Made-up rubbish: design fiction as a tool for participatory Internet of Things research

Abstract

As Internet of Things (IoT) technologies become embedded in public infrastructure, it is important that we consider how they may introduce new challenges in areas such as privacy and governance. Public technology implementations can be more democratically developed by facilitating citizen participation during the design process, but this can be challenging. This work demonstrates a novel method for participatory research considering the privacy implications of IoT deployments in public spaces, through the use of world building design fictions. Using three fictional contexts and their associated tangible design fiction objects, we report on findings to inform transparency and governance in public space IoT deployments.