Artificial intelligence is entering biological laboratories not only as a computational tool but as a co-experimenter that proposes, selects, and learns from interactions with living matter. As models increasingly steer protein engineering, material morphogenesis, and bioart, design decisions and feedback loops become distributed across humans, algorithms, and organisms. This panel stages a focused debate around three questions for HCI: Who designs these hybrid workflows? Where does responsibility lie when outcomes emerge from coupled human–algorithm–organism systems? What counts as interaction when learning unfolds simultaneously in code, cells, and infrastructures? Panelists from design research, computational biology, ethics, and art offer contrasting provocations grounded in cases from automated wet labs, living interfaces, and critical biodesign. Through case-based debate and moderated audience discussion, the session introduces the algorithmic wet lab as a new locus of interaction, offering attendees an expanded vocabulary of material intelligence and contested directions for AI × Biodesign within HCI.

The Living Therapeutic Skin (LTS) is a novel living material currently in development as part of a European project. Integrating engineered microbes to detect and treat eczema flare-ups, LTS offers significant promise for managing this prevalent skin condition. However, as a microbial material in its early developmental stage, LTS faces challenges related to social acceptance when it is embedded in on-skin living artefact for daily human use. To address these challenges in the further development of these materials, we conducted a workshop employing boundary objects to illustrate four hypothetical LTS applications in everyday contexts. Our participatory approach engaged a multidisciplinary group, including a dermatologist, scientists, biodesigners, and eczema patients. Analysis of the workshop data revealed several important factors affecting the wearability and acceptance of on-skin living artefacts. This paper elaborates on these factors to explore the potential implications of LTS, examining its design prospects and hurdles while discussing possible avenues for a broader range of human-skin interfaces.

AI-driven protein design tools like AlphaFold promise rapid acceleration in structural biology and biodesign. However, their interfaces pose critical accessibility failures, not only in terms of visual or motor access but also in their fundamental mode of interaction. In this paper, we report the results of a WCAG2.1 and HCI-heuristic audit of four major tools (AlphaFold 3, ColabFold, ESMFold, and PyMOL), uncovering standard POUR (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust) failures (e.g., screen-reader silence, low contrast, keyboard traps), and reflect on how these issues may point to deeper accessibility challenges specific to AI-native tools. Drawing from both the audit and a hands-on workshop with biodesigners, we identify three emergent barrier types: epistemic opacity, uncertainty navigation, and prompt complexity that disproportionately exclude disabled and non-expert users. We argue that while POUR remains a critical foundation for accessibility, it must be extended to engage the new cognitive and epistemic demands of AI-native systems.

There is a growing interest in using reinforcement learning (RL) to personalize sequences of treatments in digital health to support users in adopting healthier behaviors. Such sequential decision-making problems involve decisions about when to treat and how to treat based on the user's context (e.g., prior activity level, location, etc.). Online RL is a promising data-driven approach for this problem as it learns based on each user's historical responses and uses that knowledge to personalize these decisions. However, to decide whether the RL algorithm should be included in an “optimized” intervention for real-world deployment, we must assess the data evidence indicating that the RL algorithm is actually personalizing the treatments to its users. Due to the stochasticity in the RL algorithm, one may get a false impression that it is learning in certain states and using this learning to provide specific treatments. We use a working definition of personalization and introduce a resampling-based methodology for investigating whether the personalization exhibited by the RL algorithm is an artifact of the RL algorithm stochasticity. We illustrate our methodology with a case study by analyzing the data from a physical activity clinical trial called HeartSteps, which included the use of an online RL algorithm. We demonstrate how our approach enhances data-driven truth-in-advertising of algorithm personalization both across all users as well as within specific users in the study.

