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This workshop invites the CHI community to interrogate how categorical framings operate in HCI—across forms, datasets, interfaces, and recruitment—and to imagine alternatives that better reflect multiplicity and self-determination.
We invite HCI researchers, designers, and practitioners to critically engage with how identity is framed in HCI, by asking:
How do categorical assumptions shape research and design practices in HCI, and what forms of exclusion do they produce?
What theoretical perspectives—from feminist, intersectional, crip, queer, or postcolonial traditions—help us approach identity as fluid, contextual, and contested?
What might HCI systems look like if identity were treated as relational and evolving, rather than as fixed categories?
The workshop will bring together storytelling, artifact analysis, and speculative design activities to move from critique to co-creation. Together, we will develop a collective manifesto and visual artifacts, later published in a special issue of SkinMutts Magazine to ensure accessibility beyond academic venues.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
We welcomed submissions from researchers, designers, and practitioners across HCI who engage with questions of identity, inclusion, and justice. Interested participants should submit a short reflection (2–4 pages, ACM single-column format) on a past or current project related to the workshop themes. Submissions may also take alternative forms, including images, websites, videos, or performances. Authors should explicitly reflect on how their project intersects with the problem of categorical framings in HCI.
At least one author of each accepted submission must register for the workshop and for at least one day of CHI 2026.
SUBMIT MATERIALS TO: betweenbeyond@outlook.com
Deadline: Monday, 23 February, 2026 (AOE)
This was a half-day, in-person workshop as part of CHI2026 in Barcelona, Spain
CHI2026.ACM.ORG
PARTICIPANTS
The Limits of Labels: Homelessness, Classification, and Identity; Rachael Zehrung — University of California, Irvine, USA
"What's in a name?": Critical Reflections on Labels in Empirical Work and Documentation; Mai Hartmann — IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Algorithmic Mirror: Helping Adolescents See and Shape Their Algorithmic Self; Yui Kondo, Kevin Dunnel, Isobel Vosey, Quing Hu, Victoria Paesano, Phi N. Nguyen, Quing Xiao, Jun Zhao, Luc Rocher — Oxford Internet Institute, UK
Identity in a Digital Deck; Samuel Reiji Mayworm, Oliver L. Haimson, Michaelanne Thomas — University of Michigan School of Information, USA
Designing for the Magic Theatre Self; Julia M. Markel, James A. Landay — Stanford University, USA · Edmund VW. Brown — University of Edinburgh, UK · Jane L. E — National University of Singapore, Singapore
Seeing the Opposite Self: Identifying with Other Body Types Through Movement-based Creativity; Ray LC, Molin Li — Studio for Narrative Spaces, City University of Hong Kong, China
Non-Use: How People in Migration Navigate Rigid 'User'-Forward Systems; Jonathan Leuenberger — New Mexico State University, USA
Shades of Finnishness: Challenging Finnish National Identity Hegemony; Ruta Šerpytytė; Viivi Eskelinen — Tampere University & Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) , Finland
Identity Complexity of Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes; Safra Martinussen — HCI and Design Section, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Diversity and Identity among Persons with Convictions, Mark Springett — Middlesex University London, UK · John McAlaney — Bournemouth University, UK · Pejman Saeghe — University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Being Not One, Perhaps None, or a Mix of Hundred Thousand Identities Depending Who Asks; Steven Vethman — Sciences Po, Paris, France,
Intentional Algorithm Domestication; Laura Iacovissi — University of Tübingen & Tübingen AI Center, Germany
What Do You Do at Home?; Sally Bagheri — Department of Computer Science, Malmö University, Sweden
Data Beyond Binaries: Framing the Identity Spectrum; Fe Simeoni — Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and Eurac Research, South Tyrol, Italy
Beyond "Women's Health": Designing Endometriosis Tracking for Hybrid Identities; Sara Canhoto, Rúben Gouveia, Tiago Guerreiro — LASIGE, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Beyond Victim and Survivor: Rethinking Identity in Gender-Based Violence Research; Nimra Ahmed — University of Zurich, Switzerland
Disability in HCI Research: Methodological Reductionism and Dividual Personhood in Practice; Jana-Sophie Effert, Frauke Mörike — TU Dortmund University, Germany
Our Tidal Selves: Embracing Shifting Identities in Computational Artifacts; Morgan Klaus Scheuerman — Sony AI, Spain
Between the Beyond Workshop; Brontë Rapps — Northumbria University, UK
Between Disability as a Category and Disability as Lived Experience; Vinitha Gadiraju, Wenhan Xue — Wellesley College, USA
A Late Non-Binary Transition; Carlos Castillo — ICREA and Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Neosome and the Prophet, or How Does Machine Learning See Me?; Rabanus Derr — University of Tübingen & Tübingen AI Center, Germany
COLLECTIVE MANIFESTO
This manifesto was written collectively during the workshop "Between and Beyond: Designing for Identity Complexity in HCI" at ACM CHI 2026 in Barcelona, on April 14th. It brings together the voices of researchers, designers, and practitioners who spent the afternoon mapping how AI and HCI systems categorize and erase identity, and imagining what could be different. These are not conclusions. They are commitments, refusals, and visions, written in real time by everyone in the room.
manifesto.pdfPage updated
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