How Does AI Represent Social Concepts? Examining the Visual Representation of Care in Text-to-Image ToolsText-to-image (T2I) generative AI tools like Midjourney are growing in capability and popularity, promising a wide range of applications. However, concerns are rising over the biases in how they represent social concepts like care and the lack of guidance for designers and users to address these in practice. This paper first presents an analysis of 140 “photos of care” generated by Midjourney, and then explores how prompting might influence the results. The findings reveal that AI-generated images reproduce stereotypical and reductive representations of care by default, neglecting the broad spectrums of care practices in everyday life. Furthermore, we find that while prompt engineering might mitigate certain biases, it requires specialised skills, knowledge, and an ongoing reflexive approach to generate meaningful outputs. We conclude by proposing a reflexive prompting framework, and discussing the implications for future T2I evaluation and its responsible use and design.2025ZWZezhong Wang et al.Generative AI (Text, Image, Music, Video)AI Ethics, Fairness & AccountabilityAlgorithmic Transparency & AuditabilityDIS
Designing Exchangeopoly: A Boardgame to Explore Value Exchange within CommunitiesIn this pictorial, we discuss the design of Exchangeopoly, a boardgame developed to investigate exchanges between people in communities when they help each other out. Such exchanges are often acts of kindness for forms of volunteering that are not remunerated financially and are built on social capital. The boardgame scaffolded explorations of scenarios with participants where informal altruistic interactions in their communities are tokenised, rewarded and incentivised. We focus on the designed-in features and considerations that went into the visual and material production of the game and its gameplay mechanics. We discuss how Exchangeopoly was a valuable method that surfaced existing and speculated practices of exchange, and supported participants to explore the opportunities and problems of representing and rewarding such interactions. We contribute insights about the usefulness of exchangeopoly as a tool to explore scenarios and surface tensions about tokenisation in community value exchange.2025SCSimran Chopra et al.Digitalization of Board & Tabletop GamesMakerspace CultureDIS
Seeking Inspiration through Human-LLM InteractionLarge language model (LLM) systems have been shown to stimulate creative thinking among creators, yet empirical research on whether users can seek inspiration in their everyday lives through these technologies is lacking. This paper explores which attributes of LLMs influence inspiration-seeking processes. Focusing on use cases of travel, cooking, and self-care, we interviewed 20 participants as they explored scenarios of these use cases using LLMs. Thematic analysis revealed that the vast data of LLMs inspires users with unexpected ideas, many of which were highly personalized, and inspired participants towards being motivated to act. Participants were also sensitive to the deficiencies of LLMs, and noted how ethical issues associated with these technologies could negatively impact them applying inspirational ideas into practice. We discuss the behavioral patterns of users actively seeking inspiration via LLMs, and provide design opportunities for LLMs that make the inspiration-seeking process more human-centric.2025XLXinrui Lin et al.Beijing Institute of Technology; University of EdinburghGenerative AI (Text, Image, Music, Video)Human-LLM CollaborationAI Ethics, Fairness & AccountabilityCHI
Human-Precision Medicine Interaction: Public Perceptions of Polygenic Risk Score for Genetic Health PredictionPrecision Medicine (PM) transforms the traditional "one-drug-fits-all" paradigm by customising treatments based on individual characteristics, and is an emerging topic for HCI research on digital health. A key element of PM, the Polygenic Risk Score (PRS), uses genetic data to predict an individual's disease risk. Despite its potential, PRS faces barriers to adoption, such as data inclusivity, psychological impact, and public trust. We conducted a mixed-methods study to explore how people perceive PRS, formed of surveys (n=254) and interviews (n=11) with UK-based participants. The interviews were supplemented by interactive storyboards with the ContraVision technique to provoke deeper reflection and discussion. We identified ten key barriers and five themes to PRS adoption and proposed design implications for a responsible PRS framework. To address the complexities of PRS and enhance broader PM practices, we introduce the term Human-Precision Medicine Interaction (HPMI), which integrates, adapts, and extends HCI approaches to better meet these challenges.2025YSYuhao Sun et al.University of EdinburghAI Ethics, Fairness & AccountabilityMental Health Apps & Online Support CommunitiesCHI
Creating Resources for Designing With and For Care Ecologies in HCIAmidst a growing body of work in HCI focusing on designing systems that engage with care relationships, there is increasing interest in expanding notions of care beyond transactional practices, towards broader notions of “care ecologies”. However, how can we support care systems designers to apply these concepts in practice? This paper presents the Care Spectrums, a set of sensitising concepts for designers to explore and apply to their practice. Developed as a response to a design probe exercise (the CareTree) which was carried out with 14 participants over one month, the Care Spectrums respond to the multiplicity of expressions of care in participants’ everyday lives. Translated into a design resource (the ‘Co-Designing with Care’ card deck), and trialled with 10 designers, the Care Spectrums revealed hidden caring and uncaring practices in designers’ projects, and stimulated opportunities for designing with and for people’s complex and entangled care ecologies.2024CWCara Wilson et al.Empowerment of Marginalized GroupsParticipatory DesignPrototyping & User TestingDIS
