The Future of More-Than-Human Design: A Computing Practice in Crisis?
Wolmet Barendregt, Tilde M. Bekker, Arne Berger, Peter Dalsgaard, Eva Wiman Eriksson, Christopher Frauenberger, Batya Friedman, Elisa Giaccardi, Anne-Marie Hansen, Rikke Hagensby Jensen, Ann Light, Joseph Lindley, Iohanna Nicenboim, Elisabet M. Nilsson, Johan Redström, Natalie Sontopski, Ron Wakkary, Mikael Wiberg, Daisy Yoo · 2025
Given the current ecological crisis, the HCI and design community is showing a growing interest in the adoption of more-than-human perspectives, challenging human-centric approaches.While this has sparked numerous research initiatives, many of them are still a far cry from providing practical solutions or transforming the industry.This also presents a hurdle for teaching more-than-human perspectives to design students, as they may feel powerless to practice those teachings in real-life industrial settings.To bring forth concrete examples of how more-than-human design practice can matter, we believe that it is now time to move beyond theorising about and advocating for the adoption of such perspectives and start a morethan-human design practice that transforms the industry.This workshop therefore aims to bring together educators, researchers, and designers to discuss and co-develop strategies for transitioning more-than-human perspectives from niche/speculation to mainstream/practice in HCI and design.The workshop also aims to develop ways to empower students to work with these perspectives to bring about this transformation of the industry.