Who have multi-identities?

“Multi-identites” is the word I come up in my mind during the research with people and literature reading. I use this word in my SMART objectives and the picture above is deeper explanation of this word.

 

Analysis of my own IMPRINTS diary

For better understanding user experience relates to identity management, I have kept my own IMPRINTS diary for ten days( from Feb 28th to March 9th) to see my own experience of personal identity management issues.

Here are something I find from my experience:

1) I need to get access to emails, blog, social network platforms like Weibo(Chinese Twitter), WeChat(mobile phone text and voice messaging communication service) and some other online accounts like Pocket, Google Reader very often everyday. Therefore I tend to save all accounts and passwords in my devices( laptop, ipad and mobile phone) to save time.

2) I have habit to read short information online(Weibo, Google Reader and emails) during fragment time such as while waiting for the bus or on bus.

3) I don’t like to do repetitive work for security, such as input door password of studio every time and log in-log out and delete all operation trace on public computers(in library or studio).

4) Synchronization service always makes me happy& satisfied.

5) Sometimes I have more problems of whether I’ve registered one platform and the account than forgetting passwords.

6) Often get confused of the websites policies- Why they ask me for that information? What that information uses for?

7) The online services develop faster than devices, such as my HTC mobile phone( low-profile) is not smart enough for my frequent and diversity need to get access to networks, my iPad is too old( iPad 1) to update some apps and my laptop has not enough space for running more programs.

8) It’s very difficult for me to understand some security and privacy notices from the devices.

9) If the organizer takes photos during the event, I will always go to its facebook or blog later to check is there any of my pictures?- Care my public image.

10) Easy to feel annoyed if I’ve spend lots of time dealing with identity management problems( update profiles, find back passwords and etc.).

It’s very interesting to reread my own IMPRINTS diary and find the above feedback from my experience dealing with identity management issues. Some of the problems I mentioned above are those I actually didn’t notice before.

I’ve spread three more IMPRINTS diaries to my classmates and the next step is waiting for the collection of those diaries and try to find some new patterns from others records and compare those to mine.

S.M.A.R.T objective for IMPRINTS project

From the “Selling holes” lecture from Jonathan Baldwin in Strategic Information Design Module, we learned a strategic to make objectives SMART: Specific, Measurable, Realistic, and Time specific.

And this is my SMART objectives for the IMPRINTS project.

 

How advertisers track you and what information they collect (infographic)- VentureBeat

While talking with people these two days, most of them mentioned the importance of privacy and several said they are suffering ad invasions such as unable-cancelled ad emails which they don’t want to read any more.

Here is an article about how advertisers track and collect information of you. It shows an infographic of advertisers’ tracking and the process looks quite scary and out of user’s control. It offers some options to stop tracking, but for me even though I know the problem the solution does not look good to practice. Maybe because too technical things are difficult for me to understand. We actually have a Chinese browser(360) who says will protect users from all these cookie problems but still the debate of whether it really protect users or steal their private data in fact never stops. For users the big problem may be how to choose the real useful tool instead of protecting themselves from attacking. And as some other insight, maybe make use of cookies to track users for their own purposes is something else technology could do for user’s benefit.

User research- Value Pyramid- practice

In these two days, I talked with several people from university and public spaces of Dundee about their personal identity management issues. 15 of them took the practice of Value Pyramid with me, which helps me a lot for my project research.

During this “talking with exercises”, I observed people of how they sequence elements of IDM, noticed their questions about IDM and the first responses of IDM, found out what people thought most important and less, and talked with them about their opinions of IDM in their daily lives. I think Value Pyramid is a good method to help get people’s priority of IDM issues and also an easy and understandable topic for people to talk and think.

After the practice, I collected all the results from people’s different value pyramids. Then I made one paper ruler with the same dimension of the pyramid shape. From the number of the ruler, I calculated the average scores of the six elements of IDM I provided and put them into one total form:

I provided five basic choices of IDM elements and most people agree with these options:Accessibility, concise, privacy, security, and user-friendly. From the result of Value Pyramid Ruler, “Security” and “Privacy” is obvious the highest and their scores are quite close. Then scores of “User-friendly”, “Concise” and “Accessible” are very close and have a certain distance from the two highest options.

