Sorting of Many Sorts: Avenues Toward Formalizing Approaches for Multi-Modal Artifacts in Participatory Design and Research
Sorting of Many Sorts: Avenues Toward Formalizing Approaches for Multi-Modal Artifacts in Participatory Design and Research
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DIS '26: ACM Designing Interactive Systems, June 13-17, 2026 Singapore
There is growing interest in HCI for collecting multi-modal artifacts, specifically related to emerging approaches in participatory design and research. We define multi-modal artifacts in two respects–design artifacts that hold multiple form factors and/or artifacts that are participant-created through physical or digital fabrication, or as documentation. Multi-modal artifacts provide greater depth for gaining participant knowledge and design insights; yet, research practices for these forms of data remain ambiguous, informal, and idiosyncratic to each study. Thus, this workshop seeks to open dialogue and lay the groundwork around formalizing methods in deploying and analyzing multi-material and participant-created forms of data.
The workshop structure and activities will center two main themes: 1) Artifacts as “participant-created”, shaping the relationships between participant, researcher, and artifact itself and 2) Different materialities of data, shaping analysis that forefronts embodied reflexivity. We will ask attendees to discuss their expertise, explorations, and interests in participatory practices, and bring examples of multi-modal artifacts they are currently working with, have past worked with, or are interested in exploring. Workshop activities will also involve making and analyzing multi-modal artifacts that speculate on, contend with, and reflect on attendees’ participatory processes. Interested attendees will be invited to contribute to any full paper publications emerging from the results of this workshop.
Call for Participation
Call for Participation
We invite researchers, industry professionals, organizers, artists, and activists across disciplines who have experience, expertise, or interest in participatory design and research. Participants are invited to submit a 2–4 page position paper or pictorial in ACM Primary Article format in Word or LaTeX (page limit excludes references). Submissions should be sent to farjanak@umich.edu by June 1, 2026.
The workshop organizers will review the submissions. As this workshop will be conducted in person, we plan to keep this workshop relatively small. If we receive more applications than that, our main criteria for selection will be the person’s fit with the workshop theme.
Accepted position papers will be posted on this website. At least one author of each accepted position paper must attend the full-day workshop in person or virtually.
Important Dates
Submission deadline: May 22nd June 1, 2026 AoE
Notification of accepted/rejected submissions: June 5, 2026
Workshop date: June 14, 2026 (Location TBD)
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