Data Epics




In the Data Epics, fiction writers use data from home IoT devices to create short stories for their home dwellers to read. The project investigates how home dwellers might encounter and make sense of their home IoT data and these short stories capitalize on the ways people understand complex situations and concepts through narrative structures. We argue that for the IoT to actualize its promise of moving dwellings closer to a 'smart home', it is imperative that home dwellers become empowered to understand what data is collected as part of IoT services, what assumptions can be inferred from the data and the implications of these assumptions.



Data Epics takes a radically different approach to presenting home data: by turning data into short fiction stories created by fiction writers. It is the start of a journey into more nuanced, messy, lively and situated ways of seeing data.






Collaborators
Heidi Biggs, Gabrielle Benabdallah, Stephanie Tang Waldrop


Grants
National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant # 1947696
2018 H2 Mozilla Research Grant


Publication
Desjardins, A., and Biggs, H. (2021)
Data Epics: Embarking on Literary Journeys with Home Internet of Things Data, In Proc. CHI'21, New York, ACM Press. (acceptance rate: 26.3%)