What if your data could expire?
About:
BBC iPlayer collaborated with MA User Experience Design students as a part of our Micro UX Unit
Challenge:
To design a way to purge a digital hoard. Read the brief here
Impact:
Utilised the mental model of organising a kitchen to design a more nuanced and experiential approach to digital data storage that considers the varying value of data over time.
Client:
BBC iPlayer
My role:
Workshop Design User Research Prototyping
Timeline:
May 2024 - July 2024
Testimonials
Simon Roberts
Creative Director, BBC iPlayer
The thought behind it is quite interesting. The way you've shifted my mindset to think about a method of organising that naturally comes to my head is very interesting.
Dr Alistair Steele
Course Leader, MA User Experience Design
You have sythesised the experience of managing storage into something more pleasurable and social, while also starting a conversation about water consumption.
Secondary Research
What is digital hoarding?
Definition
Accumulation of digital files to the point of loss of perspective, which eventually results in stress and dis-organization (Neave et al, 2019).
Why do people hoard?
Digital hoarding is a response to the fear of letting things go, providing them with an emotional support for the fear of forgetting things(Vitale, Janzen and McGrenere, 2018).
Is it so bad to hold on?
By 2025, global data storage is projected to reach 175 zettabytes, demanding vast amounts of electricity and water to operate (Msiddiki et al., 2021).
What is purging
What is purging?
Purging is not just easy as clicking the deleting button. There are multiple levels of purging but only 2 levels of deletion is in a person’s hands! The data might still remain in company servers.
Redefining Purging
The organization of digital files to a level that restores perspective of stored data.
Interviews
Research Question:
How can our research be relevant to big organisations like BBC iPlayer?
Interview with Stanley Kubrik Archive
Interview
Archivist
40 mins
Stanley Kubrik Archive
How do Archives prevent hoarding?
Interview
Analysis
Insight
They have a proactive approach. Because they have a detailed and strict selecting and cataloging system, they maintain perspective of the data they accumulate.
Insight
The decision to delet data is a collaborative process.
Interview with Industry Expert
Interview
Web base information Manager
40 mins
What is the process of purging in a big organisation?
1.
Organisations like BBC iplayer have digital data hoards that are collaboratively created and managed.
2.
A big aspect of digital data purging involves collaborative decision making within different teams.
Workshop
Research objective
To study the patterns of behavior of a group as they collective take decision to purge their shared digital hoard.
Workshop Design
Shared data purging
6 (project partners)
1 hour
Unmoderated task
Each person interviewed differently to understand their perspective of their shared hoard
Collective session where the group decides to purge while researchers observes their behaviour.
The participants collective comes to decision on what shared data to preserve and what to discard.
Workshop Analysis
Journey Map
Mapping the hoard
The process journey and emotional journey of participants mapped
Workshop Insights
1.
Purging is associated with a lot of negative feelings like anxiousness, fear, overwhelm, etc.
2.
The motivation to organise the collective digital hoard is low without an outside trigger.
3.
Deleting feels daunting and scary because it means "letting go of data that's valuable"
4.
Even though everyone contributed, no one wanted to "own" the hoard
5.
Personal uncertainty amplifies the overwhelm of decision-making in a collective space.
Process Decision
Decided to address internal and personal uncertainty of letting go of digital data instead of collective decision-making, as personal uncertainty amplifies the overwhelm of collective decisions.
Ideation and Testing
“Deleting feels daunting and scary because it means letting go of data that's valuable"
How might we give a sense of closure while purging?
Data personification
5 participants
20 mins
What if your hoard had stories to tell you?
Hypothesis:
The talking hoard lets us know tells us their stories, providing closure and resulting in deletion/organising.
Observation:
Objects’ stories made them react and engage in the purging process, releaving the pressure of making decision.
Limitations:
Listening to stories are time consuming and personified hoard is not always relatable to participants.
“There is a lack of motivation and trigger to manage a hoard”
How might we provide a trigger for people to purge?
Data Mould
3 participants
30 mins
What if your data has an expiration date?
Hypothesis:
Shifting people’s mindset from deletion to preservation of data might trigger action.
Observation:
Using expiration time triggered them to take choose quickly what they want to keep
Limitations:
It is difficult to demonstrate real time experience since this process happens over a longer period of time.
Insight
Data storage typically defaults to preservation rather than deletion, requiring a person to spend mental effort to let go.
Research Question:
How does making automatic deletion the default affect digital hoarding behavior?
Mobile App Concept
Process Decision
Decided to frame data expiration as a contribution to carbon offsetting, to showcase a more positive experience of letting go of digital data.
Carbon Conscious Phone Gallery
Mobile App
18 participants
A carbon conscious phone gallery where images expire after a fixed time until explicitly chose to preserve by the user.
Iteration 1
Iteration 2
Logic:
The images have a limited lifespan, visually indicated by flowers increasing number of flowers as they approach expiration. The user must choose to preserve them before they are automatically deleted.
