Designing for Human Data Interaction in Data-Driven Media Experiences

The explication of socio-technical challenges like privacy concerns, data transparency and control, accountability issues and lack of trust, posed by personal data leverage in media research has been of interest recently. While many of these challenges have been studied and often discussed in various disciplines ranging from policy to technology to sociology, effective responses that alleviate them are yet to be realised. This calls for holistic approaches that enable inter-disciplinary perspectives and methodologies that speak to these wider challenges in more comprehensive and thus, effective manners. Human Data Interaction, such a cross-disciplinary branch of knowledge, inspired by HCI, seeks to alleviate said challenges through three overarching principles : data legibility, negotiability and agency. But, given the emergent nature of this ‘fledgeling’ domain, the practical realization of these theortical tenets are yet to be operationalized. This paper reports the design of one such initiative that integrates the principles of HDI, supported by wider research, into the design of a novel, data driven media experience : a Cross Media Profiler. The first half of the paper presents the socio-technical challenges confronting the turn to personal data use in media experiences, rationalizes the need and scope for interdisciplinary approaches like HDI here and reviews wider literature that is in line with the principles of HDI. The rest of the paper reports the design of the CMP, particularly the realization of the HDI principles within this particular media service proposition. We intend for this design intervention to be leveraged in formative and evaluative studies that test user response to the design decisions made and their effectiveness in alleviating socio-technical challenges while also contributing to the current knowledge base supporting HDI.