This research explores the materialization of hormonally influenced sensations related to intimate health through interactive design. Drawing on critical menstruation studies, it reacts to how menstruation has been historically silenced, stigmatized, and framed as dysfunction, leading to disembodiment and emotional disconnection. We propose an introspection and translation of hormonal sensations into tangible, visible, and audible material expressions, namely that are, interactive felt-sensation pillows enhanced with embedded technologies such as heating elements, vibration modules, and sound. These multisensory artefacts externalize intimate experiences, encouraging selfreflection, and bodily awareness. By making the invisible perceptible, the project challenges dominant narratives of shame and introduces new ways of learning and relating to the hormonal body. This work contributes to the feminist design discourse by proposing a re-embodied, empowered approach to menstruation and hormonal life through material and sensory expression.

In HCI there have been calls for diversity-driven research and insights into how this may be carried out in practice. One way of conducting diversity-driven HCI research is by doing participatory design. In this paper we contribute with lessons identified from organizing a PD workshop that enabled diverse ways of participating for our participants. The workshop design is based on insights from two years of doing diversity-driven PD with two middle school classes, which are particularly interesting settings to explore as diverse children spend substantial time together in a period of their development that is formative for their socialisation. We describe the workshop itself before reflecting on its structure and facilitation as well as the role of the physical space and the choice of design materials with the aim to distil insights and recommendations about what researchers can do to enable diverse pathways of participation in design processes.

Being together virtually has become an alternative for many people, who cannot meet physically. In relationships among grandparents and grandchildren, for instance, online meetings have become an appreciated means to connect when meeting face-to-face is not, or not often enough, an option. However, although a variety of technologies exist to do so, they rarely take into account the physical space that they are situated within, i.e., the physical surroundings of the conversation partners. In the work presented in this paper we experimented with bridging distant physical spaces in playful ways. We designed four instances of intergenerational online meetings, and explored their experiential qualities in a workshop with grandparents and grandchildren. We found that the surrounding space indeed provided rich opportunities to facilitate joint tangible activities and experiences rather than being an unnoticed background. In this work in progress, we discuss how these spaces might be considered heterotopia, which invite free play and immersing together in the activities alike, and which seem to be promising to be explored further.

This paper introduces my PhD research on how a tangible and embodied technological layer can enhance and enlarge an existing public space to promote children’s informal learning (IFL). IFL is increasingly recognized as the basis for education, as children learn through social, creative, and playful interactions. IFL is rooted in daily lives and expands the children´s sphere of action beyond their confined social spaces in public and educational institutes. Using the urban environment makes education more accessible to a broad group. Therefore, I will create conditions and structures that make informal educational processes possible and available. I seek to achieve opportunity spaces by fostering alternative experimentational approaches. Through implementing design interventions in the public, I will playfully appropriate the existing and create opportunity spaces for IFL. The design intervention should open up children’s creativity, encourage social interaction, and enhance mental health, which is often neglected in the education system.