Observation:
Participants chose to keep only the most important images, as the micro-interaction of preserving them was effort-intensive.
Limitation:
This prototype could not demonstrate the real time experience, and participants could not relate to the pictures.
1.
Value of digital data varies over time for an individual.
2.
Users manage their data based on how valuable they perceive it as.
Varying value of data: A flight ticket thats was brought a month ago is required but not valuable until the day of the flight, after which it "expires".
"Digital data's value varies over time, making it hard for users to decide whether to let it go."
How might we enable users to intuitively grasp the value of their digital data?
Exploring Mental Models
Utilising existing patterns of behaviour: Organising the kitchen
Chose cleaning a friedge and kitchen as an exploratory activity since this is an instance where we intuitively organises and has been doing it regularly.
1.
In a kitchen there are many levels of preservation: Freezer, Fridge, Shelf, and Bin unlike digital storage which is preserve/delete.
2.
The levels of preservation is decided through the understanding of how long the food needs to be kept.
3.
“Best before date” helps in making decision to discard the food item.
4.
There are multiple sensory cues that indicates the expiry of food and triggers discarding.
Prototyping and Testing
The Data Kitchen
The physical prototype piques people’s interest. The facilitators with their warm smiles asks “is your phone gallery overflowing”, to invite and engage people in the experience.
The facilitator asks for needed consent, inquires about the person’s cloud storage.
The leaderboard displays the storage usage in GBs of all participants, showing them where they stand.
The facilitator calculates the equivalent bread loaves and quantity of water for participants.
Participants can use our random screenshot prints or their own screenshots to decide where each piece of data belongs in the kitchen. If they choose the trash, the facilitator asks if they want to delete it from their phones.
Testing
Testing
12 participants
1 hour
Elephant and Castle
Task: If the images in your phone gallery were perishable food where would you place each in the kitchen?
Observation:
Participants were curious about knowing their impact and the leader board produced reactions.
Insight:
Participants quickly grasped how to organize their digital data by comparing it to arranging food in a kitchen, as it made the process more relatable and intuitive.
Task success:
81 pictures were deleted from the participants in 1 hour of testing.
Storytelling as a surprising finding
Participants who explored their phone galleries naturally shared the stories behind their photos. This storytelling element encouraged reflection on their relationship with the data.
Areas of Improvement
1.
Need lots of verbal explanation as people were curious about the prototype
2.
Hard to document the participant’s deletion on their own phone
3.
Requires a prototype that can be transported as a pop-up
Hi-fi Prototyping and Testing
Data Kitchen
Designing a modular prototype that can be easily transported and set up as a pop-up.
The cones were used to physicalise participants' interactions.
The levels of preservation to help participants use the metaphor of perishable food.
Redesigned the cloud storage to water used statistics in a way that participants could use it themselves.
Data Kitchen
Demonstration of a Data Kitchen session with a participant.
Testing
Testing Data Kitchen
8 Participants
1 hour
Elephant and Castle
Task: If the images in your phone gallery were perishable food where would you place each in the kitchen?
Observation:
Participants understood the analogy and used it to organise their screenshots/photos.
Insight:
Participants realised the varying value of data through the relatable analogy of expiring food.
Task success:
85 photos were deleted in one hour.
Participant quote for their newly gained understanding
“I would delete one picture for every picture I take going forward”
Participant quote showing their understanding of the analogy
“I’m gonna put this timetable in the fridge since its only valid for the month”
Picture of Passport was kept in the freezer.
An old meme screenshot was binned and deleted.
A ticket was kept on the shelf for easy access.
Insights
Data Kitchen as a Mental Model
This framework shifts the focus from the traditional binary system of keep/delete to a more nuanced understanding of managing data that recognizes the varying value of data over time.
1.
Data Kitchen enabled participants to utilise their familiar mental model of organising a kitchen to manage their digital data making it intuitive.
2.
This encouraged communal storytelling as groups of participants approached together making the negative experience of purging enjoyable.
Where could it live in the world?
When people are waiting in the airport or traveling in the tube, they often delete their pictures and this is where we see the Data Kitchen living in
Reflection
Unlike perishable food, data's value doesn't degrade steadily.
While perishable food was a good metaphor, other metaphors can be used to contextualise specific challenges. Faciltators can encourage participants to express their specific challenges through metaphors and reflect on their meanings, helping them create more detailed mental models that capture the specific nuances of data management
Digital hoard is not just a technical issue but also an emotional one.
facilitators could leverage this by encouraging storytelling as a way to understand the value and relevance of stored data, helping participants to evaluate the relationship with their data.
How might a digital solution look like?
A digital solution could mirror the Data Kitchen concept by offering more nuanced storage options instead of a simple delete-or-keep choice. It could emphasize relatable, layered preservation units — akin to a kitchen’s fridge, pantry, or trash — to help users intuitively categorize their data. Additionally, incorporating visual indicators of lifespan and expiry could encourage reflection on what to retain or discard.
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