CHI 2023 Workshop: Questions, Conversations, Things, and Poems

Data as a Material for Design

The Four “Known” and The Six “Unknown” Questions

The workshop revolved around two sets of questions. The first set, the four “known” questions were generated by the organisers and ground the initial discussions prior to, and during, the workshop. The second set, the six “unknown” questions, was created through the workshop and engendered the discussions of the latter parts of the workshop.

The Four “Known”:

Which specific tensions arise in your domain of research/practice when you shift your focus from analysing data to creating with data? (e.g., health, judicial, education, etc)	What (data) is registered and what is not?: Absence, gaps, and acts of deletion in relation to data aggregation. Who and/or what is included and/or excluded from particular data sets?
With what concepts, methods or epistemologies can we take into account that designing with data seems to always come after the fact (i.e., after initialization/ capture)?	What is data quality for design? Which level of expression of quality is needed?

The Six “Unknown”:

How do we design with no data, missing data, made-up data, or inaccurate data?	What is the space of experience, dialogue, design, tension, storytelling, points of view and conversants?
How can designers acknowledge the layers of translation in data collection?	How do we design the tempo and temporality of the data collection and representation in our relations to data?
When do data points become information? What is data entropy in that process? What is added and what is lost in this translation?	How are negative space-related data qualities (what we value in data), in creative approaches to data?

Live Miro Boards

Before the workshop, participants were given the opportunity to populate two miro boards. The live connection to these boards (which can still be added to) is below.