Participation is free of charge, but registration is compulsory. Due to the fact that that the number of participants is limited, we will schedule according on a first come first serve basis.
The link for the remote sessions will be shared via e-mail. The in-person sessions will take place at AICOS' offices:
Rua Alfredo Allen 455/461 - 4200-135 Porto, Portugal
14:30 — 15:00 GMT
Join us for the opening of HCDWeek@AICOS 2025, dedicated to exploring human-centered design under the theme “Awkwardness in Design Research.”
In this session, we’ll present the Human-Centered Design group’s work at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS, share the week’s agenda, and introduce the supporting projects Taboo and DigiHealthPT.
15:00 — 16:30 GMT
Joana Couto da Silva
Researchers in companies, non-profits, and academia increasingly find themselves exploring sensitive or taboo topics with participants, and are therefore looking for effective ways to do so. Artefacts such as postcards, photographs, prototypes, and drawings are often used to help mediate these conversations. However, little is known about what makes such artefacts meaningful, helpful, and non-harmful, or about the contexts in which they work best.
The facilitators of this workshop are conducting a research project on designing artefacts to support user research around sensitive topics. The project began by identifying strategies and unmet needs among researchers and continued with an experimental phase using purposefully designed artefacts.
In this workshop, we will share strategies and techniques used by researchers worldwide who work on topics such as menstruation, sex trafficking, homelessness, dementia, and abortion. Participants will then experiment with artefacts created as part of our research and reflect together on what characteristics make them usable, useful, meaningful, and appropriate.
By the end of the workshop, participants will have gained insights into how artefacts can mediate communication around sensitive topics and may discover artefacts they can adapt or use in their own practice.
About Joana Couto da Silva
Joana Couto da Silva is a Design Researcher working in the Human-Centred Design group at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS, with a BA in Communication Design (ESAD Matosinhos) and a specialization course in Interaction, Web and Game Design (FBAUP). Previously, she worked as a research fellow at INEGI and FEUP, seeking to design a series of eHealth short games for rehabilitation recovery.
She is currently pursuing a MA in Image Design (FBAUP), aspiring to co-create design research materials that promote playful and embodied experiences as strategies to support participatory design around taboo topics.
17:00 — 18:00 GMT
James Auger
Designers often design for the world as it is—within a normalised framework that, as Foucault suggests, involves “trying to get people, movements, and actions to conform to this model” (2007). As a result, mainstream design practice tends to operate within narrow pathways, producing standardised outcomes that reinforce existing systems, even when those systems are problematic.
But these constraints that define these paths are neither fixed nor inevitable. What new forms of practice become possible when design steps outside these boundaries?
This presentation introduces Reconstrained Design—an approach that builds on Speculative Design but focuses specifically on the constraints that shape and limit conventional design practice. Rather than eliminating constraints altogether, it asks how we might intentionally redefine or reframe them to reveal alternative possibilities.
Note: Reconstrained Design also responds to the challenges of unconstrained speculative work, which can tend towards the provocative or sensational. By deliberately managing constraints, this approach aims to ground speculative design in more critical, responsible, and context-sensitive ways.
About James Auger
James Auger is director of the design department at the École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay (ENS) and co-director of the Centre de Recherche en Design (ENS/ENSCI Les Ateliers).
After graduating from Design Products (MA) at the Royal College of Art in London James moved to Dublin to conduct research at Media Lab Europe (MLE) exploring the theme of human communication as mediated by technology. Between 2005 and 2015 James was part of the critically acclaimed Design Interactions department at the RCA, teaching on the MA programme and developing critical and speculative approaches to design practice, completing his PhD on the subject in 2012. After the RCA, James founded the Reconstrained Design Group at the Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute (M-ITI) in Portugal, exploring the potential of the island as an experimental living laboratory through a combination of fictional, factual and functional multi-scale energy-related proposals and projects. This work was awarded the Cultural Innovation International Prize by the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) in 2017.
Alongside his academic work, James is a partner in the speculative design practice Auger-Loizeau, a collaboration founded in 2000. Auger-Loizeau projects have been published and exhibited internationally, including MoMA, New York; 21_21, Tokyo; The Science Museum, London; The National Museum of China, Beijing; and Ars Electronica, Linz. Their work is included the permanent collection of MoMA.
Website: http://reconstrained.design
Blog: http://crapfutures.tumblr.com
Laboratory: https://crd.ens-paris-saclay.ensci.com
15:00 — 16:30 GMT
Inês Silva
This workshop invites professionals to pause and reflect on the role values play in their everyday decisions and interactions. It creates a shared space for conversation about the moments when doing what feels right becomes complex, and when ideals meet the realities of professional life.
