Designing with Polyamory

Abstract

Design is, and has long been, mononormative. It focuses on couples, dyads, and traditional relationship structures that are often taken for granted as the norm. In this dissertation, I contribute techniques for inquiring about lived experiences of queerness and queer relationships with data from sensorially rich first-person and participatory design perspectives. Using sonic and tactile media to probe about lived experiences of the important but under-studied relationship formation of polyamory, in this dissertation, I ask: how might we design with and within the contexts of polyamory and computing? The project uses a combination of autoethnographic design inquiry and participatory design to investigate personal data and its potential for exploring non-normative relationships and lived experiences of polyamory. Moving from individual to participatory design inquiries, this dissertation presents the development of autospeculation. I define autospeculation as a design research method that uses reflections on personal data to access and analyze lived experiences of technology design. I use autospeculation at both the individual and community registers. Using such practices, I argue for sensorially rich engagements with personal data as catalysts for personally meaningful reflection and speculation. Findings from this dissertation include: 1) autobiographical reflections with one’s own data can serve as a bridge between first-person research and participatory design research, 2) zines and craft-based design kits can successfully introduce participants to ways of engaging their data and of doing autospeculation, and 3) design researchers and practitioners can, as demonstrated by this dissertation, attend to more diverse relationship forms.