[ CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ]

What happens when realities blend, overlap, and respond to each other?

How can we design futures where our primary realities and mediated alternative realities coexist meaningfully?

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If you’re also curious, join us for a one-day workshop,“Designing Multi‑Reality Futures: Speculative Explorations of Seamless and Meaningful XR Experiences“ conducted in conjunction with the Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, NordiCHI 2026!

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Workshop day: Saturday, October 3, 2026
Workshop location: Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa, Finland
Sign up for participation.
Deadline: August 28, 2026 . Notification: September 4, 2026

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Workshop Description

As XR technologies increasingly weave together physical and virtual environments, multi‑reality applications are emerging that allow a user to move across reality, AR, AV, and VR. However, the transitions that shape these journeys still remain underexplored, often treated as technical necessities rather than meaningful experiential or sociotechnical moments. We therefore invite researchers, designers, practitioners, and anyone curious about XR futures to join “Designing Multi‑Reality Futures: Speculative Explorations of Seamless and Meaningful XR Experiences,” a one‑day workshop at NordiCHI 2026 on Saturday 3, October 2026 at Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa, Finland.

Our aim is to spark an engaging and rich conversation on multi‑reality futures by combining creative exploration with critical perspectives, inspiring future XR research across diverse domains.

Through the lens of speculative design, we will together explore alternative futures of multi‑reality by asking:

• In which contexts does multi-reality provide value?
• What transition-related challenges emerge within these contexts?
• What design approaches are needed to support purposeful and inclusive multi-reality applications?

During the workshop, we will deepen our understanding of transition processes and key design elements in multi-reality experiences. In addition, we will unpack transition frictions and collaboratively envision future applications of multi-reality design through scenario development and bodystorming. Finally, we will reflect on these ideas across multiple dimensions, including political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal.

We welcome participants from across HCI, interaction and experience design, media studies, semiotics, telecommunication engineering, and related fields. No prior XR development experience is required, only curiosity and a willingness to speculate!

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How to participate

To participate, please fill in the registration form via this link, briefly describing your background, why you are interested in this topic, and what perspective or experience you hope to contribute, by 28^th August. We look forward to imagining and questioning multi‑reality futures with you at NordiCHI 2026!

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Preliminary Workshop Program

09:30 – 10:00  Introduction to the workshop

10:00 – 10:30  Designing your multi-reality self

10:30 – 11:00  Coffee Break

11:00 – 12.30  Stepping into the transition world

12:30 – 13:30  Lunch Break

13:30 – 15:00  Envision multi-reality future

15:00 – 15:30  Coffee Break

15:30 – 17:00  Speculative scenario presentation and feedback

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Workshop Organizers

Tippayaporn (Anns) Pavavimol is a Doctoral Researcher at Tampere University, working on multi-reality experience design and its related technological aspects as part of CONVERGENCE of Humans and Machines project. Her research focuses on transitions between realities and multi-reality storytelling.

Xinyan (Shelly) Zhao is a Doctoral Researcher at Tampere University, working on multimodal interaction and cross-reality translation, especially for visually impaired people. Her research interests include audio interaction, experimental theatre, and the expression of identity and gender in XR.

Cansu Çetin Er is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Tampere University. She holds a PhD in Interaction Design from Koç University and has a background in architecture. Her research interests include playful and gameful interactions, human-building interaction across physical and digital realities and speculative design.

Noak Petersson is a PhD student at Stockholm University. His research is within interaction design for immersive technologies, focusing on facilitation and participation of VR demonstrations, and ways of achieving alignment in immersive experiences.

Aleksandr Ometov is a Senior Research Fellow at Tampere University, and Vice Chair of the IEEE Finland Section. His research focuses on information security, computing paradigms, and wearable applications.

Mikko Valkama is a Professor and the Head of the Electrical Engineering Unit at Faculty of Information Technology and Communication, Tampere University. His research focuses on radio communications, radio localization, and radio-based sensing, with particular emphasis on 5G and 6G mobile radio networks.

Mattia Thibault is a Professor in Translation in the Creative Industries at Tampere University. He is the leader of the InterReality Research Group. His research focuses on semiotics and translation, extended realities, speculative research, and playfulness in the built environment (real and digital).

Contact: Tippayaporn Pavavimol (Anns), tippayaporn.pavavimol(at)tuni.fi