Living systems are not only characterised by the sum of individual organisms but also by the multispecies interactions that occur among them, which are crucial for self-regulation, versatility and the evolution of life. Within the fields of biodesign and biological HCI, designers and researchers have strived to facilitate and mimic the qualities that these multispecies interactions entail. However, designing in a way that can account for such intricate dynamic systems presents significant challenges, necessitating alternative approaches that offer greater nuance and sensitivity to natural ecosystems. By incorporating living organisms as interactive components within human-made systems, living artefacts provide an opportunity to explore and design with such sensitivity. Leveraging the inherent interactive potential of living organisms, we propose an ecologically oriented design approach in which living artefacts are recognised and supported within the context of an intricate web of life. To this end, we conducted an in-depth analysis of existing living artefacts, paying particular attention to the multiplicity, connectivity and reciprocity of interactions between humans, other living entities and computers. From this analysis, we identified three distinct types of multispecies interactions that help to articulate and leverage their unique features within, across and beyond living artefacts.

In recent years, there has been a notable proliferation and diversification of works in HCI, that integrate living microorganisms; an imperative lifeform dominating ecosystems of our planet. Yet despite the growing interest, there is a lack of structured lenses with which designers can strategize their processes of surfacing livingness; a material quality inherent in living artefacts with a potential to enrich user experiences and to initiate mutualistic care between humans and microorganisms. Through a systematic artefacts review and a case study on Flavobacteria, we have developed and instantiated a Taxonomy of Surfacing Livingness in Microbial Displays, consisting of six microbe-sensitive, tuneable mechanisms for human noticing of microorganisms: 1) Canvassing, 2) Marking, 3) Magnifying, 4) Translating, 5) Nudging, and 6) Molecular Programming. The taxonomy invites diverse and adaptable ways of generating and crafting microbial displays; towards overcoming microbe-specific surfacing constraints, integrating diverse stakeholders’ values, and enabling nuanced address of microbial welfare.

In recent years, there has been a notable proliferation and diversification of works in HCI, that integrate living microorganisms; an imperative lifeform dominating ecosystems of our planet. Yet despite the growing interest, there is a lack of structured lenses with which designers can strategize their processes of surfacing livingness; a material quality inherent in living artefacts with a potential to enrich user experiences and to initiate mutualistic care between humans and microorganisms. Through a systematic artefacts review and a case study on Flavobacteria, we have developed and instantiated a Taxonomy of Surfacing Livingness in Microbial Displays, consisting of six microbe-sensitive, tuneable mechanisms for human noticing of microorganisms: 1) Canvassing, 2) Marking, 3) Magnifying, 4) Translating, 5) Nudging, and 6) Molecular Programming. The taxonomy invites diverse and adaptable ways of generating and crafting microbial displays; towards overcoming microbe-specific surfacing constraints, integrating diverse stakeholders’ values, and enabling nuanced address of microbial welfare.

Microbes offer designers opportunities to endow artefacts with environmental sensing and adapting abilities, and unique expressions. However, microbe-embedded artefacts present a challenge of temporal dissonance, reflected by a “time lag” typically experienced by humans in noticing the gradual and minute shifts in microbial metabolism. This could compromise fluency of interactions and may hinder timely noticing and attending to microbes in living artefacts. In addressing this challenge, we introduce Cyano-chromic Interface, in which photosynthetic activity of cyanobacteria (Synechocystis sp. PCC6803) is timely surfaced by an electrochromic (EC) material through its monochromatic display. Grounded through interface performance characterization and design primitives, we developed application concepts through which we instantiate how the interface can be tuned for diverse functional and experiential outcomes in living artefacts. We further discuss the potential of aligning human-microbe temporalities for enriched interactions and reciprocal relationships with microbes, and beyond.