Agency Aspirations: Understanding Users’ Preferences And Perceptions Of Their Role In Personalised News CurationRecommender systems are increasingly employed by journalistic outlets to deliver personalised news, transforming news curation into a reciprocal yet insufficiently defined process influenced by editors, recommender systems, and individual user actions. To understand the tension in this dynamic and users’ preferences and perceptions of their role in personalised news curation, we conducted a study with UK participants aged 16-34. Building on a preliminary survey and interview study, which revealed a strong desire from participants for increased agency in personalisation, we designed an interactive news recommender provotype (provocative design artefact) which probed the role of agency in news curation with participants (n=16). Findings highlighted a behaviour-intention gap, indicating participants desire for agency yet reluctance to intervene actively in personalisation. Our research offers valuable insights into how users perceive their agency in personalised news curation, underscoring the importance for systems to be designed to support individuals becoming active agents in news personalisation.2024ARAnna Marie Rezk et al.University of EdinburghExplainable AI (XAI)Recommender System UXCHI
Walking and Talking: Place-based Data Collection and Mapping for Participatory Design with CommunitiesThis paper explores the value of a participant-led walking method, during which matters of place in urban or rural contexts are explored. While walking, a diverse dataset is collected, including audio recordings, photographs, GPS tracks, as well as three words that participants are prompted for at each stop along the walk via a bespoke web application. We used this approach in an urban community in the UK and a rural community in Greece as part of ongoing place-based initiatives. Our findings show how participants connected personal and emotional stories with structural issues, countered official, ‘authorised’ discourses about both places, and how maps and videos created after the walks acted as boundary objects. We reflect on the claims of walking as a method that fosters equitable researcher-participant relationships, outline future design directions for participatory walking and mapping technologies, and consider the value of walking methods and map-making for participatory design.2023SPSebastian Prost et al.Geospatial & Map VisualizationCommunity Engagement & Civic TechnologyParticipatory DesignDIS
Sensing Care Through Design - A Speculative Role-play Approach to “Living With” Sensor-Supported Care NetworksSensor networks are increasingly commonplace in visions of smart cities and future healthcare systems, promising greater efficiency and increased wellbeing. However, the design of these technologies remains focused on specific users and fragmented by context, overlooking the diversity of needs, wants and values present when technologies, people, and lived realities interact within instrumented spaces. In this paper we present a workshop method – Sensing Care – that can help researchers, interdisciplinary design and development teams, and potentially affected users, to explore what it takes to design for living with sensor technologies that intersect and interact across private and public spaces, through speculative scenarios and role play. Drawing from three deployments of the workshop, we discuss how this approach supports the design of future care-oriented sensor networks, and helps designers understand what it means to live with complex technologies as people traverse diverse contexts.2023SRSonja Rattay et al.Participatory DesignField StudiesSustainable HCIDIS
"My Perfect Platform Would Be Telepathy" - Reimagining the Design of Social Media with Autistic AdultsIn this paper, we critically examine the design of mainstream social media platforms from the point of view of autistic experiences and perspectives, drawing inspiration from the neurodiversity movement, the notion of autism as neurodivergence, and the concept of autistic sociality. We conducted 12 participatory design sessions with 20 autistic adult collaborators. Through thematic analysis of qualitative data, we identify seven challenges our participants experienced when using social media, and a set of imagined features that represent their vision of how design could better support their social media use. We discuss how mainstream social media platforms are primarily designed to address neurotypical sensitivities, and fail autistic adults through lack of user control, inadequate mechanisms for expressing tone and intention, and an orientation towards phatic interactions. To close, we outline how autistic sociality can inspire the design of kinder and more considerate social media platforms.2023BPBelén Barros Pena et al.City, University of LondonCognitive Impairment & Neurodiversity (Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia)Gender & Race Issues in HCIEmpowerment of Marginalized GroupsCHI
A Right Time to Give: Beyond Saving Time in Automated Conditional DonationsSmart Donations is a blockchain-based platform that offers users ‘contracts’ that donate funds to certain causes in response to real-world events e.g., whenever an earthquake is detected or an activist tweets about refugees. We designed Smart donations with Oxfam Australia, trialed it for 8-weeks with 86 people, recorded platform analytics and qualitatively analysed questionnaires and interviews about user experiences. Temporal qualities emerge when automation enforces conditions that contributed to participants’ awareness of events that are usually unconscious, and senses of immediacy in contributing to crisis response and ongoing involvement in situations far-away while awaiting conditions to be met. We suggest data-driven automation can reveal diverse temporal registers, in real-world phenomena, sociality, morality, and everyday life, which contributes to experiencing a ‘right time’ to donate that is not limited to productivity or efficiency. Thus, we recommend a sensitivity to right time in designing for multiple temporalities in FinTech more generally.2021NBNicola J Bidwell et al.International University of Management, Northumbria UniversityContext-Aware ComputingAlgorithmic Fairness & BiasSustainable HCICHI
