First Day at IDC 2025: Exploring Playful and Ethical Child-AI Systems
Yesterday marked my first day at the IDC (Interaction Design and Children) Conference in Reykjavík, and what a fantastic start it was! I had the pleasure of attending the workshop “Designing Playful and Ethical Child-AI Systems,” which set an inspiring tone for the rest of the conference.
As part of the workshop, each of us was asked to design a poster exploring our own areas of research. This was a brilliant way to spark conversation, and I really enjoyed inviting other participants to contribute by drawing directly onto my poster. Sharing work in this interactive, playful format created lots of rich discussions and connections.
Throughout the day, we also presented posters, shared research, and engaged in plenty of lively conversation. It was exciting to see the many overlapping themes across such a diverse group of researchers. A delightful bonus was the strong creative cohort — there were knitters, embroiderers, and crocheters contributing alongside the design researchers!
Each participant was generously given a Playful by Design toolkit to take away, which I’m really looking forward to exploring further. The workshop was expertly led by Leigh M. Levinson, Elmira Yadollahi, Bengisu Cagiltay, Shyamli Suneesh, Vicky Charisi, Angela Colvert, Kruakae Pothong, and Selma Sabanovic — many thanks to them for an inspiring day.
I’m excited to see what day two of IDC 2025 has in store!
