KNOTS & FLOWS

An engagement design jam at CHI 2026

Explore engagement design across HCI

Engagement sits at the heart of Human–Computer Interaction. Whether we design for health, education, games, or civic technologies, we all grapple with the same core question:

How do we design systems that truly engage people ethically, meaningfully, and over time?

Join us for a cross-disciplinary meet-up to exchange best practices, surface challenges and collaboratively weave a network of ideas. We are hosting an interactive Engagement Design Jam that brings together researchers and practitioners from across HCI domains. Rather than debating the definition of engagement, we will embrace plurality by exchanging perspectives, surfacing tensions, and collaboratively mapping engagement design strategies as they appear across different contexts.

This meet-up is open to anyone designing, studying, or reflecting on engagement - whether you want to contribute your own experiences, learn from others, or simply observe how engagement is approached across HCI.

Agenda for the meet-up

( Exact timings will be confirmed closer to the event )

Welcome

(10 min)

The organizing team welcomes everyone and introduces the design jam and the activities.

Exploration: Surface engagement practices

(30min)

We will begin the jam by sharing our experiences and identifying challenges through answering prompts. Then, we will gather challenges and cluster them into themes, distributing them across the room to serve as anchor points for later activities.

Ideation: Weaving connections

(40 min)

Everyone will move through the room and engage with themes that resonate with them. For each challenge, we will write ideas, questions, or tensions on cards and attach them to strings linked to that challenge. As more ideas are added, the network will grow and connections between themes will start to appear. When an idea relates to more than one challenge, the string can be stretched across the room, gradually forming an interconnected web.

Synthesis

(10 min)

Together we will explore the created network. Moreover, we will communicate dissemination plans and encourage further networking.

Organising Team