Deep Cover HCI: The Ethics of Covert Research

摘要

Deep Cover HCI is our approach to covert research in public spaces, restricting our deployments and data collection to complete ethical evaluations. We propose that research completed with high-fidelity prototypes in public spaces, where data is restricted to observable data only, results in the most realistic usage data. One of the most debated issues in Deep Cover HCI is the purposeful exclusion of qualitative data collection in order to maintain cover during evaluation. Currently, it is difficult to understand what effects the presence of an experimenter may have on the observational data collected. For example, does the behavior of the experimenter deter others from approaching the display? Does the data collected in this way give an unbiased view into user opinions? Until these questions can be answered, we would argue that collecting qualitative data at a deployment site creates unknown bias in observational data.