A workshop for 

DIS 25                                                    

Info

Speculation is inherent in HCI methods and practices that seek to explore futures. Although speculative approaches are embedded in HCI, they are often associated with a lack of rigour, occupying an uncomfortable position between art and academia. Specifically, the relationship between time and speculation remains understudied. This workshop examines how temporal norms are constructed in speculative practices, aiming to bring together researchers, designers and practitioners to explore how different temporal norms affect speculative work. Participants will develop an initial "Six Degrees of Speculation" taxonomy to help speculative artefacts function as boundary objects for interdisciplinary collaboration. Participants will engage in critical discussions, artefact analysis, and collaborative activities to address challenges, including interdisciplinary barriers and ethical considerations. The workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners who use speculative methods explicitly or implicitly. By facilitating interdisciplinary dialogue and developing a shared framework, we aim to advance speculative practices by encouraging nuanced approaches to envisioning futures, making temporal norms of speculation and their implications for the real world explicitly visible in design processes.

Call for participation

Speculation is a powerful tool in HCI research. It enables researchers to envision future technologies, anticipate societal impacts, and critically examine the role of technology in shaping human experiences. However, the nuances and variations of the temporality of speculative practices within HCI are understudied. This workshop addresses this gap by bringing together researchers, designers and practitioners from diverse backgrounds who engage with speculation or are interested in doing so. We welcome submissions from researchers, designers, and practitioners who:

 • Explicitly use speculative methods in their HCI research 

• Implicitly engage with speculation in their work 

• Are interested in exploring the potential of speculative practices in HCI 

• Come from diverse disciplines intersecting with HCI (e.g., design, sociology, anthropology, computer science, philosophy, psychology)

 We invite participants to submit a position paper of up to 4 pages in single SIGCHI submission template format (including references), which can discuss their existing work, a speculative design, an artefact or their position on the workshop topic. The submissions can be individual or group. Applicants who can bring and present a prototype, concept or method at the workshop are particularly encouraged. Alternative submissions are also welcome, and they may be in the form of pictorials, sketches, videos, or other ways of communicating ideas. If accepted, at least one author must attend the workshop at DIS2025.

Key dates

Submission deadline - Submissions will be dealt with on a rolling basis

Workshop - 5th July 2025 (Saturday)

Submit

Submissions can be sent to sixdegreesworkshop@gmail.com

Organisers

Danny Snow                                   daniel.snow@ucdconnect.ie

  Is a PhD candidate at University College Dublin. His work uses research through design and speculative methods to explore conceptions of personal data, with a particular focus on posthumous data. The themes of his work include embodied and embedded interaction and the temporal elements of critical design practices. 

Conor Linehan Is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Applied Psychology, University College Cork, where he is a member of the People and Technology research group. Conor’s research focuses on understanding psychological aspects of peoples interactions with technology. He has been interested in speculative design for many years, and served previously on organising committees for relevant workshops in 2014 (Alternate endings: using fiction to explore design futures), 2018 (Grand Visions for Post-Capitalist Human Computer Interaction), and 2021 (Consequences, Schmonsequences! Considering the Future as Part of Publication and Peer Review in Computing Research; and Archives in DNA: Workshop Exploring Implications of an Emerging Bio-Digital Technology through Design Fiction.

Sarah Robinson Is a Lecturer in Applied Psychology at University College Cork, and a researcher with Lero, Science Foundation Ireland’s Research Centre for Software. Sarah is a cultural psychologist and an ethnographer, who is interested in how ordinary people speculate about futures facilitated, enabled or constrained by new technologies. She has an emerging interest in temporal norms in design, and their implications for responsibility. 

Alejandra Gomez Ortega Is a Digital Futures Postdoctoral Fellow at Stockholm University, working at the intersection of personal data, intimate health, and speculative design. Her research explores individual experiences interacting with and sharing intimate data, privacy perceptions and considerations around data, and data themselves. Alejandra applies Research through Design and Participatory Design approaches to critique and envision alternative ways for people to interact with their data and for researchers to access and apply these data in their processes.

Joseph Lindley Is a Senior Research Fellow at Imagination Lancaster. He is an expert in Design Fiction and practice-based research approaches and identifies as a generalist. His doctoral thesis A Thesis About Design Fiction helped to establish the practice and subsequently he has deployed Design Fiction in many contexts to support critique, ideation, policy, and analysis of complex socio-technological contexts. He advocates for speculation and Design-led research to become central tenets of interdisciplinary research as opposed to fringe practices that are subservient to dominant knowledge paradigms.

Fiona McDermott Is a Research Fellow at the CONNECT Centre for Future Networks at Trinity College Dublin, and a lecturer at the School of Visual Culture at the National College of Art and Design Dublin. With a background in architecture and urban design, her research explores emerging internet technologies from an interdisciplinary perspective, focusing on the socio-cultural and environmental dimensions. She was a curator for the Irish national pavilion at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale and is co-editor of the book, States of Entanglement: Data in the Irish Landscape.

Benjamin R. Cowan Is Professor of HCI at University College Dublin's School of Information and Communication Studies. His research focuses on investigating the impact of conversational user interface (CUI) design on user interactions. He is cofounder of the ACM Conversational User Interfaces conference (ACM CUI), having published award winning work on CUI design and user interaction at CHI. He has served on the CHI Subcommittees as AC and SC (2022 and 2023) for Understanding People: Quantitative Methods subcommittee and is an ACM Distinguished Speaker.

Marguerite Barry is Associate Professor and Head of the School of Information & Communication Studies in University College Dublin. Her research focuses on ethics in digital and automated technologies, specifically building theory and tools to support ethical reflection in design and development, and interventions in practice. She has co-organised relevant ACM conference workshops including Design for the Long Now DIS 2024, Technology for the Margins CHI 2021 and Ethics on the Ground FAccT 2020.