Apple Study Examines How Users Negotiate Ontological Boundaries in Personal Sensing Systems

Apple and Stanford researchers built two open-ended probes using a Wizard of Oz technique so participants could train personalized machine learning systems on phenomena they defined themselves.

In a week-long exploratory study, participants identified four sites where ontological boundaries were negotiated: the boundaries of a phenomenon, the subject as part of relations, signal versus noise, and the objectivity of data.

The paper offers starting points for supporting boundary negotiation through design.