Self-Care and Introspection in Interactive Museum Experiences through Implied Interconnectedness
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Nottingham
Department Name: School of Computer Science
Abstract
The National Videogame Arcade is a major collection and museum of video games, based in Nottingham. The nature of video games is that many visitors to the museum may also be able to contribute to its collection, for example memories, software and perhaps even hardware. This PhD will explore how gamers can become involved in contributing to the museum's collection and how their personal data and recollections can be used to enable deep personal interpretation as part of new kinds of social visiting experience. The PhD will suit an "in the wild" approach in which digital technologies are developed, deployed in the museum and studied in order to explore underlying research challenges.
Planned Impact
We intend the Horizon CDT to be the place where partners come to find their future employees and to engage with the opportunities and challenges of digital identity and personal data. The key beneficiaries of our research will be:
- Commercial private sector companies that will engage with our CDT students during their research and/or employ them after graduation. Our partners include companies developing digital identity technologies as well as user companies across a range of sectors (consumer goods, entertainment, transportation, energy and others).
- Public sector and third sector organisations that are concerned with the use of digital identities to support civil society including broadcasters, healthcare providers and campaign groups.
- The public whose personal data forms the focus of their research and who will ultimately use and come to depend upon digital identities.
- Research communities spanning computer science, engineering, psychology, sociology, business and humanities.
These will benefit in various ways.
- Commercial, public and third sector companies will benefit from being able to recruit from a pool of talented PhD graduates who bring an in-depth understanding of digital identity and a proven ability to work in interdisciplinary teams. They will also benefit from being able to participate in co-creation of PhD research to ensure focus on relevant challenges and be able to exploit results of this PhD research.
- The public will benefit through a greater understanding of the opportunities and challenges of digital identity.
- Research communities will benefit by opening up promising new interdisciplinary fields.
Our Impact activities will be driven by Professor Derek McAuley, the Director of Horizon, who has a track record of establishing industry labs, spinning our companies and who is currently acting CIO of the TSB funded Connected Digital Economy Hub. Key activities will be:
- All Horizon PhDs will be carried out in collaboration with an external partner who will be involved in drawing up the initial topic, recruiting students, shaping the PhD proposal, supervision, and hosting at least one internship
- We will continue to organise knowledge exchange events within Horizon that are open to our network of over 100 external partners, including our annual Horizon Research Conference.
- We will encourage the release of applications, open source software, and open datasets wherever collaboration agreements allow.
- We will actively encourage our students to spin-out new ventures, including providing seedcorn funding through Horizon.
- We will engage our students with our two partner catapults, the Connected Digital Economy Catapult and the Satellite Applications Catapult.
- We will actively encourage industry visits through guest lectures on our "Broadening Horizons" core taught programme.
- We will also encourage companies to define, steer and sponsor the first year interdisciplinary team projects.
- Our students will complete a module on Public and External Engagement and are encouraged to engage in public events and exhibitions.
- Horizon's journalist-in-residence will help expose students research to the wider world through regular blogposts, while the University's marketing and communications team will help them develop press releases.
- We will provide training in research publication as part of the Professional Skills module and mentor publications through the Practice Led Project and the annual writing retreat (where students present and critique draft papers).
These impact activities will be supported by a professional online presence with posters, demos and podcasts made available through our website and associated YouTube channel and twitter feed, and with individual PhD profiles being posted on our own site and on external networking portals such as LinkedIn and ResearchGate.
- Commercial private sector companies that will engage with our CDT students during their research and/or employ them after graduation. Our partners include companies developing digital identity technologies as well as user companies across a range of sectors (consumer goods, entertainment, transportation, energy and others).
- Public sector and third sector organisations that are concerned with the use of digital identities to support civil society including broadcasters, healthcare providers and campaign groups.
- The public whose personal data forms the focus of their research and who will ultimately use and come to depend upon digital identities.
- Research communities spanning computer science, engineering, psychology, sociology, business and humanities.
These will benefit in various ways.
- Commercial, public and third sector companies will benefit from being able to recruit from a pool of talented PhD graduates who bring an in-depth understanding of digital identity and a proven ability to work in interdisciplinary teams. They will also benefit from being able to participate in co-creation of PhD research to ensure focus on relevant challenges and be able to exploit results of this PhD research.
- The public will benefit through a greater understanding of the opportunities and challenges of digital identity.
- Research communities will benefit by opening up promising new interdisciplinary fields.
