreted privacy to mean the security of their data, particularly for financial details and search history.

02. Users didn’t comprehend how data could be used for behavioral tracking and manipulation.

03. Even if they were aware of data collection; they were unaware of the types of data collected and how it is used.

04. Users would like a convenient method to exercise control over their data.

Synthesizing these insights to come up with a design direction was the hardest part of our entire process. We had hours of critical discussions and disagreements about what was important to address this issue of privacy as well as what is achievable. One of the ideas was to look at this from a Product design lens wherein users can download an app to become more aware of their data. The other idea was to look at it from a System Design lens to propose something game-changing. We struggled for days but eventually decided to find a way to do both.

revised research question

How might we enable Data Makers to have awareness as well as agency over their own digital data?

ideation and prototyping

Envisioning a Multi-level perspective

Card Sorting for Components and User Flow

Having decided on creating a System, we used early wireframing to brainstorm basic components of a user flow. We refined these early wireframes and the user flows simultaneously to conduct a card sorting exercise with 6 participants. This helped us arrive at the final user flow which we used to create high fidelity UI.