Happy new year 2026 to all our friends and colleagues who follow us here and/or who may see this! Best wishes

By moi!

A Rage For / Against the Machine panel certainly provides a great conclusion after debating all day A.I. in research, creativity and UX design.
#HCID2025 #ParadigmShift

Quite a day.

It began with giving a first-time talk at one of my favourite conferences, which coincidentally overlapped with some of the themes of the opening keynote. The rest of #HCID2025 was great too.

Ended with meeting Brian Eno and giving him my business card.

Mad places, universities.

Content Design Spectrum A horizontal flowchart titled “Content Design Spectrum” spans from back-end(s) to front-end(s). It shows five sequential stages of content development: 1. Content Model – Objects, Relations, CTAs, Attributes (semantic structure) 2. Content Type – Required content attributes (logical structure) 3. Content Format – Specific content structure (organisational structure) 4. Content Design – Words + Media (rhetorical structure) 5. UI Design – Interaction (behavioural structure) Each stage includes a shape symbol and explanatory labels, with a GDS logo at the bottom.

A horizontal diagram titled “Content Design Spectrum” shows a flow from Back-end(s) to Front-end(s) across five stages: 1. Content Model – “Objects, Relations, CTAs, Attributes” (semantic structure, represented by a turquoise pentagon) 2. Content Type – “Required content attributes” (logical structure, turquoise pentagon) 3. Content Format – “Specific content structure” (organisational structure, turquoise pentagon) 4. Content Design – “Words + Media” (rhetorical structure, green triangle) 5. UI Design – “Interaction” (behavioural structure, pink circle) Each step answers a key design question, from “What’s available?” to “How packaged?” The image is branded with the GDS (Government Digital Service) logo in the bottom left corner.

A grey cloud-shaped diagram centered on a turquoise hexagon labeled “IA” (Information Architecture). Seven spokes radiate outward, each representing a design tension or trade-off: 1. body <> head(s) 2. cookies <> snowflakes 3. bottom-up <> top-down 4. flexible <> brittle 5. big <> small 6. slow <> fast 7. help <> harm The image suggests that good IA involves balancing these tensions. A GDS (Government Digital Service) logo is shown in the lower-left corner.

In yesterday’s session, Rick from GDS unpacked how #contentdesign, #IA & #UI intersect, & why structure matters as much as surface:
Content is infrastructure.
Design from the inside out.
Model small. Stay flexible.
Cookies, not snowflakes.

#GOVUK #DesignSystems #HCID2025 #EduSky #RikWilliams

Deadline approaching!

Still buzzing from yesterday. #HCID2025

HCID2025 conference signage on wall giving directions to conference space

Thank you to all our keynote speakers, presenters, room hosts, volunteers, participants, organisers, students, everyone for a truly wonderful #HCID2025!

We'll share other photos etc. later on LinkedIn. Cheers all!

(See some of you again @comicsandai.org on 4th September!)

The image shows the interior of a pub area. There are several wooden tables and mismatched chairs arranged throughout the room. To the left, a person dressed in white is working behind a counter, possibly preparing food or serving dishes. Behind them are open shelves stocked with plates, kitchen supplies, and various food containers.

Dedicated room in the pub awaits! #HCID2025

Conference delegates mingle over drinks and nibbles at the foyer

What a day it's been! Lovely community #HCID2025

15:30 sessions to start asap #HCID2025

3pm sessions ongoing #HCID2025 hcidopenday.co.uk/wp-content/u... #HCID2025

Aphasia and Alexa: ‘I dinnae ken if I’m capable of that’

AVITA Accessible Voice Interaction for Aphasia

#HCID2025 Attendees! Head along to the accessibility session this afternoon to see the excellent Amy Hanschell sharing lessons for designing accessible #Alexa interactions for users with #aphasia from our @hcid.city, @citystgeorgeslcs.bsky.social and Dundee Uni collab.
#AphasiaAwarenessMonth

The first after lunch sessions have started hcidopenday.co.uk/wp-content/u... #HCID2025

Lunch is served at the foyer outside ELG03! #HCID2025

Sampson stands beside a presentation slide titled “A New Paradigm: Critical-HCI.” He is pointing towards the screen while speaking. The slide critiques the traditional UX paradigm, raising questions like “Is the user the best starting place?” and “Who gets silenced?” It advocates for experiential liberation over optimisation, plural and cooperative experiences, and rejecting consumer centrality in favour of broader, social and cultural contexts.

