Starry Night Camera with Consent Page

Design Process

I really enjoyed this assignment because when I was working on assignment #6 (original experimental camera), I was bothered by how p5 automatically accessed my webcam without any warning.

Since my experimental camera uses the webcam and also asks for the user’s birthday, which is a personal information, I decided to ask for permission to use the webcam as well as to ask permission for their birthday. Initially, I wanted to create a simple page describing what my sketch uses and checkboxes underneath the description that users can click on to give consent for the Star Gaze camera. The two check boxes were- 1) Can I have access to your camera 2) Do I have permission to ask for personal information (birthday).

As I started to create the consentful interface, I wanted to make the consent page more interactive since the computer was the one asking for permission. So from what I learned through the bitmap game assignment, I decided to create multiple scenes to ask for permission.

Description of the Consentful Interface

I started to create the interface by creating a greetings page since a conversation always starts off with a greeting (unless the person is rude.) Using the typewriter effect, I made the consentful interface greet the user. After the greeting is spells out, it automatically goes to the next page which is the description for the Star Gaze Camera. On the bottom is the button that takes the user to the permission page. The permission page has three options- 1) Access camera and ask birthday 2) Access camera only 3) Ask birthday only. I thought it was important to have three different options since some may only want the camera or birthday or both. By incorporating a greeting, description and a permission page, I hoped to make the user feel comfortable using the Star Gaze camera and not wary like I felt when I created assignment #6.

Overal Reflection

I believe this assignment is so important since automatically using people’s webcam is an invasion of privacy. My design follows most of the F.R.I.E.S principles because it is 1) free, 2) reversible, 3) users are informed before they use the program, 4) people who visit and use the program are typically there because they are enthusiastic about the program, 5) Specific with the 3 different questions for the 3 different scenarios.

Recontextualizing User Interaction and Experience

Before, my sketch violated the user by accessing the camera without even asking for permission. My initial sketch without the consentful interface also assumed that the user would be comfortable with being asked a personal question. However, by adding the consentful interface into my sketch, it allows the user to be in charge of their own digital body and make a decision on how they want to interact with the program.