Data Dashboard: Exploring Centralization and Customization in Personal Data Curation

The advent of cloud platforms and mobile devices has complicated personal data management and decisions about what data to keep or discard. To explore how to help people curate their data, we designed Data Dashboard, a prototype system that provides: 1) a centralized overview of data from across platforms and devices, 2) customizable filters for sorting through many types of data. We evaluated the prototype with 18 participants. Building on top of previous literature, we use the concept of data boundaries (the idea of invisible but important separations across data) to explain participants' reactions to the prototype. We show that centralizing data in a single management system blurs boundaries and requires safety guarantees. Customization options, instead, uphold boundaries and reinforce user control. We discuss how to use these results for integrating data boundaries in the design of new tools, rethinking the language of personal data, and envisioning a post-cloud future.