Case Study: Digital Life is Real Life
Designing a Learning Experience for Digital Privacy Rights
Digital Privacy Rights — Civil Liberties in the Digital World
Citizenship + Technologies — Learning Experience Design, Spring 2020
Carnegie Mellon School of Design.
THE DESIGN TEAM
Nandini Nair is a Master of Design for Interactions student at Carnegie Mellon University.
Matt Geiger completed his undergraduate degree in Art Practices at Portland State University and is currently a candidate for Master of Arts in Design at Carnegie Mellon University.
Michelle Chou is a graduating grad student with the Master of Professional Studies in Design for Interactions and Master of Arts in Design from Carnegie Mellon University.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
DLRL (Digital Life is Real Life) is an interactive, online, multiplayer educational experience, designed to teach you about the importance of digital privacy. By playing through a series of digital platform specific games, you will learn about your individual vulnerabilities and collective power as digital citizens.
THE CONTEXT
Digital life can be amazing. We are a global community, able to communicate at the speed of light. This digital world is not without risks, however:
Data breaches; mishandling of private information; as well as surveillance by governments and international corporations, can undermine your digital privacy. Whether or not you are aware of these issues, you are vulnerable to some of the worst consequences imaginable.
THE PROBLEM
The hazards of digital life are not speculation derived from some far-off future. These issues are affecting us today, right now. What might happen if these problems remain unaddressed? You might find yourself with less power and fewer rights to control your personal data. Without laws to protect you and your fellow citizens from unwarranted snooping. You might find yourself being monitored in public, at your job, and even in your own home.
Where we are headed does not look good: without intervention at a policy level, important decisions will no longer be up to you, instead your life will be left in the hands of algorithms.
STAKEHOLDERS
In the game of digital privacy, there are winners and losers. Some very big and powerful players are working hard to collect your data, and they are playing for keeps. Even more alarming is the fact that most of the people being targeted don’t even know that this game is happening.
Fortunately, you have the power to change the system. As a digital citizen, you must defend your privacy, not only for yourself but also for others. A threat to anyone’s digital privacy is a threat to all. By playing DLRL, you will be equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to act as an informed and empowered citizen of the digital age.
Designing a Learning Experience
LEARNING GAPS
Learning about digital privacy is challenging! Technology is complicated. Politics are complicated. Thinking about these topics as a system: it’s complicated! To make sense of it all, you need to learn about the key entities involved, and understand their motivations at an institutional and individual level. You also need to understand what privacy truly means.
WHO ARE OUR LEARNERS?
Initially, we considered designing a learning experience specifically for policy students at CMU. This group made sense for several reasons: policy change is a long term goal of this learning experience and policy students are more likely to be occupationally involved in policymaking or networked with those who are. Furthermore, students of public policy are likely to have narrower gaps of knowledge, since the civics and political mental models are already well understood.
Ultimately, this path was not explored. While there remains significant potential to engage with this group of learners, we believed that this learning experience should have broad appeal to include as many stakeholders as possible. In short, by reading this post, YOU are the learner we are hoping to engage.
Whether you are a digital native, born into a digitally-connected world, a policy student interested in the relevant issues related to digital privacy, or someone who uses video conferencing platforms (such as Zoom), our learning experience is designed to teach you about how to protect yourself and others online.
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY “DIGITAL LIFE IS REAL LIFE”?
We spend countless hours using these tools, and cannot afford to treat our digital interactions as being separate and apart from the rest of our living experiences. And that is why we have built our interactive learning experience online: to put you, the learner, into the context where these issues are taking place.
OUR CONCEPT
Inspired by our own context of the pandemic, where we started to spend our daily lives to Zoom , we asked the question “What can we do with the platforms already available to us?”. To answer this, we looked to the famous words of media theorist Marshall McLuhan — “The Medium is the Message.”
Through this lens, we looked for opportunities where we could leverage the interactions and interface of digital platforms we use every day to situate our learning experience. For example, what would it mean to use Zoom to learn about digital privacy concerns of video conferencing platforms or use Facebook to use uncover the data profiling practices of social media?
Another element of our concept is gameplay. Beyond relevance, we wanted the learning experience to be enjoyable and memorable. We saw potential in using digital applications as a setting for the game. play to take place. The final result is a framework for a series of contextual games, wrapped within an interactive learning experience we are calling: Digital Life is Real Life.
DESIGN PROCESS
Throughout the design process we also prototyped many variations of the interface to test game mechanics, user flow, narratives and player interactions—in order to understand how it affected learning, ie cognition and perception — and user experience. These insights helped us identify which learning theories would be effective for our final game design.
OUR LEARNING FRAMEWORK
To make sure the game is not only fun but also warrants effective learning, our game is grounded in a learning framework that leverages theories such as the Magic Circle, Structured Flow of Goals, Motivation, 4MAT and Mastery.
Learners are attracted to an interactive gamified experience and taken through a structured flow where they build their knowledge about digital privacy and can test their critical thinking and judgment skills. Towards the end of the experience, they are offered avenues to go deeper into the topic or to explore different games. Over time they develop a competency for critical thinking.
THE GOALS FOR THE LEARNER
Through the experience of gameplay, you will become more aware of the data practices of the platforms you use everyday, and you will begin to shift and broaden your perspective of privacy in the digital world. We hope to create an experience which leaves you feeling more informed and empowered as a citizen.
Our Prototype (it’s live here)
So, you must wonder what exactly is the game?! We finally came to design a web application that provides multiple interactive games based on popular digital services. The games will take place on both DLRL and in conjunction with the digital service platform of your choice, grounded in real scenarios.
You will start by choosing one of the brands, take Zoom for example, and invites your friends to join.
If you decided to try the party pub games on Zoom — invite your friends then!
After entering your name, it tells you how to set up for the game. You’ll download an assigned background image to set up as your virtual background on zoom.
After everyone joins, you can hit start to launch a zoom meeting and also keep follow the web application for game prompts.
In the game, you will go through 7 rounds, each comprised of one question and one challenge. The 7 challenges address the total 7 types of privacy that you should know. And in the end, there’s a bonus round for a big, final challenge.
In each round, first, there’s a trivia question about digital privacy. Answer the trivia question in 10 sec. A correct answer earns you +10 points.
And then there’s another challenge to find the clue in player’s background on Zoom that gives away their privacy. You have 20 sec to circle the clue and interpret it. Each answer earns you +10 points!
After 7 rounds you’ll see the answer to all the challenges.
In the bonus round, it’s a policy debate. It will provide real-world context and information from reputable organizations like Pew research, and you can take a minute to think about the prompt and suggest a policy idea. Pitch to other players, debate, and vote for the best answer. The player with the best answer gets 100 points.
The player with the most points is the winner of the game.
You can choose more games or check out the excellent resources about tips to protect your individual privacy, suggestions to support privacy advocacy organizations, reads, and more.
