Abstract:

We are in the midst of a data revolution where large amounts of data are being collected about our behavior, bodies, social relations with others and environment. The increased availability of Internet Of Things (IoT) devices and infrastructures are leading to more information and knowledge about humans and their environment than ever before. These data insights have the opportunity to shape health, education, tourism, ecology and many other aspects of human lives.  However, many of these IoT devices and infrastructures are automated and produce sterile quantitative data with limited opportunities for non-expert end-users to interface or engage with the produced data. Human perspectives, opinions, observations and insights are simply not taken into account as people do not have an easy access point into the data that is collected about themselves and the environment. In this talk, I outline a vision for Human-Centered Data interaction that enables users to participate in data collection, think about data ownership and share data insights with other people. I will present two recent projects, Physikit and Enquir.io, that are aimed at enabling the public to interact with, understand and contribute data in an urban setting.

Bio:

Steven Houben is a Lecturer (assistant professor) in Interactive Systems at Lancaster University, where he works at the School of Computing and Communications and the Lancaster Data Science Institute. His research is directed at ubiquitous multi-device systems, physical and tangible computing, urban IoT and sensor-based systems aimed at enabling end-users to learn more about themselves, their environments, and their devices. Previously, he was a Research Associate at University College London Interaction Centre (UCLIC) and the Intel Collaborative Research Institute (ICRI). Steven received a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction in 2015 at IT University of Copenhagen where he was supervised by Prof. Jakob E. Bardram.