Abigail Durrant
Co-Director of Open Lab
I am Professor of Interaction Design and Co-Director of Open Lab, predominantly working as a designer, researcher and educator in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). I’m also Co-Director for EPSRC-funded Centre for Doctoral Training in Digital Civics, and EPSRC-funded NortHFutures Digital Health Hub.
I also sit on the Directorate for EPSRC Centre for Digital Citizens (CDC) and Newcastle University Centre of Research Excellence for Children and Youth. I am University lead for the Digital Health Theme of the N8 Centre of Excellence in Computationally Intensive Research (N8 CIR), collaborating with eight Northern UK universities to enhance skill sharing and training opportunities.
My research addresses the significant design challenges that we face for managing wellbeing and protection from harm in our everyday interactions with digital technologies and data. I have explored the digital representation of Self in the contexts of: health and care; family relationships; children’s free play; major life transitions and transitional experience; memorialisation and legacy planning; cultural visiting; human rights media management; and personal identity management.
I am Principal Investigator (PI) for NortHFutures, envisioned as a pioneering innovation ecosystem facilitating the research, development, and acceleration of responsibly designed health-tech for North East and North Cumbria region.
I am Co-I for EPSRC TORUS: Transforming the Objective Real-world measurement of Symptoms, and for EPSRC AGENCY: Assuring Citizen Agency in a World with Complex Online Harms (EP/W032481/2). I was previously PI for EPSRC INTUIT: Interaction Design for Trusted Sharing of Personal Health Data to Live Well with HIV (EP/R033900/1), completed 2022; Co-I on EPSRC Playing Out with IOT (EP/P025544/2), children’s free play with Internet of Things; Co-I for EPSRC Digital Personhood: Charting the digital lifespan (EP/L00383X/1); and Leverhulme Early Career Fellow. Please view my Google Scholar profile for latest publications.
I teach Interaction Design on the MSc course in HCI led out of Open Lab, and supervise and mentor UG, PGT and PGR students.
My work is grounded in participatory, co-creative and research-through-design approaches, working closely with key stakeholders to define and conduct research. I am Steering Committee member for the Research Through Design (RTD) Conference series and actively engage in a number of academic service roles in the HCI and Design Research fields, and with the Higher Education Academy for best practice.
Human Building Interaction (HBI) and Design for Climate Change
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Evaluating ActuAir: Building Occupants' Experiences of a Shape-Changing Air Quality Display
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EPSRC Northern Health Futures Digital Health Hub
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Investigating Buddhism Practice during COVID-19 to Inform Design for the Online Community Practice of Faith
Place-based approach for providing community mental wellbeing
Investigating Daily Practices of Self-care to Inform the Design of Supportive Health Technologies for Living and Ageing Well with HIV
INTUIT Interaction design for trusted sharing of personal health data to live well with HIV
2025
Resound: A Moment of Reflection in a Techno-Spiritual RtD
2025 – TEI '25: Nineteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction
Exploring Alternative Socio-Technical Systems for Careful Data Work in Recovery Contexts
2025 – CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '25)
Pace Layers and Research Products
2025 – Research Products and Time: When, For How Long, And Then What? CHI '25
2024
Perspectives of healthcare professionals and people living with HIV in dialogue: on information sharing to improve communication at the consultation
2024 – AIDS Care
Post-mortem information management: exploring contextual factors in appropriate personal data access after death
2024 – Human-Computer Interaction
‘Chugging along, plugging in and out of it’: Understanding a place-based approach for community-based support of mental health recovery
2024 – Social Science & Medicine
Understanding Antenatal Care Needs through Co-Creation with Roma Women to Inform the Design of mHealth Technologies
2024 – CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’24)
Healthcare professionals' perspectives on working with patient-generated data for supporting person-centred HIV care
2024 – British HIV Association (BHIVA) Conference
Evaluating ActuAir: Building Occupants' Experiences of a Shape-Changing Air Quality Display
2024 – CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '24)
Human Building Interaction and Design for Climate Change.