Our Impact activities will be driven by Professor Derek McAuley, the Director of Horizon, who has a track record of establishing industry labs, spinning our companies and who is currently acting CIO of the TSB funded Connected Digital Economy Hub. Key activities will be:
- All Horizon PhDs will be carried out in collaboration with an external partner who will be involved in drawing up the initial topic, recruiting students, shaping the PhD proposal, supervision, and hosting at least one internship
- We will continue to organise knowledge exchange events within Horizon that are open to our network of over 100 external partners, including our annual Horizon Research Conference.
- We will encourage the release of applications, open source software, and open datasets wherever collaboration agreements allow.
- We will actively encourage our students to spin-out new ventures, including providing seedcorn funding through Horizon.
- We will engage our students with our two partner catapults, the Connected Digital Economy Catapult and the Satellite Applications Catapult.
- We will actively encourage industry visits through guest lectures on our "Broadening Horizons" core taught programme.
- We will also encourage companies to define, steer and sponsor the first year interdisciplinary team projects.
- Our students will complete a module on Public and External Engagement and are encouraged to engage in public events and exhibitions.
- Horizon's journalist-in-residence will help expose students research to the wider world through regular blogposts, while the University's marketing and communications team will help them develop press releases.
- We will provide training in research publication as part of the Professional Skills module and mentor publications through the Practice Led Project and the annual writing retreat (where students present and critique draft papers).
These impact activities will be supported by a professional online presence with posters, demos and podcasts made available through our website and associated YouTube channel and twitter feed, and with individual PhD profiles being posted on our own site and on external networking portals such as LinkedIn and ResearchGate.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Martin Flintham (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Velvet Spors (Student) |
| Description | Blobby: Creating Gifting Exchanges with Laundry Detergent Tabs |
| Organisation | Unilever |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | This project aimed to explore the potential of fast moving consumer goods as a space for digital gifting and personal expression. We ran several participatory workshops to learn how our participants use consumer packaged goods (CPG), how they think about gifting and technology and which opportunities they see for CPG, gifting and technology combined. After these workshops, we ran a 4-weeks field study to explore the potential of exchanging messages in a community of people using laundry detergent "blobs" collectively. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Unilever provided funding, feedback and products to use in our workshops and field study. |
| Impact | Report to Unilever, a conference paper (in progress) |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Ethnomethodology-informed Ethnography of a Videogame Museum |
| Organisation | The National Videogame Arcade |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | I brought my full research "toolkit" into this collaboration: I observed people, integrated myself within the everyday conduct of the museum, created field notes & other materials (sketches, diagrams, photos). I analysed my observations through an ethnomethodology-informed ethnography lens that resulted in activity maps and a deeper understanding of how visitors interact with the exhibits, space and the museum as a whole, but also how they organise themselves, as groups (how people spectate, play games with each other and document the visit). I captured all data and insights in a report, as a deliverable to the museum. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The National Videogame Arcade provided me access to their space and allowed me to interview people, take part in their "day to day" activities and supported me in recruiting people for my study. |
| Impact | Based on the report I produced about my study, the NVA (now the National Videogame Museum in Sheffield) was able to update and change their style of presentation for games. My analysis and observations supported them to better design their space and how to place exhibits within it; to support visitors in collective, collaborative play that allows for spectating and for documenting the visit. My report also helped to establish a common vocabulary within the organisation to discuss these matters. The insights I provided are also being used to design different visitor "journeys" through the museum. This collaboration is multi-disciplinary and draws from sociology and anthropology (ethnography, ethnomethodology), communication design (knowledge about exhibition design), museology/museum studies and human computer interaction (interaction with technologies). |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Branding & Design Workshop for other PhD students |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | I taught a web design, branding and marketing workshop during a summer school for humanities-based PhD students, over the course of 2 days. Workshops attendees reported that they enjoyed the workshop, had a starting point to continue building their web presence and approached me for further information and advice. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://twitter.com/dahss2018 |
