Final Destination: Creating a Better Afterlife for Our Digital Treasures
Given at IxDA 2017 in New York City
Session Summary
Products have a perspective problem. Their views of typical user journeys are too narrow and fail to account for one of our most basic human qualities - mortality.
Many services, like Facebook and Instagram, generate rich personal content that people increasingly view as invaluable records of their life experiences. When someone dies, these services provide, at best, profile deactivation or memorial options. While this supports access control or profile removal it leaves us with little ability to collect, preserve and pass on these valuable heirlooms to our relatives in any meaningful way. Instead, we are left with significant parts of our personal heritage floating in a digital purgatory, just out of reach to those who treasure it most.
Highly personal and social products have an obligation to address their users’ needs before and beyond death. “Final Destination: Creating a better afterlife for our digital treasures” will present the social and business benefits, along with some practical considerations, of supporting needs within this most universal of human contexts.