As knowledge around bio-digital interaction continues to unfold, there are new opportunities for HCI researchers to integrate biology as a design and computational material. Our motivation for the workshop is to bring together interdisciplinary researchers with interest in exploring the next generation of biological HCI and exploring novel bio-digital interfaces implicating diverse contexts, scales, and stakeholders. The workshop aims to provide a space for interactive discussions, presentations, and brainstorming regarding opportunities and approaches for HCI around bio-digital interfaces. We invite researchers from both academia and industry to submit a short position paper in the following areas: Synthetic Biology, Biological Circuits, Do-It-Yourself Biology (DIYBio), Biomimetic Interfaces, Living Interfaces, Living Artefacts, and Bio-ethics. We will evaluate submissions on fit, ability to stimulate discussion, and contribution to HCI. On our website we have included examples of past work in this area to help inspire and inform position papers. Our website will host a recording of the entire workshop session with accepted papers to support asynchronous viewing for participants who are unable to attend in-person or synchronously.

This workshop invites participants interested in biodesign to build new connections and crossovers between diverse disciplines. The aim of the workshop is to collaboratively investigate and reflect on alternative design modes (transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary design) that are rooted in biological materials, systems, experiences, and interactions. This investigation is necessary, to enable practitioners in addressing complex contemporary societal challenges from alternative perspectives. This workshop provides a complementary perspective to previous initiatives by focusing on the process of biodesign(ing). Participants explore state-of-the-art biodesign tools, strategies, methods and approaches to showcase and build narratives in biodesign. The workshop consists of brief inspirational talks by the organisers and interactive facilitated sessions where participants explore, discuss and produce their own narratives. Biodesign narratives aim to support design practitioners and researchers in gaining an overview of the field for carrying out further work, getting insights into the field, building connections and demystifying biodesign for new members of the community. By bringing focus on new and alternative narratives of biodesign, the workshop will challenge existing paradigms that position ‘Human’ in the centre of the design process. We explore and propose alternative modes for biodesign that reflect its potential to create impact on larger-than-human scale through integration of temporal factors, alternative (to human) perspectives and contexts. The workshop offers and questions biodesign support tools, processes and methods available now and possibly in the future. These will be summarised to incite future research on biodesign processes. The organisers welcome participants from diverse backgrounds and levels of expertise. Previous experience with biodesign and narrative building is useful, but not essential.

Biodesign is an emerging form of design practice integrating biological materials and processes, and there is a growing interest in the field for structured conversations to generate insights on how it can be best taught, researched, and disseminated. In our conversations, we began exploring biodesign under the framework of Living Artefacts, in which livingness is prolonged to the use time of artefacts, and understood as a biological, ecological, and experiential phenomenon. Two researchers investigating Living Artefacts, through their short show-and-tell presentations, initiated threads of moderated open discussions. Using the Living Artefacts framework as a departure point, we collectively explored opportunities and challenges in biodesign, and possible ways in which they could be addressed.

DNA-based digital data storage technology is hailed as a potential solution for the issues around exponential global data production. However, while the technology continues to strive towards its full commercialization, there is a lack of discourse on how it could be applied to facilitate interactions that are meaningful, ethical, and socially sustainable. As an approach to address this gap, we hosted a series of online workshops, soliciting 15 participants to engage in grounded speculations on plausible futures of DNA data storage. Themes drawn from the resulting imaginaries and discussions were situated within a selection of existing HCI literature, to generate an initial set of design opportunities and challenges for DNA data storage. Early analysis suggests that the system could be designed to 1) facilitate meaningful interactions that are intangible and molecular, and 2) foster better human relationship with more-than-human entities. Furthermore, we highlight the imperative for cross-disciplinary collaborations and pedagogy, to ensure fair and high quality access to the technology.

Continuing developments in DNA-based digital data storage systems promise us a sustainable, techno-utopian future; propositioning bio-digital solutions addressing the ever-increasing global data production, and inadequacies of conventional storage infrastructure to meet the demand. Distinct attributes of DNA make it an attractive archival medium. With its ability to retain high density of digital information cheaply, and to do so over multi-lifespans, DNA-based storage systems are seen as able to radically shape how we archive and use data, across wide-ranging applications. However, while the stakeholders continue to refine and race towards commercialization of the emerging technology, its sociocultural and ethical implications remain unexplored, limiting opportunities to generate insights on how such systems could be better designed and experienced. This workshop begins to explore what our DNA-mediated archival futures may hold. We learn about the fundamental principles governing the new technology and create stories about its pervasion in our lives, mediated through design fiction and structured discourse.

