The Future of Personal Data: Designing a ‘Qualified Self’

How might we track data differently in the future? How do we derive meaning from it? Can we develop tools to help people directly derive this meaning themselves whilst addressing the challenges they may face?

Current tracking devices such as wearables and apps are limited in the types of data that they can track and how they collect, maintain and use it. Users are often 'locked into' a system and cannot adapt the data in the ways they wish.

We present several prototypes created by a team of data collecting experts that expand our ideas about what data is, how it is collected and the ways in which we use it in our daily lives. Each prototype addresses a different aspect of data tracking, shifting the quantified self - self-tracking that is shaped by numerical inputs - to the qualified self and more holistic ways of tracking.

Qualified Selves is a joint research project between Lancaster and Edinburgh Universities. This event will provide an opportunity to provide feedback into the designs so far, whilst expanding your ideas on not only how data can help us, but additionally how design can be enriched by bringing users into all stages of the design process.

www.sensemake.org