Using design fiction to reimagine the future of surveillance
Can a user experience be too frictionless and hands-off?
In this article, I explain my thinking process behind my senior capstone called “Staredown Toolkit” for the UW Design Program.
My interest in smart home security cameras started with my personal uses cases that go beyond security purposes. I save sentimental videos captured on my Wyze cam of my grandparents visiting or Petcube footage of my dog acting exceptionally adorable. Why? I have a feeling my future-self will appreciate these saved videos.These security videos are captured quietly and passively in intimate and private areas of our home. They create a massive digital archive of seemingly boring moments.
Often dystopian headlines about the future of technology erode our imagination out of hype or fear of unintended outcomes. Is 24–7 surveillance in your home always a scary thing? How are these video archives being interpreted and handled? Through a playful and satirical design storytelling lens, I use design fiction to explore a more active presence of surveillance technology in our daily lives.
So yes. Our relationship is complicated. I feel safe and uneasy with my smart home security cameras. I wave hi to my neighbor’s Ring doorbell. I think about all the security footage I’m unknowingly a performer in. It’s all a performance. I must be in “the cloud” somewhere. Should I be worried or excited?
Context
Pushing back on the normalization of passive technology
We are becoming comfortable with technology that blends into the background of everyday life. The calm technology movement creates the expectation that emerging technology should require the smallest amount of attention. Can a user experience be too frictionless and hands-off?
For example, the minimal maintenance and attention needed by users of smart home cameras is often portrayed as a positive development. These devices like the Amazon Ring and Google Nest capture video 24–7 or when triggered by motion. The footage is saved to a mobile app for future playback and notifications draw attention to “suspicious activity.” As a result, we become increasingly unaware of a digital archive that could be reclaimed for our own keepsake or misused by companies for profit.
It’s already happening: use cases beyond “security”
Despite the branding and rigid interfaces, smart home camera users are finding ways to repurpose these smart home security cameras into devices for play and lens to document their lives. I came across an online forum by an individual who used their Wyze as a pet cam. The user wanted to simply download videos all at once from a two-week period before their pet bunny passed away. Spoiler: You can’t.
The hands-off interface design restricts active engagement with this digital archive. Typically smart home camera apps have interface designs that are a linear scroll with isolated events. This makes it difficult to download videos and imagine the quantity of footage being archived.
The case for designing artifacts to expand our moral imaginations
Through speculative design, we can translate critical thought into materialized experiences, often fictional designs, to engage others. The goal is to imagine a safer and more ethical, inclusive, and accessible future. In Speculative Everything, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby describe speculative design as “alternatives that loosen the ties reality has on our ability to dream” (Dunne and Raby, 2013).
Similarly, the book Future Ethics by Cennydd Bowles eloquently wrestles with the assumptions surrounding what can or can’t be done today to work towards preferable futures. He describes using design fiction to expand our moral imaginations of future scenarios with technology. This allows us to consider potential consequences and externalities of these decisions.
The project’s fictional layer allows me to anticipate what could be for these product experiences without being tied to present-day technical barriers. These speculations help shape our next steps as today’s designers, engineers, researchers, and marketers.
Designing collaboratively with performance art tactics
During my ideation process for this project, I referenced works by contemporary artists who use performance art techniques such as repetition to reveal new insights about the mundane moments of our everyday.
Tehching Hsieh, a Taiwanese-American artist, in One Year Performance 1980–1981 (Time Clock Piece) took a single photo of himself each time he punched a time clock every hour every day for a year. From the collection of photographs, we see the passage of time represented in his hair length. The contrast between the fixed and changing features intensifies and these radical instabilities amid nothing new reveal themselves in this visual repetitive grid format.
The frequency that videos are captured and visual aesthetic of these cameras also have a repetitive quality. We can’t resist staring at these boring moments. I started to imagine a new video archive interface that creates more urgency and transparency around the repetitive acts caught on camera that are typically filtered out as irrelevant.
Introducing the Staredown Toolkit
Staredown Toolkit is my final design concept based on this exploration. It’s the antithesis to all things security. Instead, it provides a series of speculative interventions to help you use smart home security cameras as a creative collaborator that actively capture boring moments.
1. Functional & collaborative camera covers
To draw attention to these devices, place a Staredown Case over your cameras. Each case has a functional compartment that allows you to store items like the paintbrushes on your desk or car keys by your front door. Their modular design allows you to combine cases to create a one-of-a-kind sculpture.
2. Playback Tool archives your videos in one place
Connect your smart home security cameras to the Playback Tool website that archives recorded videos in one place. The tool tracks where you stare most as you scroll through the timeline. The interactions of zooming in or hovering over videos get documented with green circles.
By tracking where you stare, you can reflect on which recorded moments you notice most. It encourages you to actively pay attention to these boring moments captured. In one month, five years, or a decade from now, you can continue to stare at videos archived in the Playback Tool for as long as “the cloud” exists.
Wait, is the Staredown Toolkit a real product?! Where can I buy it?
If you can imagine yourself using the Staredown Toolkit in your own home and creative practice then I’ve done my job of sparking your moral imagination. What’s your reaction to this? Hate it? Love it? Unsure about it? Tell me why. The goal of this fictional product is to provoke responses about its moral ambiguity.
By my own engagement with this “product,” I noticed:
By engaging in new types of performances, we are able to reclaim surveillance. The aesthetics of these devices influence our perception. Smart home cameras are essentially small cameras constantly surveilling you in the most intimate areas of your living spaces. The alternative use case of placing a security camera on your desk creates another opportunity for daily interaction with these cameras. With more intentional curation of what is being recorded, you become more aware of what exactly is being archived.
The “staredown” metaphor creates a dynamic and active relationship between the device and user. When confronted in a staring contest with another human it’s simultaneously intimate, intimidating, and intense. A feeling of creepiness starts to change my interactions with these devices. The Staredown Playback Tool is a prototype meant to push back on the typical interface design of smart home security devices on the market. The timeline grid interface is more transparent in the magnitude of data being collected. It gets my mind wandering: what happens if Amazon Ring or Wyze Cam has a data breach? Or what will become of my photos saved in Google Photos or Instagram?
WHO WILL WIN THIS STAREDOWN? Who will have a “nervous” breakdown? Maybe the security camera will break first or I lose interest and stop staring back at the videos being recorded. Maybe in 15 years from now I will be more compelled to stare at these boring moments. Will this data live on without me? What do I miss when I look away? Place your bets!
(Reach out on Twitter @yemshin or LinkedIn if you’d like a Staredown Toolkit Case for your Wyze or Petcube security camera!)