We are pleased to invite submissions for papers and pictorials to the 2023 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS). We encourage submissions from a broad range of researchers and practitioners within the field of interactive systems design that contribute knowledge related to the design and deployment of interactive systems. We welcome submissions that address issues of design theory and methods, that propose critical perspectives, that describe design artifacts, technologies and experiences for societal, cultural, economic, environmental, or political change, and that apply the research and practice of designing interactive systems across different domains.

The theme for ACM DIS 2023 is “Resilience.” Resilience is at once about flexibility, durability, and strength as well as a sense of mutuality and hope where solidaristic modes of engagement make new kinds of worlds possible. With this theme, we encourage submissions that critique, resist, and/or reimagine taken-for-granted forms of resilience in interactive design research and practices, as well as those that present innovative thinking, and creative or provocative interaction design.

We are delighted that DIS 2023 will return to in-person conference programming and will be hosted by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Authors are required to present their work alongside other DIS papers and pictorials. For those who cannot attend in person, there will be opportunities to present online and engage with conference goers. Papers and pictorials whose authors do not present their contribution in any form (in-person or virtually) may be withdrawn from the ACM Digital Library.

Contribution Areas

DIS 2023 includes the following four contribution areas for submissions:

Critical Computing and Design Theory

Critical computing and design theory have contributed to one another for decades. This area seeks papers that carry this work into a new generation–exploring the relationships among design inquiry, politics, aesthetics, ethics, and craftsmanship as well as unpacking the notion of criticality in design and computing.

Design Methods and Processes

Share your inventions and insights that open up new spaces for design, allow for engagement with new, difficult to access communities, and enable designers to play with exciting new materials. This area seeks papers that document, innovate and/or advance the methods and processes used by UX and service design practitioners; user researchers from industry, academia, and NGOs; and academic design researchers working in HCI and interaction design.

Experiences, Artifacts, and Technology

Interactions with digital artifacts and technologies are an inescapable facet of our everyday experience. This area seeks papers that explore new relationships and intersections amongst and between experiences, artifacts and technologies, and the ways in which meaningful and impactful interactions are designed, created, and engendered.

Change Through Design

Design has the potential to enact positive change and/or tackle large-scale and complex societal, cultural, economic, environmental, and/or political challenges in the world. What are the political, ethical, and moral dimensions of design? Who is allowed to participate in design processes, and who are our designs for? This area seeks papers about design activism discourses, approaches, processes, tools, and inspirational cases/exemplars.

Special Note on Broader Impact

At DIS 2023, all submissions will be assessed based on their broader impact to society and/or the environment. We encourage authors to address the positive and negative, actual and potential, and/or pragmatic significance of their work; that is, they should engage with substantive and reflective discussions of the impact of their research beyond a narrow intellectual contribution to the field.