NordChi Workshop: Embodied Debriefing as Interaction Design Practice for Reflection on Democratic Values
- Date
- 3 October 2026, 10:00–13:30
- Location
- Åbo Akademi University’s campus in Vaasa
- Type
- Workshop
- Lecturer
- Weronika Szatkowska, Karin Johansson, Jon Back
- Organiser
- NordiCHI
- Contact person
- Weronika Szatkowska
Embodied debriefing methods in educational settings are gaining interest among design researchers as alternative ways to foster reflection on socially pressing issues. They leverage the physical and situated experience of participants to more effectively integrate educational experiences and access subconscious layers, fostering self-growth and post-experience participation. We propose a workshop to learn about, engage with, and discuss embodied reflection practices in educational settings on somatic and situated level to (1) access embodied reflection, (2) process the experience, and (3) rehearse the insights.
This workshop positions embodied debriefing as an emerging interaction design space in HCI. Participants will
- experience and analyze embodied reflection methods,
- explore their potential for fostering democratic engagement, and
- co-design new approaches to post-experience sensemaking.
Building on insights from larp, education, and activism, the workshop aims to develop a shared understanding and identify research directions for designing embodied reflection. The central question to the workshop is how embodied debriefing can support reflection after interactive experiences, particularly in democratic, educational and activist contexts.
The workshop builds upon works in the project Larpocracy: Developing Spaces for Deliberation and Democratic Skills through Role-Playing. It is organized by design research experts in interaction design methods and larps, and it is aimed at those interested in embodied and reflective design methods, with or without experience with larps, activism and education. Insights from the workshop will be potentially captured in a joint article extending current embodied debriefing methods.