Supportive digital technologies for the community practice of Faith remain relatively under-explored in Human Computer Interaction (HCI). We report on interviews with 12 members of a Buddhist community in the UK who self-organized and used video-conferencing tools to remain connected to their faith community during the COVID-19 pandemic, aiming to understand how they adopted online tools for their practice while shaping new collective experiences. Findings from Reflexive Thematic Analysis were combined with autoethnographic insights from the first author, also a community member. We evidence qualities of the practice that were valued by participants before and during the pandemic, and the limitations of existing tools and screen-based interactions. We contribute empirical insights on mediated religious and spiritual practice, advancing HCI discourses on Techno-Spirituality, Tangible Embodied Interaction, Soma Design and More-than-Human Worlds. We further develop design considerations for enriching spiritual experiences that are meaningful to practitioners in communities of faith.

Tangible artifacts and embodied experiences are central to religious and spiritual (R/S) practices, and many HCI researchers and interaction designers highlight the importance of materiality and physicality in design. In this review paper, we bring these perspectives together and examine 44 examples of R/S tangible interactive artifacts (TIAs) from academia, art, industry, and R/S communities to understand their specifics and guide future HCI research and design. We analyze these artifacts and map out a design space for R/S TIAs by matching identified characteristics of R/S TIAs with a framework from the study of material religion. The descriptive and generative R/S TIA Design Space covers insights into bodies, things, places, practices, and backgrounds. This paper offers a novel contribution to HCI research on the value and importance of tangibility and embodiment in technology-mediated practices in R/S contexts and serves as a source for future R/S TIA creation and research.

This paper argues how a more reflective design practice that embraces critical discourses can transform interactive exhibition design and therefore the museum visiting experience. Four framing arguments underpin our exhibition design making: the value of materiality, visiting as an aesthetic experience, challenging the authorized voice, and heritage as a process. These arguments were embodied through design, art and craft practice into one interactive exhibition at a house museum. We draw from our design process discussing the implications that adopting an approach informed by critical heritage debates has on exhibition design and suggest three sensitizing concepts (polyvocal narratives, dialogical interaction, interweaving time and space) bridging the practice of interactive exhibition design and critical heritage theory.

In this Special Issue, we explore emerging theories, methods, and case studies focusing on co-design activities within and between communities in cultural heritage contexts

Just over ten years ago, research in Personal Informatics investigated the Quantified Self movement and highlighted the potential and pitfalls of using self-tracking technologies to improve one's life. Since then, a rich body of work has contributed with critical views and design considerations for designing self-tracking technologies to improve one's health and wellbeing. Most recently, HCI researchers have highlighted a trend for Spiritual Informatics but work in religious and spiritual (R/S) contexts is rather limited, highlighting a gap in understanding how self-tracking technologies could be designed for R/S practice. This provocation presents a critique of two market exemplars that incorporate tracking functionalities for monitoring and supporting prayer or worship activities in two R/S contexts: Catholicism and Islam. These exemplars are discussed in light of previous work on Personal Informatics to critically conceptualise an interaction design space for supporting R/S practice and people's spiritual journey.