Conference Agenda

Time plays a central role in design research, influencing how people complete daily tasks, plan for the future, and interact with technology. Designers employ various methods, such as journey maps, diary studies, temporal probes, and storytelling, to articulate their conceptualizations of time. They use time to ground findings and envision future possibilities through tools like systems maps and the futures cone. This paper critically examines the use of time-based techniques in design research, highlighting their limitations and capabilities. It explores the intersection of time and trauma, acknowledging trauma's impact on an individual's perception and experience of time. The paper advocates for alternative framings of time, such as feminist temporality and Crip time, to better accommodate complex and nonlinear experiences like trauma. By doing so, it encourages designers to engage with messy temporal experiences to create more inclusive and appropriate design solutions.

In this paper we explore the emerging qualities of Counteristic Design practises as they depart from Discursive models. In this process, Counterism is under-pinned as an emerging field of study that seeks to design trust. Counterism offers a way of resistance by creating systems of autonomy, accountability and repara-tion that values difference and creativity. The two projects analysed vary in ap-proach, with some developing new methods by incorporating new technologies, while others reimagine existing methods. These approaches can offer interesting ways towards a new future for citizens at the intersection of social justice, and technology. Counteristic practises operate within the system with the aim to shape its directionality in a particular direction in which social justice is para-mount. In this process the critical becomes tactical in which the main aim is to restore trust rather than build engagement.

Addressing the widespread use of AI-driven decision-making systems in public spheres, in this paper we advocate for the integration of love as both a virtue and an affection within the discourse of participatory practices in AI design and development. Based on an analysis of justice, the need to shift the focus to love will be highlighted. Furthermore, we introduce two directions love could play during AI design: (1) love as an epistemological design inquiry to question the conventional knowledge structures in design by integrating embodied and experiential knowledge, and (2) love as a political design inquiry to challenge unjust systems in AI. We underscore the necessity for critical inquiry, recognizing both love’s potential to nurture relationships and its potential for perpetuating inequalities. By proposing love as a foundational perspective in AI design and development, we encourage a paradigm shift and challenge exclusionary mechanisms, to cultivate just and democratic AI futures.

We tend to sexualize everything around us, yet we find it hard to address sexuality in our research. At the same time, there is growing interest in considering the social, emotional, and bodily aspects of the human-computer experience. The subject of sex itself is an elephant in the room - present, but under-researched. In this pictorial, we present a project aimed at making sexual experience available for conversation in a design process. Our project explores how soma-aesthetics can con-tribute to designing objects that challenge standard heteronormative sex toys and attitudes towards pleasure. To do this, we combine a 1st person research approach with a 2nd perspective involving users in soma-design practices that encourage self-discovery towards non-genital sexual pleasure. We analyze the out-comes and argue for a broadening of HCI to include and encourage design for pleasure and pleasure activism.

Surprise is integral to driving creativity and innovation in design. While design research has mainly adopted a product-centered perspective to explore surprise as an emotional user response, the intricate involvement of surprise in the design process itself remains underexplored. Studies in cognitive psychology show that a comprehensive understanding of surprise must also encompass its detection, management, potential for errors, and influence on the behavior of individuals and groups. On this basis, this paper contributes a state-of-the-art literature review of two decades of design research to explore the complex functions of surprise in design processes. The paper discusses key emergent themes, including the continued relevance of Schön’s work, surprise-related error, the entwinement of process and product, and surprise in creativity support tools (CSTs). The paper ends by suggesting future research to enhance our limited understanding of the functions of surprise in design processes.