Sampson urges a rethink of #UX in public services: less about optimisation, more about liberation.
Current models centre ideal users, sidelining others. Time to design for complexity, cooperation, & shared experience not just efficiency.
#LiberatoryDesign #HCID2025 #TonySampson #DesignJustice

Signage poster on glass window with a drawn blue thought bubble. Text: HCID Conference 2025 Quiet Room A space to rest from the buzz of the conference ELG14

Reminder our Quiet Room is ELG14 if you need to escape the buzz for a bit #HCID2025

Christoph stands in front of a projected slide during his presentation, The slide displays six principles in bold text, each with a corresponding icon: 1. “CREATE CIRCLES, NOT LINES” 2. “PLAN WITH, DESIGN WITH” 3. “BE HUMBLE LEARNERS WHO PRACTICE DEEP LISTENING” 4. “CHOOSE CRITICAL CONNECTIONS OVER CRITICAL MASS” 5. “SEEK PEOPLE AT THE MARGINS” 6. “RECKON WITH THE PAST TO BUILD THE FUTURE”

Hassler urges designers to break out of the “ivory tower” & learn from fields like architecture, journalism, & craft.
To move beyond traditional design thinking & collaborate across disciplines to tackle complex, real-world challenges.
#DesignThinking #Interdisciplinary #HCID2025 #ChristophHassler

Dom Pates presenting in university room, screen with his title slides, Battling Monsters For Credit: Introducing interdisciplinary education for climate and sustainability, sitting members of the audience visible too.

Great to have the opportunity to listen to the great @dompates.bsky.social on 'Batlling monsters for credit'- setting interdisciplinary higher education in historical and sociopolitical context hcidopenday.co.uk/speakers/dom... #HCID2025

The Design/Practice 12pm session: Designing for the Paradigm Shift: Building Tools for a Creative Future by Lili Eva Bartha at ELG11 will now be at 2pm (straight after lunch). #HCID2025

Disaplay of different Design Justice zines on a table

Don't forget to take a look at the student work (desig justice zines!) table in the main foyer #HCID2025

Two speakers are presenting at the HCID Conference 2025 in a lecture room. A man is holding a microphone and speaking, while a woman stands at a podium with a laptop. Behind them, two large screens display the conference title slide, which reads: “HCID Conference 2025 – Paradigm Shift. Steph Wilson and Sara Heitlinger (Co-Directors), Stuart Scott (Interaction Lab Manager).” The man is wearing a green T-shirt, and the woman is dressed in black. A small audience is partially visible in the foreground.

Back to @citystgeorgesucu.bsky.social this morning for the #HCID conference. Last week’s Digital Transformation event was insightful and glad to have been invited to attend today’s event!
Thank you 🙂
@stuartscott.bsky.social

#HCID2025 #ParadigmShift

When you’re listening to a keynote and realising that your own later talk actually covers some very similar ground…

#HCID2025 #ParadigmShift

Really enjoying how Christoph is setting the present in historical context, and therefore offering a critical history of design systems where the acknowledgement of the polycrisis (pandemics! climate change! economic crisis! capitalist collpase!) is crucial. Essential food for thought #HCID2025

Find the bios of all of today's #HCID2025 speakers at hcidopenday.co.uk/speakers/

Christoph Hassler is delivering the opening keynote on strategic design in the polycrisis. #HCID2025. He stands behind the pod with two screens behind him. Text on the slide reads: "If you've been feeling confused and as though everything is impacting on you all at the same time, this is not a personal, private experience, this is actually a collective experience. John Adam Tooze, British Historian

Christoph Hassler is delivering the opening keynote on strategic design in the polycrisis. #HCID2025

Stephanie Wilson in full capacity lecture theatre, 5 screens (2 large ones; 3 smaller ones) with slides

We are go! Professor @stephwilsoncity.bsky.social launching #HCID2025!

Registration is located via the Northampton Sq main entrance. Clerkenwell campus: www.citystgeorges.ac.uk/about/find-c... #HCID2025

Good morning. Today's the day! Registration from 10:30am. Proceedings start 11:00am. Programme: hcidopenday.co.uk/wp-content/u... [PDF] See you soon! #HCID2025

Good morning. Today's the day! Registration from 10:30am. Proceedings start 11:00am. Programme: hcidopenday.co.uk/wp-content/u... [PDF] See you soon! #HCID2025