ALT A photo of a person. Instructor: Dr Lilian G. Motti Ader is a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Limerick, Ireland, affiliated to Lero – Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software, and the Interaction Design Centre (IDC). She holds a Bachelor of Image and Sound, Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos, Brazil, a Masters in Arts and Digital Media, University of Paris, France, and a PhD in HCI at the University of Toulouse, France. She has experience on interdisciplinary research in technologies for aging, digital health, and more recently 3D interaction for Augmented and Virtual Reality.

ALT A photo of a person. Instructor: Dr Cristiano Storni is lecturer and senior researcher in Interaction Design at the University of Limerick, Ireland. He is a core member of the IDC in the department of Computer Science and Information Systems. He is a trained ethnographer and his research lies at the intersection of design and social sciences. He has been teaching for many years in the areas of HCI and Interaction Design, participatory design, Science and Technology studies and Qualitative social research. He is author of 85+ papers in a number of areas including: heath, care and self-care, social innovation, design practices, education, and sustainability.

ALT A photo of a person. Instructor: Dr Lesley-Ann Noel was trained as an Industrial Designer at the Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil. She holds a PhD in Design from North Carolina State University and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of the West Indies. She is an Assistant Professor at the College of Design at North Carolina State University. She is co-Chair of the Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group of the Design Research Society. She is one of the co-editors of The Black Experience in Design for Allworth (2022) and has created several design tools for critical reflection such as The Designer’s Critical Alphabet and the Positionality Wheel.

ALT Class details: UX designers and practitioners acknowledge users’ different skills and try to address their needs to design better products and experiences. As HCI educators, we searched for tools to help our students to recognize that they might have different perspectives from the users they will be designing for, generating bias and assumptions in the design process. Positionality refers to the personal and social constructs that define our identity, shaping how we see and interpret the world around us, as well as the way the world sees and interprets us. Practicing positionality in HCI education is a meaningful way to reflect on our teaching approaches, our measures and expectations of students’ performance and engagement. For the students, learning about positionality and reflexivity can have an impact on their design work and research, raising awareness on relationships of power and subjectivity. [Full description on website.]