| Description | Conference Organisation: margins |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | margins is a free one-day conference for people from marginalised backgrounds that work in/with/around technology (or hope to break into the industry). I was the lead organiser for this conference, together with a team of fellow PhD students and HackSoc, a computer science & technology focused society at the University of Nottingham. The conference was supported by several local industry partners. We had ~50 attendees on the day from diverse backgrounds. Apart from personal, genuine discussions, we also received positive feedback for the inclusive, safe atmosphere. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Interview Support for VRtefacts at Derby Museum and Art Gallery |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | "VRtefacts is a museum-focused virtual reality (VR) experience designed to heighten a visitor's sense of connection and engagement with items from the collection, ending with visitors donating a personal story around that object. VRtefacts uses 3D scans of some of the museum's objects along with 3D prints of those scans. The visitor can actually feel, manipulate, and view the objects up close - in VR and the real world. All 3D prints are made to a scale that enables most users to hold them easily and intuitively. After the visitor has taken their time exploring and reflecting on the object, they are invited to respond to it with a 'story' (a memory, association, or other reaction), which is recorded in both the actual and virtual space. The end result is a composite video that shows the visitor telling their own story about an object that appears in great detail in the VR environment." (https://vrtefacts.org/about/) I supported the "VRtefacts" study at Derby Museum and Art Gallery as a researcher that interviewed people after taking part in the study activity (interacting with 3D printed objects with digital content that can be seen in Virtual Reality). The outcomes are listed here: https://vrtefacts.org/2019/07/12/how-it-worked-at-derby-museum-and-art-gallery/ On a personal level, the people that I interviewed were really engaged, enjoyed the activity and also liked that they could try out a novel technology, like VR. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://vrtefacts.org/2019/07/12/how-it-worked-at-derby-museum-and-art-gallery/ |
| Description | Showcase of UNBIAS FAIRNESS TOOLKIT |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I supported the UnBias project team in showcasing their "Fairness Toolkit" at the V&A Digital Design weekend, London September 22nd. We had a space/stand within the V&A that was public-facing and encouraged visitors of the museum to discuss privacy and data concerns with us, to try out the fairness toolkit and to think about their "digital footprint". On the day, we had very engaged, personal conversations with people. Most visitors asked us for further information on how to learn about data and how to protect themselves online. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://unbias.wp.horizon.ac.uk/2018/09/06/unbias-fairness-toolkit/ |
| Description | Supporting "Sensitive Pictures" in the Munch Museum in Oslo |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The GIFT project is a team of European researchers that explore novel and experimental ways for museums to engage their visitors and for the visitors to have meaningful encounters within the museum; both aspects are based on exchanging, donating, creating and sharing personal data. I was part of the deployment team for "Sensitive Pictures", a hybrid audio-guide created for the Munch Museum. As part of a team in Oslo, I supported the process of on-boarding visitors, explaining the project's app to people, answering questions and explaining the research behind the study. People reported a wide variety of engagements with the museum and the audio guide; from really hating it to being very emotional with it. It shaped people's visits greatly. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://pro.europeana.eu/post/the-gift-project-give-and-take-in-the-museum-experience |
| Description | TALK: Bright Screens, Blue Days: Developing Self-Care Tech |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | I gave a talk at the WebDev London meetup for web designers and developers in London. This is the outline of my talk: "Championed by ideas of open source and transparency, coding for the "greater good" resonates with a wide variety of technologists, designers and developers. One of these issues is "mental health": Having moved away from seemingly dusty therapist couches, mental health is now being "hacked" with modern technologies and sleek apps. However, designing and developing for a sensitive and distressing area is highly contextual and tricky to get "right", potentially even dangerous. Using the design and development of a self-care app, this talk will offer examples on how a project can go wrong even when its maintainers mean well - and how to mitigate some of these fundamental risks and issues. Ideas of participatory design, societal stigma and community trust will be explored." After my talk, there was a vibrant and very engaged discussion; with several people approaching me after my talk to speak in person about their personal experiences with mental health, but also to say how my talk gave them a new perspective on the matter. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | TALK: Bright Screens, Blue Days: Developing Self-Care Tech |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | I gave a talk to 250 technologists, designers and developers at London DevOpsDays 2018. This was my talk outline: "Championed by ideas of open source and transparency, coding for the "greater good" resonates with a wide variety of technologists, designers and developers. One of these issues is "mental health": Having moved away from seemingly dusty therapist couches, mental health is now being "hacked" with modern technologies and sleek apps. However, designing and developing for a sensitive and distressing area is highly contextual and tricky to get "right", potentially even dangerous. Using the design and development of a self-care app, this talk will offer examples on how a project can go wrong even when its maintainers mean well - and how to mitigate some of these fundamental risks and issues. Ideas of participatory design, societal stigma and community trust will be explored." I got several tweets, emails and other forms of reaching out to me afterwards; discussing the impact of my talk on how people saw mental health in general, but also specifically how my talk changed their way of thinking about mental health and technology. One person approached me after my talk to tell me that it encouraged them to search for a therapist. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://devopsdays.org/events/2018-london/speakers/velvet-spors/ |
