Diving Into the Ocean of Religious and Spiritual Design Research

ACM Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) Conference 2025
July 2025 – Funchal, Madeira, Portugal

Workshop Description

Religion and spirituality (R/S) are deeply ingrained in everyday life and are an essential aspect of many individuals’ existence. Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is progressively engaging in research and design within specific R/S contexts. Building on previous workshops organized by the SPIRITED Collective, this one-day workshop will focus on the under-explored intersections of R/S and HCI design research, drawing from oceanic notions of fluidity, mystery and depth of the unknown, transcendence, and sustainability and resilience. Participants will reflect on their experiences, uncover common research priorities, and develop joint approaches to investigate the intersection of R/S and design. Through the workshop, participants will gain insights into R/S to inform their research and design work. Collectively, we hope to strengthen our network and disseminate our work.

DIS_2025_Workshop_Proposal Download

Call for Participation

We invite all HCI researchers, designers, and religious or spiritual (R/S) leaders/theologians/practitioners who are interested in considering R/S and technology in their work, including those who don’t generally work in R/S contexts but have had intersections (intentional or not) with R/S (e.g., study participants who cite R/S beliefs or practices as a key consideration in technology adoption). Participants of any and all R/S beliefs (including no beliefs) are welcome.

Prospective participants are invited to submit short papers (max 4 pages) or artworks related to R/S and interactive technology design. We will explore four themes related to R/S and Diving into the Ocean: fluidity; sustainability and resilience; transcendence; mystery and depth of the unknown. See the workshop paper above for more details. Each submission should specify the theme with which it most closely aligns. Submission formats are flexible and may include:

Pictorials, artworks, design fictions, or speculative designs;
Position papers that articulate strategies, principles, or guidelines relevant to R/S and HCI;
Case studies discussing completed, in-progress, or future studies, initiatives, or projects;
Reflections on previous intersections with R/S, including navigating your own R/S identity in your work.

We ask that participants submit non-anonymized submissions via the workshop website. Submissions will be lightly peer-reviewed by the organizers to ensure fit with workshop themes. With permission, accepted submissions may be published on the workshop website.

NOTE: At least one author of each accepted submission must attend the workshop in person, and all participants must register for both the workshop and at least one day of the conference.

Submission Form

Please upload your submission using the form below.

https://forms.gle/sLANeQh764TdhWWbA

Important Dates

All times are in Anywhere on Earth (AoE) time zone. When the deadline is day D, the last time to submit is when D ends AoE. Check your local time in AoE.

Submission Deadline: ~~Thursday, 5 June 2025~~ Thursday, 19 June 2025 (extended)
Notification of Acceptance: ~~Wednesday, 11 June 2025~~ rolling acceptance within 48 hours of your submission
Workshop Date: Sunday, 6 July 2025

Schedule

Time	Activity
09:00-09:30	Welcome, Overview & Guided Meditation by Dr. Elizabeth Buie
09:30-10:30	Session on Themes 1 & 2 (Fluidity; Sustainability & Resilience): Lightning Presentations & Panels
10:30-11:00	Morning Coffee Break
11:00-12:00	Session on Themes 3 & 4 (Transcendence; Mystery and Depth of the Unknown): Lightning Presentations & Panels
12:00-14:00	Lunch
14:00-14:30	Keynote Speaker: Professor Mark Blythe
14:30-15:30	Creative Small Group Activity
15:30-16:00	Afternoon Coffee Break
16:00-17:00	Ocean Stroll & Next Steps
17:00	Closing & Wrap-up

Submissions

Fluidity

Neeta Khanuja, Valentina Nisi, Jodi Forlizzi. The Ebb and Flow of Aging in India: Navigating Aging with Faith-Based Practices

Nathalie Papenfuß and Sara Wolf. Speculative Probe Items to Capture Fluid Religious and Spiritual Belonging in HCI

Transcendence

Elizabeth Buie. TUX — The Structure of Transcendent User Experiences

Hitesh Dhiman. Between the sacred and the profane: can technology contribute to the spiritual experience?

Michael Hoefer. Staying Out of the Way: A Design Goal for Religious and Spiritual HCI

Deniz G. Ural. Sensoria: Responsive environments and artifact for wellness

Organizers

Alexandra Kitson, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at the University of Victoria, Canada. She studies digital health and well-being, focusing on designing and supporting transcendent and transformative experiences.

Brett A. Halperin is a PhD Candidate at the University of Washington, studying Human Centered Design & Engineering and Cinema & Media Studies. In the realm of R/S, his research investigates the “soul” as a sociotechnical labor concept and design resource to rework normative approaches to engineering.

C. Estelle Smith, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. She collaborates with national chaplaincy and spiritual care organizations to expand models of delivery for spiritual care delivery and to cultivate a new interdisciplinary research area in Human-Computer Interaction centered around online spiritual care

Franzisca Maas is a PhD candidate at the University of Würzburg, Germany. As part of the SPIRITED Collective, she participated in previous workshops and co-authored the first zine. Her work is primarily concerned with non-R/S topics revolving around participatory design and technology for local citizen participation.

Michael Hoefer is an Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He helped to organize a previous R/S focused workshop at DIS 2023 and studies technology supported reflection and personal informatics in contexts of health, human values, and personal development.

Sara Wolf, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Würzburg, Germany. Drawing upon participatory, design-oriented, qualitative methods, her current work explores religious and non-religious rituals with interactive technologies with a particular focus on how interactive technologies can be designed for rituals intentionally.

Elizabeth Buie, PhD, is a UX consultant and independent researcher who helps create technology to meet user needs. She studies HCI work on techno-spirituality and researches design to foster transcendent user experience (TUX). To support designing for TUX, she developed a design game and three new forms of design fiction.