Now that I had decided what type of data was going to be collected, to be exposed in my project, I felt it was necessary to understand how the users perceived these types of data. Therefore I created a questionnaire to gain an insight into this. If I had waited to understand this when the data was in the interface, I would have been too late for me to make any changes.
The questionnaire is all about making inferences, as this is the user's end goal in my interface. I included four images captured from CCTV cameras, one screenshot from Google Timeline, five days worth of sleep data collected using a smartwatch, and a workday worth of smartphone activity. I did ask for the respondent's age so I could understand how different age groups may provide different inferences.
The way I introduced the questionnaire was short and simple. I did not want to give too much away of what I was looking for from the responses. I left this broad as I wanted the respondents to interpret it in their own way. This lead to some really interesting inferences being made.
The inferences
I have included a few responses:
Question 1: What can you infer from this image?
Quite broad responses here. Some people were using data such as the time and data to tie together and make inferences based on them. People were picking up on the type of clothes the subject was wearing, whether they looked like casualwear. From this the inferred what the person may be doing.
Question 2: What can you infer from this image?
Some unusual inferences I wasn't expecting, such as trash day because the bins could be seen in the shot. Again, commenting on the fashion choices made by the subject.
Question 3: What can you infer from this image?
Question 4: What can you infer from this image?
Question 5: What can you infer from this image?
Reading the responses to the sleep data was interesting as I feel this is extremely personal. Many commented to the similar going to sleep and wake up times. From this, they could infer the subject may have had somewhere to be in the early mornings.
Question 6: What can you infer from this image?
At this point, a respondent was connecting the questions to one another. For example, the CCTV image and the screenshot of Google Timeline. They could infer that the subject worked at Cyberdog since they recognised their clothing and could see the subject spend over nine hours there on a weekend.
Question 7: What can you infer from this image?
Where is Capitalism?
Considering I made no mention of the topic I was exploring, Surveillance Capitalism, I didn't receive inferences such as, 'this person likes wearing Nike shoes'. In retrospect, it would have been better to get them to make an inference, and then promote something that ties to that inference. This would make the whole process more Surveillance Capitalism whereas at the moment this is missing.
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