Microbe-HCI is a community whose works implicate micro-organisms in HCI. This special interest group is a venue for the first gathering of the community, offering an opportunity for networking and structured discussions. It encourages participation from both active and new researchers to microbe-HCI, with the objective of acquiring an overview of people, themes, trends, and prospective research pathways for the community.

The interaction design research community continues to benefit from material-focused approaches, and from the diversity of materials under investigation. One category of such material is bio-materials of microbial origin, such as bacteria, mycelium, moulds, and Euglena. However, despite the increasing momentum towards bio-material based research, one type that is yet to be investigated in HCI, is viruses; an infectious, sub-microscopic, quasi-living, computational bio-agent. This paper initiates exploration of Human-Virus Interaction (HVI), through a material lens. This was achieved first by generating a literature-based material profile sketch of viruses, highlighting some of their distinct and/or unique material properties, characteristics, composition, and meaning. The components of the profile were then used as anchor points, to unpack the practical, ethical, and philosophical implications that are associated with viruses, and those that could be considered by researchers to help in their preparation of working with viruses in interaction design.

The home is a place of shelter, a place for family, and for separation from other parts of life, such as work. Global challenges, the most pressing of which are currently the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change has forced extra roles into many homes and will continue to do so in the future. Biodesign integrates living organisms into designed solutions and can offer opportunities for new kinds of technologies to facilitate a transition to the home of the future. Many families have had to learn to work alongside each other, and technology has mediated a transition from standard models of operation for industries. These are the challenges of the 21st century that mandate careful thinking around interactive systems and innovations that support new ways of living and working at home. In this workshop, we will explore opportunities for biodesign interactive systems in the future home. We will bring together a broad group of researchers in HCI, design, and biosciences to build the biodesign community and discuss speculative design futures. The outcome will generate an understanding of the role of interactive biodesign systems at home, as a place with extended functionalities.

DNA molecules can retain information in high densities, with high durability and low overall energy cost. This would make DNA-based data storage system a compelling solution in placating the increasing gap between global data production and our current means to store data. While key technical developments in recent decades have allowed DNA-based data storage systems to slowly progress closer to mainstream usage, there has been an overall lack of discourse surrounding potential implications of the system in the context of human computer interaction (HCI). This article introduces the DNA-based technology, followed by highlights of some of the potential opportunities and challenges it brings to the HCI community. In summary, DNA-based data storage systems offer a new research topic for user experience studies and data physicalization, and these are driven by inherent biological qualities of the DNA. As a tool, given the longevity of DNA, the system could also function as a multi-lifespan information management product, designed to help in addressing long-term wicked problems. In terms of challenges, ethical implications surrounding the technology ownership, and communication hurdles for HCI researchers working with the new technology, should also be considered and addressed.

One of the most fundamental features of living organisms is their growth, a biological phenomenon that can be considered as a type of slow, tangible output responding to an environmental stimulus or an input. Given the relative slowness of growth, once it becomes part of game mechanics, the feature can lead to slow interactivity and slow gameplay in biotic games – a relatively new type of bio-digital game that enables playful human-microbe interactions. Currently, there is a lack of annotations on existing biotic game design guidelines, that 1) recognise biological slowness as a potentially beneficial feature in game design, and 2) provide specific advice on how organism's slow response time can be effectively incorporated in biotic games. To start addressing these limitations, we report on an initial set of design lessons learnt from our research on slow biotic games. Through these lessons, we have formulated and outlined a set of practical recommendations for prospective designers of slow biotic games.