OpenDoTT Current IoT Practices Dataset: ESR2 Smart Homes

This folder contains data from the participatory design ethnography study "Proceed with Care: Reimagining Home IoT Through a Care Perspective" which was conducted over the course of six months from March to August 2020 as part of PhD research on Domestic IoT with the Open Design of Trusted Things (OpenDoTT) project.

The study aimed to investigate the research questions:

1. What are the existing ways care manifests in domestic settings?

2. What qualities of the relationships between people, things, and homes might be revealed through everyday acts of care?

3. What might acts of care reveal about home dwellers’ perceptions of the authority and agency of an everyday thing?

For further information, the researcher Cayla Rai Key can be contacted by email: c.key@northumbria.ac.uk

This study consisted of three phases of data collection:

Phase 1:

I conducted 'home tours' where activities included semi-structured interviews, photographic documentation, and a facilitated "Thing Interview" with three households (labeled H1, H2, and H3) in the UK.

The captured data from this phase contains:

- Transcripts of audio recordings of each home tour

- Photographs from each home tour

Phase 2:

Working with one other participant called Browne (pseudonym) we used critical journaling to document everyday enactments of care. In tandem to this fieldwork, we used critical mapping to collaboratively draw out in-progress themes and co-speculated on a series of imaginary IoT concepts to explore the design implications of the ethnographic findings.

The captured data from this phase contains:

- Transcripts from weekly phone calls

- Transcripts from 2 mapping sessions via Zoom

- Email exchanges on theme generation and insights

- Photographs of journal pages

- Photographs of 'acts of care'

Phase 3:

Browne and I co-speculated on four concepts collectively called the 'Catalogue of Spectacular Things'. These concepts were presented to five individuals from the pilot study along with an online questionnaire to capture reflections and responses.

The captured data from this phase contains:

- A spreadsheet with individual responses to each of the 8 questions.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 813508.