Through dialogue and collective reflection, participants will explore the ethical dilemmas that surface in their work, revealing the values behind their choices and how these are challenged in practice.
About Inês Silva
Inês Silva is a researcher in Interaction Design at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS in the Human-Centred Design department. She holds a Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering Sciences and a master’s in Multimedia, specializing in interactive technologies and digital games, both from the University of Porto. Previously, she worked as a class monitor at FEUP and served on the directorial board of the NCGM association at FEUP. Her main interest lies in involving users in the design process to ensure that products meet their real-world needs.
17:00 — 18:00 GMT
Sofie Kinch
Awkwardness is often treated as a flaw in design; something to be corrected, smoothed over, or avoided. Yet, when approached from a play design perspective, awkwardness becomes a condition for shared imagination. This keynote explores awkwardness as both invitation and rupture. Awkward moments such as the pause, the stumble, the embodied unease interrupt the expected flow of interaction. Rather than treating these interruptions as failures, I argue for seeing them as starting points for playful world-making.
Drawing on an ongoing research projects within hospital settings and hospital clowning, I will introduce the concept of playful care and show how speculative play design artefacts can be understood as semiotic riddles, asking us to play along and co-create new meanings together.
Playing with the Awkward invites us to resist the cultural push toward seamlessness, efficiency, and control. It suggests creating conditions where qualities of play can emerge; where vulnerability, hesitation, and surprise are not only allowed, but valued. Together, we will explore how designers can actively invite and hold such moments? And how might embracing awkwardness lead us toward more ethical and playful forms of design?
About Sofie Kinch
Sofie Kinch is an Assistant Professor, Ph.D., and Head of the research program Playful Care at the Kolding School of Design, Denmark. Her work explores playful approaches to sensitive topics, combining speculative design, material exploration, and participatory methods to foster care, agency, and imagination in complex contexts.
15:00 — 16:30 GMT
Isabella Silva
In this session, we will explore how to identify barriers in digital interfaces using a set of accessibility heuristics. We’ll start by explaining what heuristics are and how they can help guide the design process. Then, we’ll provide a brief overview, with illustrative examples, of the accessibility heuristics and their relationship to WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). To wrap up, we’ll have the opportunity to practice the concepts with a hands-on accessibility heuristic evaluation exercise and discuss our findings.
About Isabella Silva
Isabella Silva is a designer and PhD student in Design at the University of Porto. She holds a bachelor's degree in design from the University of Brasília (Brazil) and a master’s in Multimedia from the University of Porto, specializing in interactive technologies and digital games. She is also a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) by the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP). With over 10 years of experience in UI/UX in both the public and private sectors, she is committed to expanding her knowledge in accessibility, aiming to incorporate it into her work.
17:00 — 18:00 GMT
Teresa Almeida
In this talk, I will explore awkwardness not only as a valuable research tool but also as a unique lens for design practice, especially when engaging with sensitive topics such as intimate health and care. Drawing on a series of studies, I will highlight how intentionally incorporating awkwardness into design can disrupt norms, provoke reflection, and create openings for deeper engagement. By embracing awkwardness in both research and design processes, we can foster more memorable, meaningful, and transformative experiences for all involved.
About Teresa Almeida
Teresa Almeida is an Assistant Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico and a researcher at the Interactive Technologies Institute/LARSyS. Her work is interdisciplinary and engages critically with the design of technologies concerning the experiential qualities of health(care) and wellbeing, feminist data practices and the security and privacy of intimate data. She combines research-through-design (RtD) and participatory methods to address sensitive topics and study how creative activities that involve hands-on materials, workshops, and toolkits contribute to generating knowledge about stigmatized topics and include marginalized communities of practice.
15:00 — 16:30 GMT
Iris Segers, Matilde Fernandes, Carolina Vaz-Pires, Manuela Melo
This student colloquium brings together emerging researchers to share how awkwardness shapes their design research practice. Featuring presentations of ongoing and recently completed BA and MSc projects, the session explores how students navigate research in uncomfortable, sensitive, or uncertain situations. The presentations will be followed by a panel discussion, opening space for collective reflection.
Taboo: An exploration of design principles for the creation or design research artifacts to investigate taboo topics. Concurso de Projetos Exploratórios em Todos os Domínios Científicos 2023. 2023.15743.PEX.
Projeto apoiado pelo Plano de Recuperação e Resiliência.
Fraunhofer Center for Assistive Information and Communication Solutions – AICOS