In addition, I made a mindmap from the notes taken during talking with people:

From both the quantitative and qualitative research aspects, I find that most people consider security and privacy as most important elements of their identity management issues; and according to the talking with people, they mentioned that they start to face more problems with identity management, more controls of their identity management and tracking are needed, and they have different levels of security& privacy need depending on scenarios.

User research- Value Pyramid

This Value Pyramid tool is based on one practice our group did in the project with SOEC in the People+ Design module. It is used to reveal user’s highest value and the hierarchy of their concern of the topic. It was useful and clear for our group to find out what our client think the most important elements in that project. Therefore, I create this new form of tool to help me explore people’s opinion of identity management.

The main part of the Value Pyramid is a shape of pyramid for users to choose post-its beside which show several core identity management elements from my literature reading, case studies and initial prototype of Value Pyramid. People can choose from the existed post-its and write down more elements in the blank ones. Then they will be asked to sequence those post-its into the pyramid shape. Beside the sheet, there is basic introduction of this tool and also some icon examples to remind users consider their IDM issues in different scenarios.

One more purpose of this tool is to offer a topic for people to talk about their identity experience. I will use this tool in face-to-face situations, talk with people according to their answers. I’ll ask them questions about their unique choices of the order or some new added post-its words. Through the talk with the exercise it helps me to see how different people consider their IDM issues and what their values are.

So far nine exercises have been done, most of them are from people who I’m familiar with, such as classmates and roommates. The first ones help me to improve the tool and decide the existed post-its contents and the later give me lots of insights of people’s different views of IDM. The next step is to take this tool to the public and I’ll try to find people on street or in public places to talk with exercises. Hope wider group of people’s views can be accessed.

User research- IDM Diary keeping

From Feb.28 I started my own IDM diary, it is one approach to help me figure out what issues relates to identity management I will face and also it’s a prototype for offering better diary template for other users in the future.

Six days later, I’m glad to find one small notebook is obvious not enough for my IDM diary. And from the contents inside, some experiences attract me more- those which make me really confused why the system is like that and those which make me nervous and worried about my online privacy.

Today the IDM diary exercise moves forward more: I create prototype 2.0 of the IDM diary and find three people help me keep it. The time will be one week and after that I will have a good resource to compare different user experiences and try to find some pattern from it.

It begins with an basic introduction of the diary and the next page is emoticon stickers (inspired by Life Calendar) and an example from my own experience of keeping diary.

 

 

myIDkey – a fingerprint secure voice-activated USB drive

myIDkey is one “fingerprint secure voice-activated USB drive” and also  one “complete password management system” which combines USB driver, personal computers and smart devices. It looks a good choice to manage our huge amount passwords created for different organization requirements and security protection needs. The idea of using a system but not one single token or online plaffrom to manage our digital identities is quite useful for my IMPRINTS project.

More gestures, less touches- two brilliant technology is coming soon

First is Leap Motion:

“Raise your hands and wave hello to the future.” This fantastic gesture controller- Leap Motion Controller will begin shipping to consumers on May 13. It “senses your individual hand and finger movements so you can interact directly with your computer. ”

Another brilliant one is MYO:

“Using groundbreaking technology, MYO is able to measure electrical activity in your muscles instantly. The result is a seamless way to interact with computers, and a truly magical sense of control.”

These two gesture technologies both focus on gesture control but in different approaches. The other similarity is that they are both coming soon. They have launched the pre-order for customers, which means gesture control is getting close to our real daily life. Seamless interaction with devices is one big need from users, and maybe in the future gesture identity verification will be a new choice of identity management.

Digital Service Design: Lessons from the Cloud- Continuum

Digital Service Design: Lessons from the Cloud is an article published on Touchpoint from Continnum. It discusses the balance between digital and non-digital aspect of service design. Consistent experience delivery is emphasised in this article and it “involves a translation of your business’s core essence to each touchpoint”. The author says “Service Design ‘in the cloud’ is not about slapping on a Facebook page or about merely digitizing information” but about “balancing design craft, organisational innovation, systems management, and new digital technologies in the entire context of Service Design, while keeping the human connection in mind.” This is very useful for my project to remind me to keep user-centered design in mind and keep myself from lost in technology elements.