Enterprise AI Analysis
Between and Beyond: Designing for Identity Complexity in HCI
Human identity is fluid, relational, and context-dependent, yet many HCI practices such as surveys, defaults, and personalization systems-rely on rigid categories that flatten lived experience and marginalize those who do not fit. Building on prior work in machine learning that critiques how datasets constrain identity, this workshop expands the conversation to HCI, exploring how categorical framings shape design, research, and everyday interactions in the context of technology. In this workshop, we aim to bring together HCI researchers, designers, and community partners to ask what it means to design for identities that are hybrid, shifting, and "in-between." Through collaborative activities, participants will reflect on their own research practices and co-develop alternative framings of identity as contextual and evolving. To ground these discussions in lived experiences, we partner with Skin Mutts, an independent cultural platform that creates visual languages for expressing hybrid identities. The workshop outcomes will be translated into accessible formats, including a contribution to Skin Mutts Magazine, bringing the academic debate to a wider audience. By creating space for dialogue across disciplines and communities, this workshop invites the CHI community to imagine what HCI systems might look like if identity were treated not as a fixed label but as a dynamic and relational process.
Executive Impact
This paper outlines a workshop aimed at addressing the limitations of rigid categorical framings of identity in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). It highlights how current HCI practices often flatten lived experiences and marginalize individuals with hybrid or fluid identities. The workshop, in partnership with Skin Mutts, seeks to co-create alternative, more contextual, and evolving frameworks for identity representation in technology. Key activities include diagnosing exclusions, exploring critical frameworks, and imagining future HCI systems that embrace identity complexity. Outcomes will be disseminated through a special issue of Skin Mutts Magazine, bridging academic insights with broader community engagement and promoting justice-oriented design.
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Community Engagement Score
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Reach to Diverse Publics
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Workshop Participant Hours
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Motivation & Problem
Workshop Objectives
Activities & Outcomes
3%
of HCI papers report race or ethnicity data, showing a significant gap in current research.
Human identity is fluid, relational, and context-dependent, yet many HCI practices such as surveys, defaults, and personalization systems rely on rigid categories that flatten lived experience and marginalize those who do not fit. This practice has a long history in bureaucracies; but, as Bowker and Star [6] demonstrate, classification systems are never neutral tools but infrastructural arrangements that embed values and organize power. Moreover, classes exist within intersecting and contingent social, political, economic, and cultural discourses that signify them by and through forming the subjects they name. The stakes lie, as Sylvia Wynter demonstrates, in who gets to define those discourses in the first place, and whose image of the human becomes universal [29].
Our workshop takes this as a starting point to explore how HCI can support more situated, flexible, and human-centric approaches to identity. To ground the discussion in the lived experience of affected communities, we partner with Skin Mutts, an independent cultural platform that creates visual languages for expressing hybrid identities. The workshop outcomes will be translated into accessible formats, including a contribution to Skin Mutts Magazine, bringing the academic debate to a wider audience.
Workshop Design Process
Critically Examine Categories
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Co-create Alternatives
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Foster Dialogue & Dissemination
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Imagine Future Systems
The workshop has three main objectives: (1) Critically examine how categorical thinking operates in HCI and highlight the exclusions it produces. (2) Open space for co-creation of alternative frameworks that recognize identity as fluid and self-determined. (3) Foster an ongoing dialogue between researchers and communities on this important topic, facilitated through accessible translations and dissemination in Skin Mutts Magazine.
| Approach | Traditional HCI Categories | Proposed Identity Complexity |
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| Identity View |
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The workshop is planned as a half-day in person event (13:30-17:30), structured as a progression from deconstructing categorical framings to co-creating alternatives. The session blends individual reflection, small-group collaboration, and collective synthesis, with each activity feeding directly into the next. Full schedule is available in Table 1 (referring to the schedule in the paper).
Case Study: Skin Mutts Magazine
Launched in October 2022, the first issue of Skin Mutts Magazine curates narratives and visual experiments that foreground cultural dissonance, hybrid belonging, and the everyday negotiations of mixed cultural identities. The magazine brings together stories, images, and speculative forms that reflect the fluid and often contested character of identity. In both content and design, the magazine cultivates a distinctive visual language that reclaims aesthetic space for those who feel “in-between” cultural categories. Supported by community partnerships, the editorial stance emphasizes inclusivity and accessibility, ensuring that the magazine speaks not only to those who live with mixed identities but also to wider audiences interested in cultural dialogue and representation. As such, Skin Mutts Magazine operates simultaneously as a community archive, a platform for public engagement, and a cultural intervention into dominant narratives about identity. Its inaugural issue demonstrates how artistic and participatory practices can translate complex lived experiences into tangible, shareable formats, making it a particularly fitting medium for extending workshop outcomes and fostering dialogue across diverse publics. The upcoming issue of Skin Mutts magazine, produced in the context of this workshop, will be developed in collaboration with the collective no:topia (co-founded by two of the workshop’s organizers), which will financially support this non-profit initiative. No:topia is an art collective dedicated to creating provocative works that engage with critical technological questions beyond academic environments. The workshop outcomes will be translated into accessible formats, including a contribution to Skin Mutts Magazine, bringing the academic debate to a wider audience.
25-30
Expected Participants
Workshop outcomes will, thus, include: (1) a collective map of categorical exclusions in HCI; (2) speculative artifacts and prototypes exploring alternatives; (3) a manifesto articulating commitments for “beyond categories” design. These will be synthesized into a special edition of Skin Mutts Magazine, as discussed below.
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Your Implementation Roadmap
A structured approach to integrating identity complexity into your HCI design and research practices.
Phase 1: Diagnosis & Critique
Examine current HCI practices and identify how rigid categorical framings lead to exclusion and erasure of fluid identities. Conduct story circles and category autopsies.
Phase 2: Exploration & Frameworks
Explore critical frameworks (feminist, intersectional, crip, queer) to understand identity as relational, fluid, and contested. Engage in Identity Remix workshops.
Phase 3: Imagination & Co-creation
Envision future HCI systems that treat identity as contextual and evolving. Participate in Design Futures Roleplay and co-create a 'Manifesto for In-Between Identities'.
Phase 4: Dissemination & Dialogue
Translate workshop outcomes into accessible formats, including a special edition of Skin Mutts Magazine, to foster broader community engagement and ongoing dialogue.
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