Trauma-Informed Digital Evidence Collection: A Design Inquiry into Evidence Practices for Technology-Facilitated Abuse in Intimate Partner Violence

Technology-facilitated abuse (TFA) is a widespread and harmful dimension of interpersonal violence. Documenting TFA can unlock mitigative actions for survivors such as legal orders of protection, but existing documentation tools are insufficient. This paper considers whether a trauma-informed design approach could yield more effective methods for documenting TFA and how, concretely, to approach trauma-informed digital evidence collection. Toward this goal, we use trauma-informed methods to design a new tool, Sherloc, that helps identify and document TFA within tech clinic interventions. We evaluated Sherloc in feedback sessions with legal experts, then in a small pilot program in the U.S. From our design inquiry, we present novel guidelines for trauma-informed digital evidence collection. We call on HCI researchers to build on our work to envision trauma-informed methods of documenting TFA.