2024 – ACM Designing Interactive Systems
Making Alternatives through Design for Mediated Spiritual Practice
2024 – HttF '24 : Halfway to the Future Symposium
Understanding Antenatal Care Needs through Co-Creation with Roma Women to Inform the Design of mHealth Technologies
2024 – Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '24)
2023
‘Keeping our Faith alive’: Investigating Buddhism practice during COVID-19 to inform Design for the online community practice of Faith
2023 – CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '23)
People with long-term conditions sharing personal health data via digital health technologies: A scoping review to inform design
2023 – PLOS Digital Health
Perspectives of Healthcare Professionals and people living with HIV in dialogue: on information sharing to improve communication at the consultation
2023 – The 15th AIDSImpact Conference 2023
Unpicking Epistemic Injustices in Digital Health: On the Implications of Designing Data-Driven Technologies for the Management of Long-Term Conditions
2023 – AAAI/ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society (AIES '23)
Reimagining AI Governance: a Response by AGENCY to the UK Government's White Paper AI Regulation
2023 –
Responsible AI and the Smart Home Environment: A Multidisciplinary Overview of Issues, Challenges, and Solutions
2023 – International Conference on AI and the Digital Economy (CADE 2023)
Responsible AI and the smart home environment: A multidisciplinary overview of issues, challenges and solutions
2023 – 12th International Conference on Power Electronics, Machines and Drives (PEMD 2023)
Seeking Resonances for Remote Communal Chanting Practices
2023 – Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) 2023
2022
A ‘Planning Revolution’ or an ‘Attack on Planning’ in England: Democratisation, Digitisation and Digitalisation
2022 – International Planning Studies
Tangible Interaction for Supporting Well-being
2022 – CHI EA '22: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts
Investigating Daily Practices of Self-care to Inform the Design of Supportive Health Technologies for Living and AgeingWell with HIV
2022 – CHI '22: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Collecting and sharing self-generated health and lifestyle data: Understanding barriers for people living with long-term health conditions – a survey study
2022 – Digital Health
2021
Patient-generated data in the management of HIV: a scoping review
2021 – BMJ Open
Co-Creative Visual Poetic Inquiry for communicating lived experience of HIV self-management and self-care
2021 – Design for Health
Understanding the Barriers and Facilitators to Sharing Patient-Generated Health Data Using Digital Technology for People Living With Long-Term Health Conditions: A Narrative Review
2021 – Frontiers in Public Health
2020
Crafting Critical Heritage Discourses into Interactive Exhibition Design
2020 – CHI '20: Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Co-creating poetry for communicating individuals’ emotional experience of living with HIV
2020 – Design4Health
Trust, Identity, Privacy, and Security Considerations for Designing a Peer Data Sharing Platform Between People Living With HIV
2020 – Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
2019
Understanding, capturing, and assessing value in collaborative design research
2019 – CoDesign
2018
Admixed portrait: Design to understand Facebook portrayals in new parenthood
2018 – Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18)
Sketching the Polyphonic Design Space of Theme Parks
2018 – Funology 2
2017
Transitions in Digital Personhood: Online Activity in Early Retirement
2017 – CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '17)
On Speculative Enactments
2017 – Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Making Ritual Machines: The Mobile Phone as a Networked Material for Research Products
2017 – CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Designing Documentary Informatics
2017 – Designing Interactive Systems (DIS '17)
2016
A Quantified Past: Toward Design for Remembering with Personal Informatics
2016 – Human–Computer Interaction
It's just my history isn't it?: Understanding smart journaling practices
2016 – ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2016
Understanding the Sociality of Experience in Mobile Music Listening with Pocketsong
2016 – Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS 2016)
Sit with Me
2016 – Discovery Museum
The value of designers' creative practice within complex collaborations
2016 – Design Studies
Understanding the Sociality of Experience in Mobile Music Listening with Pocketsong
2016 – 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems DIS 2016
2015
Developing a Dialogical Platform for Disseminating Research through Design
2015 – Constructivist Foundations
2014
Human Values in Curating a Human Rights Media Archive
2014 – SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '14)
A Study of the Challenges Related to DIY Assistive Technology in the Context of Children with Disabilities
2014 – DIS Companion '14
2012
Pursuing Leisure: Reflections on Theme Park Visiting
2012 – Computer Supported Collaborative Work
2011
Automics: Souvenir generating photoware for theme parks
2011 – CHI 2011: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems