Consent UX:
a culture, a design framework
Designing safe social technologies to protect and educate
UX design, Mixed Reality, Design Thinking
Skills
Research
Wireframing
User Testing
Prototyping (Figma)
Creating visual workbook (Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop)
Virtual storytelling experience (Unreal Engine, Cinema4D, NomadSculpt)
As the COVID-19 pandemic pushes internet use to 70%, 50 percent of that time was spent engaging on social media in 2020 (Forbes 2021). We have been hyper immersed in online spaces for all aspects of our lives, from working from home to social media dating apps and more. Living much of our lives online feels limitless, a space where our minds exist and our bodies do not. Our data bodies are often taken advantage of. Do we know where we exist in all those places? The Consent UX design-oriented framework explores and emphasizes the importance of understanding the relationship between data, our digital selves, and our physical bodies. This framework will be introduced as a design workshop to support the implementation of building consent-first technology. A virtual experience is included within the workshop that implements the framework and uses storytelling to embody what consent looks like on social platforms. As we continue to spend more time in virtual spaces we must build our tech with consent and mindfulness over reactionary technology. Building with consentful technology leads to safer spaces and finally invests in a culture of consent.
May 11 2022 Thursday 10:10AM EST
Thesis @ NYU ITP (Watch Presentation)
Question
As we continue to explore and expand the multiplicity of selves in digital spaces, how do we design boundaries and consent for our data bodies?
Thesis Statement
An interactive workshop, including a design framework and virtual reality experience, to guide innovators with a framework of what space and boundaries look like, thus building a culture of consent. It explores our data bodies and our knowledge of where they exist as boundaries becomes more gray with the multiplicity of self in these spaces.
Research Process
Sex education relevancy in COVID-19
Sexual harassment, sex education, and online relationships were all relevant in my life, especially during a time where our social media usage was at an all time high. Screenshotting and sharing nudes unknowingly, constant harassment in the DMs, and even friends posting photos of oneself online without permission are all forms of a violation of our body. I realized that an essential pillar to taking an upstream approach to harassment was educating on simple consent. Although the concept is simple, the definition varies across and is not implemented into our technology today. Humans have fluctuating feelings and fluctuating boundaries, consent is not a one time agreement.
Privacy and security are emphasized in social media platforms, but consent and empathy are not even though they are undertones. A huge culture shift during this time happened as our physical and digital lives started to blur. It took a collective experience to create more space around expressing our needs, asking for consent, and accepting feedback without defense. As we started to depend more on the digital bodies, it informed how we communicated what we needed from our physical bodies. The goal becomes that we must protect our users and co-create a mindful, pleasurable, safe experience and culture.
Thesis Research Paper (Link)
Consent
"Consent is always a working progress, it is also interpersonal, knowing one's desires and limits, and skills like communication, negotiation, and knowledge". It is not a one-time agreement, it is ongoing. (Link)
Data Bodies
Digital bodies are like physical bodies in that they’re comprised of data and metadata. Unlike a physical body that exists in one place, our digital bodies are scattered throughout the servers that make up the internet. (Link)
Current Analysis of Social UX
I analysed today's most popular content-sharing, social platforms and their user flows to understand the journeys in terms of searching, participating, and sharing. I also looked at the ability to change certain privacy settings and the language used around this.
- Facebook and Instagram included warnings and even safety guides on privacy and sharing information in-app for the users to walkthrough as they changed their settings. With posting, the settings could be truly fine-tuned to certain social groups.
- Twitter's privacy settings were difficult to find and also had no warnings. On the receiving end on Twitter it is much more malleable for the user on viewing certain tweets.
- Both Instagram and Snapchat have tools of consent, such as screenshot and screenrecording notifications.
Because these platforms have the purpose to be social and business-oriented, I realized all of them advocate to be public-first, which is not user-first, especially in terms of safety.
User Interviews
I did an open call of those who wanted to share violation and obstructs of consent in the online space. All stories contained of sexual harassment and a lack of understanding of social ques on the opposing end.
- "I did not control how I was perceived at all anymore online and offline."
- "No matter how many times I did not reply back they still could not take the hint!"
- "I'm already really private online, but I'm still scared what others can find. It makes me anxious using dating apps now."
Finding the Medium
As I was exploring on how to convey betters practices of consent in our UX in a more experiential manner, I found Una Lee's Consentful Tech Curriculum, Tawana Petty's Digital Defense Playbook, which both take inspiration from Planned Parenthood's FRIES framework. This pushed me into also making a framework to teach and imbed into a virtual reality experience.
Consentful thinking through empathy
The Consent UX design-oriented framework explores and emphasizes the importance of understanding the relationship between data, our digital selves, and our physical bodies and how we can co-create both safe digital spaces and consentful technology. This framework will be introduced by a design workshop for designers and innovators to build consent-first technology. Within the workshop, a virtual experience is included that implements the framework and embodies what consent looks like in a digital space, in this workshop’s instance, VR.
Consent UX: Workbook for innovators
A workbook for designers to get introduced consent in context of technology and theories that go behind the framework. Designers will work through various exercises reframing their perspective of the relationship between digital and physical space. Group discussions are then prompted to discuss new potential solutions in this growing space.
PDF of Consent UX: a culture, a design framework (Coming soon)
I imagine this workbook to be used in UX or design thinking curriculums in school, or to be introduced at a workshop at a company.
Each principle of the framework focuses on how it became a principle and the theories behind it. Users are then given an activity to explore their personal relations to intimacy theories to then contribute into their own design thinking. With each principle is a case study or example how the principle can be applied, not a one-all solution. These are meant to be conversation starters, thoughts to start a spark, and guides to an ethical approach of designing.
More than an experience,
a VR experience
A interactive game where you play as a young teen who ventures through various rooms by obtaining keys to unlock other environments. They utilize their phone to help them explore their environment and find more keys.
Goal: To storytell what space and unlocking boundaries is, what consent is, while utilizing a phone that embodies the framework to help guide the character out.
Challenges and Reflection
I initially focused on wanting to do an art installation on sex education too long before realizing to refocus on 'consent' itself. I wanted to make my work perfectly thoughout before I made any moves that I didn't have so much time creating the actual medium in virtual reality in Unreal Engine.
I believe starting user testing my UX design through the VR experience could have helped me understand if my framework works or is as translatable through VR.
Next Steps
- Keep drafting and editing the workbook
- User testing workbook
- Publicly share framework through public website
- Continue developing and user testing VR experience OR Explore more creative ways to convey this framework for everyone
Special Thanks
ITP peers + residents <3
Sharon De La Cruz
Interviewees, sharing theirpersonal stories of consent
Una Lee + Tawana Petty's Consentful Tech Project