This scoping review examines the past decade of research at the intersection of democracy, technology and design. Analysing 170 articles across Scopus, the ACM Digital Library, and the DRS Digital Library, we investigate how this research relates to democracy and how democratic values are conceptualised and enacted through interactive systems. We identify four dominant orientations: technology as democratic repair, as risk, as co-constitutive of democratic practices, and as embedded in everyday collective action and lived practices. Across these, we reveal a persistent misalignment: while democratic values are frequently invoked, much of the work reduces democracy to technical or procedural problems, prioritising optimisation over power, relationality, and lived practice. As a result, key dimensions such as collective agency, structural inequalities, and infrastructural conditions remain under-addressed, offering novel opportunities for HCI research. We argue that democratic technology design should advance better alignment fostering responsibility, participation, equity, and transparency in sociotechnical systems.

The science and technology world is stuck in an unresolved debate: can technologies ever be conscious? While this question dominates discussions in neuropsychology and cognitive science, it is ultimately unproductive for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). As users perceive a level of consciousness in commercially available systems, there is a need to understand the factors that lead to a perception of consciousness so that we account for consciousness in designing interactive systems. To that end, we systematically develop the Precursors of Perceived Consciousness in Interactive Systems Scale—a validated instrument for quantifying the design qualities that contribute to perceived consciousness in a technology. Through reporting on a structured scale development process, we show how the PreCoS enables studies of technologies potentially perceived as conscious. PreCoS is the first step towards the systematic study and design of systems which responsibly integrate perceived consciousness: fostering positive, engaging experiences while recognising and mitigating ethical risks such as overtrust, bias, or psychological discomfort.

Playing cards have long been a central feature in board games, despite their physical limitations, such as fragility, and repetitive content. Yet, while HCI research increasingly explores augmented board games, interactive playing cards remain underexplored. In this work, we investigate the use of e-paper displays as interactive playing cards. Based on a formative study with eight game designers, we designed and implemented InkStack—a prototype consisting of e-paper cards, a dedicated programmer, and a web application for card customisation. We then evaluated InkStack in a within-subject study with n = 20 participants, comparing its use across four board game mechanics against traditional paper cards and a smartphone. Results show that InkStack is preferred for more complex mechanics, whereas paper and smartphones are sufficient for simpler tasks. The findings also highlight how customisation and versatility can enhance gameplay and enable novel forms of interaction.

While technology is widely recognised as a tool to enhance wellbeing, there is no clear consensus on the best practices for design. Persuasive strategies, such as nudging, are often seen as effective but raise ethical concerns. Reflection-based approaches offer a potential alternative. However, a clear understanding of the balance between these strategies is crucial for designing effective and ethically sound wellbeing technologies. We conducted two studies with a total of n = 163 participants comparing nudging and reflection techniques using contrasting prototypes of fitness wearables. We verified that the prototypes represented key nudging and reflection strategies through expert feedback. Our mixed-methods inquiry shows that certain nudging strategies are perceived as more malicious and more likely to provoke rumination, i.e., negative thought cycles, compared to other wellbeing strategies. We contribute insights to inform design decisions for wellbeing technologies, balancing effectiveness with ethical considerations.

Figure 1: In this study, we explore the potential of mobile desks to provide flexible and adaptive workspace solutions for promoting healthier office habits.We designed a mobile desk capable of autonomous movement and evaluated it in three configurations: manual control using a crank, control via a physical control panel, and fully automated adaptive operation.

The traditional values of jewellery—such as remembrance, self-expression, or symbolic meaning—are often overlooked in smart jewellery research. To examine how technological integration might influence these values, we conducted an online survey with 81 participants. Our findings suggest that many participants were reluctant to embed technology into their empowering jewellery pieces, with some describing it as “contaminating” them. At the same time, participants expressed interest in extending jewellery with features such as health monitoring and other functional utilities. We contribute initial insights into how technology may reshape the perceived meaning and value of jewellery, offering implications for the design of future smart jewellery.

The integration of motion capture technology into dance education is gaining traction, offering new possibilities for enhancing precision and technique. Traditional methods, such as instructor feedback and mirror observation, often lack the granularity required for effective self-correction, particularly among beginners. In this study, we evaluate the OptiTrack motion capture system for teaching basic dance movements, comparing it with traditional instructor feedback in a between-subjects study involving 28 novice dancers. The system proved more precise in detecting subtle posture misalignments—especially during dynamic movements such as pirouettes—yet participants expressed a clear preference for the real-time, personalised guidance. Our findings suggest that dance learning support systems could be strengthened by complementing technical accuracy with qualities such as interpersonal aspects and motivational feedback.

