Program

Format: Long workshop (two sessions with a break)

Participants: Approximately 12–15 

Total duration: ~3 hours (+ break)

Prior to the workshop participants will submit a speculative design together with a short personal reflection on what makes it strong or weak as a speculation in relation to its intended goals.

Welcome & Introduction (5 min) 

The organizers will open the workshop with a brief welcome and an overview of its goals and agenda.

Lightning Presentations (45 min)

Each participant briefly introduces themselves and presents their submitted speculation and accompanying reflection. Written materials and any physical or digital artifacts will be displayed around the room to enable later interaction.

Taxonomy Introduction (15 min)

Organizers provide a concise introduction to the taxonomy and its criteria, followed by a Q&A to ensure a shared understanding among participants.

Group Analysis – Part 1 (25 min)

In groups of 2–3, participants apply the taxonomy to one or two submitted speculations. The aim is to examine how the taxonomy shapes evaluation and whether its qualities align with or diverge from the author’s own criteria. Each group will create a short visual summary of their discussion (e.g., key points on a A2 sheet or sticky notes attached to the artifacts).

Group Analysis – Part 2 (15 min)

Groups revisit and refine their analyses, optionally extending them to another speculation, and finalize their visual summaries.

Gallery Walk (20 min)

Participants circulate to read and annotate each group’s summaries, identifying connections, tensions, and recurrent issues across their evaluations, the authors’ reflections, and the speculations. Annotations are added directly to the visual summaries, either as written comments or as sticky notes.

Collective Mapping & Discussion (50 min)

Building on these annotations, participants will collaboratively cluster their observations. This process will lead into a plenary discussion on how quality is understood in speculative design and whether–and how–common ground for HCI can be achieved.

Closing (5 min)

Organizers summarize key insights and outline potential next steps.

After the workshop, selected materials—including the refined taxonomy, speculative designs, and their assessed qualities—will be shared on the workshop website and archived in an open-access repository (e.g., arXiv) (upon participant consent). These outputs also inform a post-workshop publication that revisits the quality of speculation in HCI. This publication will draw on workshop discussions, exemplary cases, and collected criteria to examine whether—and how—common ground on the quality of speculative design can be achieved within HCI. To sustain exchange and collaboration beyond the workshop, we will set up a Discord group.