A recent academic research paper published in Interacting with Computers has brought new food for thought to the table for human-computer interaction (HCI).

Led by Dr Alice Ashcroft, this research in this paper “Suggested Prompts for Reflexivity: Navigating Intersectionality in HCI and CSCW Research” responds to most HCI studies only addressing diversity when it is the primary focus of the research. Ignoring diversity when it is not the topic of research brings issues around excluding some groups, the researchers say.

The research undertaken encourages researchers in HCI to consider diversity at all times, even when it is not a central topic. The researchers argue this is essential for ensuring inclusive and transparent research practices, with researchers being urged to move beyond superficial diversity measures toward deep, systematic self-reflection. The paper finds that current practices remain insufficient, highlighting an urgent need for comprehensive frameworks that elevate inclusivity as a fundamental principle across all HCI research.

The development of a toolkit as part of this paper provides reflective questions to help researchers recognise how diversity might influence their work. As a lack of diversity can influence their work often without even their awareness of it. This is something useful researchers can use to be more inclusive.

The key achievement of the paper is getting researchers to engage with these complex inclusive theories through simple, actionable prompts that are easy to use. The goal is to encourage researchers to be more inclusively minded, regardless of whether diversity is the main focus of their research. This paper also highlights that even when a study is only as inclusive as practical, reporting the demographics of the participants included is vital for further research to build on studies. The reflections highlighted in this paper could go on to make large-scale impact for underrepresented groups, the researchers say.

The paper was an expanded version of a previous work that won the British Computer Society's Interaction specialist group’s Best Paper Award. This group is a community of IT professionals and enthusiasts focused on HCI. During the presentation of this paper by Dr Alice Ashcroft as a solo author, a collaboration emerged with an audience member who later became a co-author. This external collaboration fostered mutual learning and was an interesting aspect of the project. Both Melissa Martinez-Perez from Digital Heard and Beatriz Sevres from University of Lisbon were crucial to this research. The overall hope is that the paper will help researchers apply theoretical concepts in a more practical and impactful way.

Dr Alice Ashcroft from the School of Computing and Communications said: “Working with Melissa and Beatriz was amazing, it’s fantastic to find researchers who are equally passionate about making seemingly scarily theoretical concepts accessible to everyone. It’s my hope that all research is approached in this way, to make it a practical toolkit wherever possible.”