Design Translators

The Challenge

Technological development and digital design often focus on ‘frictionless’ and ‘seamlessness’ experiences. While these turn out to be very desirable in some cases, they also seem to have separated us from reality, and oftentimes, lead us to overlook very important information regarding our data when on the internet.

Most of us do not read an app or website’s privacy policy before clicking to accept terms. Sometimes, they are too complicated to understand, or too vague, or we simply do not have the time to go through it. We can not be critical and make conscious decisions in a world we do not understand, and that means that privacy policies are missing the mark. As a consequence of that, we are powerless.

How does the invisibility and immateriality of the internet affect peoples’ capabilities to make conscious decisions about privacy?

How can physical objects mediate towards more comprehensible ways of explaining the hidden nature of the internet cookies embedded within digital frameworks?

The Outcome

A series of intrusive objects aimed to create discomfort and reflection in service of privacy management and digital well-being.

Intrusive objects aimed to create discomfort and reflection

From making visible the invisible through using everyday objects that state quantity, to funneling the aesthetics of data(internet cookies) in artifacts that express quality.

These artifacts emulate how a user might be surveilled while browsing the web. Users type a URL into their browsers, and it visits the requested website, scans for known types of privacy violations, and returns an instant privacy analysis of the inspected site that is translated into light, movement, and sound.

Object 01: Presence Teller

Have you ever happened to be in a room and have the feeling that someone is observing you? Pretty uncomfortable, isn’t it? This situation occurs when we are browsing on the internet. Just because we can’t see who is in there does not mean they are not spying on us.

This object uses wind as a metaphor. The wind is invisible, but we all can feel it when we come across it. This object works as an extension of our browser and starts spinning and creating long and uncomfortable shadows every time we are on a site that is peeking on us. There is no interaction happening here, it just turns on and off by itself and captures the presence of something on the other side of your screen.

The ultimate goal is to create reflection and make you wonder: who is in there and what are they up to?

Object 02: The Snitch

Have you ever been browsing on your phone or laptop and wondered, how did I end up here? Most things we see when navigating on the internet are the result of the actions we have done in the past. Cookies have memory. They recognize us when we revisit a website, almost like a digital name badge.

This object captures the memory of your actions and exposes them to you in a physical way. It plays with the idea of giving shape to something as intangible as memories and encapsulate them in an interactive bubble. Metaphorically, it would be like squeezing someone’s mind hard enough to make them spit their thoughts out.

Human memory involves the ability to both preserve and forget the information we have learned or experienced, so do they. It can be squeezed through and brought to life by giving them a voice that reveals their identity.
This object can be active or passive. It will always be up to you to know more about what’s inside that precious blob.

Next Steps

Over the next months, I would like to develop these concepts further in two directions:

First of all, I am looking forward to connecting this Arduino prototype to the browser(p5), and eventually, send information based on the root URL of the page entered by a user into a real-time privacy inspector(www.theblacklight.com).

Also, it would nice to refine the prototypes a bit more and get a pneumatic cylinder to create a more playful and dynamic experience with the ballon.

As for now, Design Translators is a family of two, but it can grow in the future to bring different experiences. They might work individually as well as in groups, and it can be interesting to think about the role of these objects in a household when they are connected.