We present phenology circles, a method to deepen relations human and more-than-human in the backstage of participatory design processes. To illustrate the method, we reflect on over two years of activity in an online, global gardening community of practice (our phenology circle) initiated to coordinate and communicate with participants in the backstage of our research. Related to our research aims, the community was initiated to attune ourselves to the rhythms and interrelations of other species and between one another. Through this approach, we better understood interaction and deepened relations between humans and the more-than-human (e.g., plants, animals, spirits). The community (N=42) has shared over 1,200 images and textual posts regarding thoughts about the environment, concerns, and experiences. Reflecting on activity of eight core members, we identified shifts from scientific-natured posts to imbue sentience and storytelling, making possible a variety of cross-cultural and symbiotic encounters to appear in our online site and fostering community to encounter and embrace difference. Phenology circles illuminate more-than-human concerns intertwined with different human values and beliefs. We discuss the value of science, sentience and storytelling, reflect on facilitation, and illustrate a design pathway that links the backstage to frontstage design activities.

This paper presents nature fictions, a co-design approach that seeks to highlight relations between people and nonhuman stakeholders in the process of imagining sustainable futures. The work was situated in gardens, to explore nature relations in gardener's immediate surroundings and to imagine ways of combating the adverse effects human activities have on the Earth's natural systems. Our study involved design workshops with 15 gardeners, who engaged with different prompts (phenology wheel, nature cards, and paper prototypes) to provoke relational thought for creating nature fictions. Through this process, we identified three design spaces that illustrate the relevance of the nature fictions approach: 1) Community building through awareness and collaboration around nature, 2) Multispecies care in the garden, and 3) Creating balance in public spaces – From the garden to society. We discuss key tensions and anxieties, and opportunities for each design space, and we reflect on working with nature fictions and more-than-human thought.

Abstract Sleep studies suggest that exams, jobs, and technologies keep teens up at night, but little research exists to engage teens in reflecting on their own sleep. We designed a set of cards and a web-based app ‘SleepBeta’ to support reflection by inviting teens to ask questions, explore, track, and experiment with sleep and related technology and lifestyle habits. Through card sorting, we invited teens to identify technology and lifestyle habits they wished to track. SleepBeta let teens track various habits and sleep whilst visualizing interrelationships between these data. Twelve teens and 11 parents participated in interviews before and after a 3-week field trial of SleepBeta. Our findings highlighted four distinct modes of reflection: reflection in preparation, reflection in action, reflection upon revisiting data, and reflection through social interaction. We discuss how our findings provide sensitizing concepts that reframe reflection from a post hoc activity with personal data, to an ongoing process that starts before technologies are used to generate data. We highlight design opportunities for scaffolding reflection in preparation, and we reflect on design choices that give teens control over their data.