Exploring flash fiction for the collaborative interpretation of qualitative data

This paper presents some exploratory reflections on flash fiction as a possible method to spark discussion and collaborative interpretation of qualitative research data. A growing body of work in HCI and CSCW examines the potential of techniques used in creative writing and creative fiction to generate design concepts, and narrative data analysis is adopted by social science using creative writing techniques for qualitative data work. Here we discuss our experience of an exercise where flash fiction was used not as a technique in support of design (which has been done before in human-centred computing), but as a means of probing data and facilitating collaborative data work among researchers. We reflect on the experience and outcomes of the exercise and also discuss exploratory ideas regarding how creative writing techniques could be further explored in human-centred computing as a way to probe findings from empirical data, particularly for collaborative teams.