Nick Taylor
Senior Lecturer
I am a Senior Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction working at the intersection of design, technology and society. My research attempts to understand the impact of emerging technologies and practices, and to imagine, prototype and explore possible preferable futures around those technologies.
My research has most commonly involved the use of technology in neighbourhoods, communities and public spaces. This has included public displays and physical computing to support civic engagement, and supporting people in harnessing technology for themselves through DIY and maker approaches. I have also been involved in a number of projects exploring emerging issues around the Internet of Things and how we might design for healthier relationships between people, things and the internet. Across this work I have employed a range of participatory approaches from speculative design to long-term deployments of functioning prototypes ‘in the wild’.
I have a background in Computer Science with a PhD from Lancaster University, although I have spent much of my academic career in design schools. After a previous stint at Newcastle as a postdoctoral research, I have held academic positions in design schools at the University of Dundee and Northumbria University.
Walking and Talking: Place-based Data Collection and Mapping for Participatory Design with Communities
BinCam: designing for reflection and social persuasion to promote sustainable lifestyles
2025
pegBits: Experimenting with a 0.1" system for open hardware prototyping
2025 – TEI '25: Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction
Leaky Cups: Tinkering with Hydrofeminist Temporalities for HCI
2025 – CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '25)
2024
Data Probes: Reflecting on Connected Devices with Technology-Mediated Probes
2024 – TEI '24: Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction
“The Gallery is Ephemeral”: Exploring the Intersection of Archival Practice and Technology in Artist-Run Initiatives
2024 – C&C '24: Proceedings of the 16th Conference on Creativity & Cognition
Designing with Friction: Inverting Notions of Seamless Technology
2024 – NordiCHI '24 Adjunct: Adjunct Proceedings of the 2024 Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
2023
Walking and Talking: Place-based Data Collection and Mapping for Participatory Design with Communities
2023 – DIS '23: Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference
U-Sense: Feasibility Study of "Human as a Sensor" in Incident Reporting Systems in a Smart Campus
2023 – IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW 2023)
Speculative machines exploring contemporary data futures
2023 – CHI 2023 Workshop on Data as a Material for Design: Alternative Narratives, Divergent Pathways, and Future Directions
The Reappearing Computer
2023 – Newcastle University; Northumbria University; PETRAS
2022
Feminist Care in the Anthropocene: Packing and Unpacking Tensions in Posthumanist HCI
2022 – DIS '22: Designing Interactive Systems Conference
2021
Proceed with care: Reimagining home IoT through a care perspective
2021 – CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Prototyping Things: Reflecting on Unreported Objects of Design Research for IoT
2021 – DIS '21: Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2021
2019
Introduction to this Special Issue on Open Design at the Intersection of Making and Manufacturing
2019 – Human–Computer Interaction
2016
Reflections on Deploying Distributed Consultation Technologies with Community Organisations
2016 – CHI '16: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
2015
Designing Alternative Systems for Local Communities
2015 – CHI EA '15: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
2014
BallotShare: Exploring the design space of digital voting in a workplace environment
2014 – School of Computing Science Technical Report Series
Exploring delegate engagement with an augmented conference
2014 – UbiComp '14 Proceedings of the 2014 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing
BallotShare: An exploration of the design space for digital voting in the workplace
2014 – Computers in Human Behavior
PosterVote: expanding the action repertoire for local political activism
2014 – ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS'14)
The Department Of Hidden Stories: Playful Digital Storytelling for Children in a Public Library
2014 – 32nd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
2013
Leaving the Wild: Lessons from Community Technology Handovers
2013 – CHI 2013: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Unpicking the design space of e-Voting for Participation.
2013 – International Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government 2013 (CeDEM2013)
2012
Viewpoint: Empowering Communities with Situated Voting Devices
2012 – ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing (CHI'12)
StoryCrate: Tabletop Storyboarding for Live Film Production
2012 – ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing (CHI'12)