Lanterns: Configuring a Digital Resource to Inspire Preschool Children’s Free Play OutdoorsPrevious HCI research has highlighted opportunities for digital technologies to support outdoor play amongst children. However, the tendency has been to focus on older children and forms of play that are structured and rule-based. We report on a Research-through-Design (RtD) inquiry, grounded in an Embodied Interactional approach, that investigated configurations of off-the-shelf Internet of Things (IoT) tool-kits to inspire new forms of free play outdoors for preschool children. We designed the Lanterns, a tangible interactive resource that is made using household materials and guided by a template, and which explores new possibilities to inspire social play and embodied interaction outdoors. Based on observations of the Lanterns being used by preschool children and Early Years Practitioners outdoors, we identify qualities of free play promoted by the Lanterns outdoors, such as enchantment, improvisation, anticipation and choice. We discuss our findings by defining three sensitising concepts to support future design research in this space: Choosing the Way; Improvising through Movement; Anticipating a Response.2021TDThomas Dylan et al.Northumbria UniversityMicromobility (E-bike, E-scooter) InteractionAugmentative & Alternative Communication (AAC)Early Childhood Education TechnologyCHI
Financial Technologies in the Cycle of Poor Mental Health and Financial Hardship: Towards Financial CitizenshipIt is well documented that people living with mental health conditions are more likely to experience financial difficulties. When explaining this association, emphasis has often been placed on financial capability, i.e. the capacity of those living with poor mental health to manage their money. This paper challenges such capability-based explanations by reporting on a diary study and interviews with 14 people who self-identify as living with a mental health condition. We focused on their experiences of financial technology use, and explored the role technology played in their strategies to minimise the impact of mental health on their economic circumstances. Rather than lacking capability, participants’ practices revealed shortcomings of existing financial technologies and how they sought to work around these. We conclude by providing a set of design directions for technologies that engage those living with poor mental health not as vulnerable targets for financial inclusion, but as full financial citizens.2021BPBelén Barros Pena et al.Northumbria UniversityAlgorithmic Transparency & AuditabilityMental Health Apps & Online Support CommunitiesCHI
Circumspect Users: Older Adults’ as Critical Adopters and Resistors of TechnologyWhile HCI research has often addressed the needs of older adults, they are often framed as being sceptical of digital technologies. We argue that while many older adults are circumspect users of digital technology, they bring rich and critical perspectives on the role of technology in society that are grounded in lived experiences across their life courses. We report on 20 technology life story interviews conducted with retirees over the age of 60. Our analysis shows how experiences of technology across their life courses significantly undermined participants’ sense of competency, independence, resilience, agency and control. Dissonances between what our participants valued and the perceived values of technology have led them to become critical adopters of technology, and resist its intrusion into certain aspects of their lives. We discuss how the critical perspectives of older adults and the value dissonances they experience are valuable for designing future digital technologies.2021BPBelén Barros Pena et al.Northumbria UniversityAging-Friendly Technology DesignUniversal & Inclusive DesignSTEM Education & Science CommunicationCHI
How Design Researchers Interpret Probes: Understanding the Critical Intentions of a Designerly Approach to ResearchSince entering the HCI lexicon in the 1990s, Probes have been interpreted and used in divergent ways as a designerly approach to research. While originally positioned as a critique of dominant user-research methods, literature on Probes rarely reflects on such critical dimensions nor explicitly articulates the intents of using Probes as research artifacts. We conducted interviews with 12 design researchers who have worked with Probes within diverse Research through Design projects, exploring direct accounts of how and why Probes are used in practice. Our interviews brought to the fore the critical concerns behind Probe practices in relation to the language of Probing, relationships with participants, and motivations to challenge normative practices. While the pluralistic interpretations of Probes offered by our participants brings challenges, we discuss how making visible the critical motivations of our research opens up new ways of practicing and disseminating Probes.2021SÇSena Çerçi et al.Northumbria UniversityParticipatory DesignUser Research Methods (Interviews, Surveys, Observation)CHI
Understanding the Boundaries between Policymaking and HCIThere is a growing body of literature in HCI examining the intersection between policymaking and technology research. However, what it means to engage in policymaking in our field, or the ways in which evidence from HCI studies is translated into policy, is not well understood. We report on interviews with 11 participants working at the intersection of technology research and policymaking. Analysis of this data highlights how evidence is understood and made sense of in policymaking processes, what forms of evidence are privileged over others, and the work that researchers engage in to meaningfully communicate their work to policymaking audiences. We discuss how our findings pose challenges for certain traditions of research in HCI, yet also open up new policy opportunities for those engaging in more speculative research practices. We conclude by discussing three ways forward that the HCI community can explore to increase engagement with policymaking contexts.2019ASAnne Spaa et al.Northumbria UniversityAlgorithmic Fairness & BiasTechnology Ethics & Critical HCICHI