Data Self-Portrait : visualização de dados pessoais segundo uma perspectiva auto-etnográfica

The portrait as a symbolic representation of individual identity tends to reflect the social, cultural and technical context in which it is created. In the current historical moment, where technological mediation is omnipresent, data portraits appear as forms of portraiture that propose to evocatively represent the identity of individuals based on their personal data, which are generated as by-products of their daily activities and registered by technological devices of everyday use. Following this conceptual framework and technical context, this study aims to explore the creative possibilities associated with the concept of data portrait as a mechanism for representing and expressing individual identity. To this end, the study begins by circumscribing the concept of data portrait, addressing the context of its emergence, its functions, and how they are configured as aesthetic artifacts. In order to delimit this notion and extract instruments for an analysis of its concrete manifestations, the associated concepts of portrait, autoethnography, data, visualization and computation are discussed. Following this, it examines a set of works that, implicitly or explicitly, reflect the notion of data portrait through different creative approaches. Based on this framework, the Data Self-Portrait project is developed, aiming to explore visualization methods capable of producing a self-portrait generated from personal data related to the subjects’ daily activities, according to a autoethnographic perspective and as a reflection of their identity. In this manner, this study seeks to highlight how data portraits become relevant as creative experiments developed around the representation of identity and the way it is shaped by the current cultural and technological context. It also seeks to contribute to a discussion about the ways of conceptualizing portraiture and to understand how the proliferation of digital data and the dissemination of computational media present new creative possibilities to explore portraiture as a representation genr

Design of emotion-aware mobile apps for autistic children

Sensor technologies and facial expression recognition are now widely used by mobile devices to sense our environment and our own physical and mental state. With these technologies today, we have the ability to sense emotions and create emotion-aware apps. One target group that would benefit from emotion-aware Apps are autistic children as they have difficulty understanding and expressing emotions and they are keen mobile device users. However, current mobile apps aimed at autistic children are not emotion-aware. This led our team to design a suite of Apps, called CaptureMyEmotion, that uses wireless sensors to capture physiological data together with facial expression recognition to provide a very personalised way to help autistic children and their carers understanding and managing their emotions. This paper describes how we designed CaptureMyEmotion and it discusses our experience while using sensors and facial expression recognition to detect emotion. It presents in more details the first App we developed for Android phone and tablets, called MyMedia. MyMedia enables children to take photos, videos or sounds, and simultaneously attach emotion data to them. The photos can then be reviewed together with a carer providing them a new way to understand emotions and discussing their daily activities. © 2013 IUPESM and Springer-Verlag

Humanizar os dados: a infografia na igualdade de género

Trabalho de projetoO presente projeto propõe-se a abordar a igualdade de género e trabalhar um conjunto de dados mundiais tendo como recurso a infografia. Propôs-se uma descoberta, pela aplicação de metodologias de visualização de dados, sobre como estes se aproximam de cunhos humanistas para a tradução da informação. Assim sendo, pretende-se encontrar uma forma menos comum de tratar os dados, distinta das clássicas formas presentes no dia a dia, auxiliando na tomada de decisões e atitudes perante um tema que é de grande relevância para a sociedade atual. Com o propósito desafiador de investigar o impacto que a infografia pode acartar na perceção da igualdade de género e na adoção de posturas sociais, desenvolveu-se um projeto através de dados já existentes, que permita a transmissão de mensagens por meio de números. Tendo por base o desígnio do trabalho proposto, tornou-se imprescindível realizar uma revisão literária sobre a infografia, o seu humanismo de dados, e como esta área pode auxiliar no tema e na análise da igualdade de género mundialmente. Desta forma, surge uma extensa fase de investigação, envolvendo o estudo de casos similares que permitam analisar e reconhecer as variantes desta fusão entre o tema e a infografia como processo de comunicação. Sendo o resultado, a criação de um projeto com cunho pessoal, interligado entre si e diferenciador. Posta a fase de pesquisa, mapearam-se os dados a retratar tendo por base os diferentes contextos sociais de igualdade de género que se correlacionam entre si. Seguidamente realizaram-se experimentações infográficas para contemplar as necessidades de comunicação entre o observador e as formas de visualização dos dados. Decisões sobre a abordagem estética do projeto, provêm da pesquisa realizada sobre projetos da mesma tipologia e a descoberta dos melhores recursos metafóricos para interpretação da informação. Consecutivamente constrói-se uma composição visual que permita a compreensão da infografia com o contexto. O projeto, apresenta um combinado de quatro conjuntos de dados por meio de infografia com recurso ao humanismo de dados, complementados com um briefing contextual.The present project proposes to address gender equality, as wells as working on world data sets through infographics. The purpose is to create a new methodology of data viewing, with a humanistic influence. This way, it is intended to encounter a way of handling data, less common and distinct from the classical forms presented on a day to day basis, assisting in the decision making and attitudes towards a theme that is of grand relevance to current society. With the defiant purpose of investigating the impact that infographics may carry in the perception of gender equality and in the adoption of social postures, this project was developed with already existing data, that allows the transmission of messages through numbers. Based on the intent of the purposed work, it became essential to carry out a literary revision about infographics, data humanism, and how these themes may assist in the analysis of gender equality worldwide. Thus, an extensive investigation phase arose, involving a study of similar cases that allow the analyses and recognition of the variants of this fusion between themes. As a result, the creation of a project with a personal imprint, interconnected and differentiating. After the research phase, the data to be portrayed were mapped based on the different social contexts of gender equality that correlate with each other. Successively, infographic experiments were performed to complement the communication necessities between the observer and the forms of data visualisation. The aesthetic aspect of the project is executed based on projects of the same typology and the discovery of the best metaphors for the interpretation of the information. Consecutively, a visual composition that allows the understanding of the infographics with context its built. The project presents a combination of four datasets through infographics that use data humanism as a resource, complemented with a contextual briefing