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HealthBand: campaigning for an open and ethical Internet of Things through an applied process of design fiction

Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSNConference contribution/Paperpeer-review

Published
Publication date31/05/2017
Host publicationCumulus REDO Conference 2017 Proceedings
Pages696-706
Number of pages10
ISBN (electronic)9788793416154
<mark>Original language</mark>English
EventREDO Cumulus Kolding 2017 - Design School Kolding, Kolding, Denmark
Duration: 30/05/20172/06/2017

Conference

ConferenceREDO Cumulus Kolding 2017
Abbreviated titleREDO 2017
Country/TerritoryDenmark
CityKolding
Period30/05/172/06/17

Conference

ConferenceREDO Cumulus Kolding 2017
Abbreviated titleREDO 2017
Country/TerritoryDenmark
CityKolding
Period30/05/172/06/17

Abstract

This paper discusses the creation of a design fiction that seeks to embody Sterling’s (2005) spimes concept – near future, Internet-connected, manufactured objects. HealthBand is a fictional open-source wearable device born in a future where public healthcare has become increasingly privatised. Social equity and citizen empowerment sit at the forefront of its design – the product is the culmination of crowd-sourced expertise and production capital. We contextualise the fictional device in relation to current proprietary Internet of Things products, democratised and open technological practices like the Maker Movement, and two previously identified design criteria for spimes – synchronicity and wrangling. We assert that the fiction can help to begin to establish spimes as a useful rhetorical lens through which product designers can speculate upon more socially responsible and ethical technological product futures that offer plausible alternatives to the homogenised, unsustainable and profit driven product design cultures of today.