| Description | TALK: Count your steps, count your blessings: A Critical Look at Self-Care Tech |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | I gave a talk, followed by a workshop to ~30 developers, designers and technologists at the Women in Tech York meetup. This is my talk outline: "People meditate with their phones, practise yoga with their gaming consoles and let their personalised fitness tracker comment on their quality of sleep - technology-facilitated self-care is everywhere. Somewhere in between the mountains of personal data being collected, analysed and displayed to people, lies a small question: What does this actually mean for us? This (slightly experimental & very personal) talk will explore ideas about the quantified self from a critical standpoint. It aims to shine a light on the complex implications found within self-care tech and explore the underlying research and design assumptions. Conceptualising empathy, compassion and what it means to help in/outside/through technology will form the very baseline of this talk. This talk will draw on the speaker's personal artistic practise and their academic research in Human Computer Interaction. It will present a range of ideas on how to engage with therapeutic technologies on a deeper, personal level, but also from a societal, justice-oriented stance." The workshop was interactive and tried to encourage collective self-reflection about people's habits with technology, technology for self-care and self-care in general. Several people approached me afterwards to thank me for the workshop and how it had changed their perception of self-care and approaching mental health. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/women-in-tech-york-self-care-tech-tickets-64000274544# |
| Description | TALK: Developing Self-Care Technologies |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I gave a talk to ~30 technology enthusiasts at the Women in Tech Nottingham meetup. My talk outline was: "Inspired by movements like #Code4Good and ideas of the quantified self, people in technology are engaging with a wide variety of causes for the "greater good" - including the development of mental health technology. However, designing for mental health management is tricky to get right and potentially dangerous if implemented incorrectly. Based on Alexa's research, this talk will signpost and offer insights of how to approach the development of self-care technologies. This includes an exploration of participatory design, societal stigma of mental health and asking what "doing good" actually means." After my talk, we had a lively discussion and I have had several people approach me for technology recommendations, since my talk changed their perception of technology-facilitated self-care. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.technottingham.com/events/wit-may-2018 |
| Description | TALK: Outthinkers Nottingham |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I gave at talk at Outthinkers Nottingham, a series of talks organised by the charity Pride in STEM, which encourages people of the LGBT+ community to speak about their research. To prepare for this talk, I also attended a workshop that Pride in STEM organised beforehand. I presented my current PhD work from a personal perspective. The audience was very receptive and asked me lots of detailed questions. One person approached me to tell that they had never thought about technology and mental health before. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pride-in-stem-nottingham-out-thinkers-tickets-55026773561# |
| Description | Volunteer at University of Nottingham's "Ada Lovelace Day" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | I supported the Ada Lovelace Day at my university as a volunteer. My duties included helping people arrive at the location, to check them in and welcome them to the event. The event resulted in an increased interest in computer science by the pupils (from diverse backgrounds) who attended. There was a lot of positive feedback for the inclusive, safe environment of the event. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://findingada.com/event/ada-lovelace-day-school-of-computer-science-university-of-nottingham/ |
| Description | Workshop Series: Volunteer at Code First: Girls |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Code First: Girls is a charity that supports girls and women to learn coding and developing; to enter the technology industry as a potential profession. Code First: Girls provides materials and training for people to run their workshop series independently. Organised by two researchers in the School of Computer Science (where I am based), Carolina Fuentes and Mercedes Torres-Torres, I led and supported students during a 6 week coding "crash course". The workshop series was well attended; all workshop attendees were engaged and put a lot of effort into their projects. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Workshop: Identity/Space/Place |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | In September 2019, my colleagues and myself ran a full day workshop as part of the Digital Economy Network summer school. The workshop was designed to reach academics from across a broad spectrum of subjects and schools of thought, and bring them together to explore how identity, space, and place (ISP) were present in their research. The day resulted in valuable interdisciplinary knowledge exchange between researchers in different domains; interesting and meaningful discussions and a shared collective understanding of how ISP influences our work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://cdt.horizon.ac.uk/2019/11/01/identity-space-place-workshop/ |
| Description | Workshop: What does technology mean to people working with humanistic psychology? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Current self-care and mental health related technology are often based on a very medicalised understanding of mental distress. By proxy, this means people within this space will use methods and tools from clinical psychology (among others) - the result are often expert-driven "interventions" that aim for cognitive-behavioural change. I am trying to figure out how technology can intersect with humanistic psychology and if there are mutual opportunities for both fields - outside of a medicalised model and towards more expressive, open and client-co-created technology for holistic healing. To be able to research this approach, I invited people working in/around/with humanistic psychology - both established practitioners and students-in-training - to Nottingham for an open encounter. The first workshop included 4 professional practitioners. All of them would like to stay in contact for future activities and they reported to me that the day was meaningful to them. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://workshop.niceotherwise.space/ |