Topic: Engaging Data & Sound as Creative Materials: Design explorations in human-data interaction

Abstract: In today’s technological landscape, we are inundated by data about ourselves and our world. Yet, we often simply glance at that data on a screen—like the myriad line and bar graphs on fitness tracker dashboards—and move on. How might we develop more meaningful interactions with data by building a deeper capacity to think and engage with data using sound and other sensory modalities? In this talk, I will share several research-through-design projects that develop tools and techniques for engaging with data as a creative material. First, I will explain how combining narrative storytelling and data sonification (the practice of communicating data through sounds) can support people as they learn to listen to data. Then, I will describe a collaborative board game that helps data designers create more approachable annotative elements for sonifications and physicalizations. Finally, I will share examples of “data recipes,” which are personalizable, reconfigurable multisensory data interactions. Through these case studies, and emerging findings from my in-progress research, I will address how treating data as a creative material and a site for exploration can expand our concepts about who can engage with data and how.

Jordan Wirfs-Brock is an assistant professor of computer science at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. As a human-computer interaction researcher and designer, she brings data into our everyday lives as a creative material by developing data representations that are participatory and engage all of our senses, especially sound. Her current research explores how we might develop sonic archives of personally meaningful everyday sounds. Past projects have examined how we can use data that streaming services log about us as a design resource, how people access news and information across various emerging technologies, and how blind and low vision middle school students might collaboratively create audio games. Previously, she has worked as a data journalist covering the energy industry and as a civic technologist helping non-profit organizations understand their communities through data. Jordan earned her PhD in Information Science at the University of Colorado. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from MIT and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Colorado. Jordan is a competitive trail runner who specializes in ultra-distance races, relays, and multi-day adventures. She grew up in Oregon, is fascinated and terrified by mountain lions, and loves board games.

Admission Information

• Free admission