Data, Design and Digital Civics …whatever that is!

Data, Design and Civics: An Exploratory Study of Civic Tech

Kirsten Boehner and Carl DiSalvo’s paper looks at perceptions of Civic Tech in Atlanta and poses questions such as “what driving questions should shape our research into and the development of civic tech?”[p.1] and “how do practitioners on the ground mediate the divide” [p.2] between the compelling promise of civic tech to aide in government and public life, and its shortcomings and darker side? The research is presented as a “stepping off point for questioning what civic tech encompasses and how civics and technology configure each other” [p.2]. I really enjoyed reading it and there are several clear implications for my own research. My work involves collaborating with similar stakeholders as identified in this paper, working with them to collect data and design a meaningful interface that helps them understanding and translate the info. The ultimate aim is of course encouraging action from the council – all while not overplaying or over interpreting the meaning of the data. It’s beginning to become clear to me what a tightrope this is to walk and this paper is a timely discussion of some of these ideas.

Boehner et al. asked stakeholders to discuss the interplay of data, design and civics. They started with an initial contact at the Mayor’s office, which led to 13 one on one interviews with people representing 10 organisations. Participants were classified into three categories – Connectors, Providers and Volunteers with just over half speaking with more than one of these “voices”. The results highlight several emerging themes: I have picked out several that are of particular relevance to my developing area of research which I discuss below.

Data – who owns it, what does it mean?

Data is perceived differently by people in different positions. Volunteer voices tended to discuss the lack of access to data and the need to work with Providers to get access. For their part Providers mentioned that they don’t have access to all the data that it is assumed they do, and often the data they do have isn’t collated in a way that is timely, user friendly and actionable. This introduces questions about design and the interaction between data and design. Simply collecting and presenting data isn’t enough and this won’t necessarily be viewed and understood much less used to inform better decision making. As one Provider put it “data was collected for data’s sake … it wasn’t used to inform decision making, it wasn’t tied to priorities, it was just a lot of data.” A connector also noted the issue of knowing what to do with the data. “It’s a matter of knowing how to use data to make good decisions”.

One Connector thought that “the technology has lept ahead of people’s ability to use the data… they just want the exact story but sometimes it’s not as simple as a number.” And sometimes “people don’t even know what stories they need to tell. That’s the hardest part for people to grasp. We can create all the systems to analyse a gazillion data points but you still need somebody to translate that.” So the ability to translate data into a coherent story is a key step to making data actionable. Where data is not simple and does not translate easily into a simple story, the design of any interface will also need to reflect that. The interaction between design and data is one of the key themes of the paper; they overlap, and inform each other. As one participant noted “it’s really tough to unlink the data conversation from the design conversation”.  Working out how to make the two work together will be one of the key challenges of my research.

How can we work with Providers such as local councils to develop a mutually beneficial relationship around data?

There were two key messages that I took from the paper with regard to relationships with councils. Firstly, that not all councils may be open to working with us. One provider noted that the culture of innovation is not really dependant on generating good ideas so much as the institution’s “tolerance for risk” [p.6] That’s something that’s not easily modifiable from the outside and something to bear in mind when approaching my contacts in local councils.

Perhaps a more fundamental issue may be the extent to which our aims and intentions are compatible with those of the councils. For example one Connector/Volunteer voice said the following “As a civic hacking group, you want to partner with the government. You want their support. You need their data. But at the same time if that data can be used to hold them accountable, they might not like it, it could ruin your partnership, they can shut you out.” [p.4] While there is a potential route my research could take which would not involve working with local councils, the clearest way to making the change that I want to see is if we can work together as partners so this is a key issue for me.

Sustainability

Finally, I want to mention the issue of sustainability which the paper touches upon. “Things get built and there are success stories. But then 3 months later it’s like where is that product now…?”[p.3] As described in this paper this is an area of concern for providers such as councils it’s clearly important to consider if any project aims to making a lasting difference. For me it raises the question How do I ensure this does not happen in my own work given the temporary nature of research agendas and a bias towards novelty? Perhaps taking an action research approach, working with a wide group of stakeholders and identifying and training partners who may be able to take this on early in the project may help to mitigate this but I am certain that it will another central challenges for my research… I’ll add it to the list!

Experience, an experience or Co-Experience

During last week’s session on Experience I read Jodi Forlizzi and Katja Battarbee’s paper entitled Understanding Experience in Interactive Systems. The paper sets out a Framework for viewing User-Product interactions which identifies 3 different types of interactions: fluent, cognitive and expressive. Fluent represents automatic, and skilled interactions, cognitive interactions by contrast require a focus on the operation at hand and may entail confusion or error. Expressive interactions are those in which user forms a relationship with the product.

The framework the authors present also defines three different types of experience. An experience, experience and co-experience. An experience is defined as something that has a definable beginning or end, an experience is less time bounded and associated with a constant stream of “self-talk”. Co-experience (unsurprisingly) involves interacting with a product with others and is associated with “creating meaning together through product use”. While it was an interesting exercise to deconstruct possible interpretations of experience I felt that these definitions added little to my understanding of how users experience products and how in turn we should design for them.

One of the issues raised for me by the paper is that many types of experience can be classified as more than one type of experience depending on how it is framed. This made me wonder how useful this framework would be in practice. For example, reading the paper was a co-experience with my colleagues, and perhaps added something to my experience of reading about experience. Overall though it was not an experience to remember.