Despite the wide adoption of wearables, electronics incorporated into jewellery remain a niche. Interactive jewellery offers a compelling design space, encompassing values of traditional jewellery and its socio-cultural roles. However, creating interactive artefacts that bear symbolic and social meaning remains challenging. We investigate how these roles can be leveraged and re-interpreted using modern technology. Utilising traditional jewellery’s socio-cultural roles as a framework, we look at interactive jewellery in participatory workshops with N = 16 design practitioners. Informed by our results, we created a prototype interactive necklace, focusing on Identity role and conducted four case studies to probe the wearer and bystander perceptions on interactive jewellery in different social contexts. Based on our findings, we contribute four directions for interactive jewellery designers.

Traditional methods for teaching electromagnetism often fall short, constrained by complex math and static 2D diagrams that fail to convey the dynamic, 3D nature of Electromagnetic fields. Even modern interactive tools frequently offer only scripted experiences, limiting exploration. This work presents a novel VR application designed to overcome these challenges by providing an interactive, real-time simulation of fundamental electromagnetic phenomena.

Smart homes are evolving into complex ecosystems, but their inner workings often remain opaque to users, limiting their ability to troubleshoot and customise the technology. The distributed and hidden components make it challenging for users to understand how these systems work. To design interfaces that enable intuitive troubleshooting for non-experts, we first need a clear understanding of how they form mental models and instinctively diagnose issues. We conducted three iterative vignette studies with realistic smart home scenarios to explore how users perceive interconnectivity in smart home ecosystems and how system complexity impacts their troubleshooting approaches. We identified common smart home topologies envisioned by users and categorised their diagnostic strategies. Our findings show that while users view their smart homes as hierarchical, their mental models are often incomplete, and current interfaces favour functional models, hiding the connections in the system. We provide seven actionable takeaways for designing interfaces that improve user understanding and troubleshooting capabilities.

Building tangible interfaces or data physicalizations is a resource-intensive endeavour. There is a need for rapid means to prototype tangibles in order to facilitate research and design. To this end, we designed ProtoBricks: a research toolkit that uses capacitive bricks to facilitate rapid prototyping for tangible interfaces. Utilizing toy bricks that do not contain electronics, ProtoBricks can record brick position and color. Specialized knowledge is not required to build our system as it uses widely available components and 3D printing. We contribute the full software and hardware specification of the toolkit. We evaluate the utility of the toolkit by reporting on past use cases and prototyping workshops. We show that the toolkit facilitates creativity and effectively supports prototyping. ProtoBricks lowers the entry threshold for experimenting with tangible interfaces and enables researchers and designers to focus on the interaction with their prototype, delegating implementation to the toolkit.

Many interactive systems that support tabletop games either augment the experience with additional elements or transform game components into digital counterparts, e.g., using mixed reality. However, as many users prefer tangible game elements, digital augmentations can disrupt the immersion they seek to enhance, often due to the complexity of the hardware used. Responding to this challenge, we designed a screenless interactive tabletop system with capacitive sensing. The system is suitable for novice players and provides automatic score-keeping. Our method eliminates the need for external sensors and retains all original game pieces intact. We evaluated our system in a study with a forest planting game (n = 20). Gameplay with our system exhibited shorter turn duration, and participants adopted more effective strategies than in traditional gameplay. These results underscore the potential of screenless interactive tabletops to amplify the gaming experience without causing distractions.

While the neck-worn garments are an integral part of fashion around the world, few interactive systems utilize them as form factors. As neck is located beyond the natural field of view, it offers wide opportunities for subtle haptic interaction. While tactile acuity of the neck is well studied in clinical research, these results are difficult to apply for interactive systems. In this paper, we present HaptiCollar - a research prototype for studying tactile acuity of the neck. We conducted two experimental studies comparing different numbers of actuators on the neck, in two contextual scenarios simulating stationary and mobile use. We found that pattern actuations are recognised more effectively than single-point vibrations, independently of use scenario. Our analysis shows that introducing a primary cognitive task and motion does not impair recognition accuracy, while highly increasing the cognitive load. Our work contributes empirical insights for designing haptic interaction for future neck-worn interfaces.

A rapid shift towards online education witnessed in recent years, re-shaped the necessary skill set of a modern teacher. Delivery of classes in remote and hybrid format became an integral part of education. However, providing feedback on lecturing technique at scale still remains a challenge. We present the design and implementation of Speecoach – an online tool for lecturers that analyses the audio recordings of lectures and provides feedback concerning their style of speech delivery. Our system analyses the pitch, speech rate and volume dynamics of a recording and compares it against the reference model based on a data set of professional-grade talks. Our tool facilitates teachers’ self-development by providing contextualised feedback on the parameters of their speech and comparing it to different forms of public addresses. Our work contributes a prototype tool facilitating public speaking and envisions future developments and studies in life-long learning of education professionals.