A Series of Fortunate Events: Reflecting on Lessons Learnt from Challenges and Failures in CCI Research

IDC 2026 workshop

Even the most comprehensive plans may go awry when working with children and in places such as schools, which results in unexpected challenges or sometimes failures. Yet, research publications seldom report on these failures and events, and meaningful second hand experiences are rarely shared beyond the project or research team, if at all. To break this cycle, we propose a half-day workshop at IDC 2026 for collectively reflecting on project experiences - from (un)fortunate events to failures, to learn and grow as a community. We invite researchers and practitioners, young and experienced, to bring their experiences and to collectively compile a list of lessons for the CCI community. This workshop builds on prior initiatives on learning from failures (in FabLearn 2022 and IDC 2022), with the goal of incorporating regular collective reflections as a practice at IDC.

Call for papers

This half-day workshop invites researchers to reflect on challenges in research with children. It treats moments where things did not go as planned as opportunities for reflection and learning. Participants will exchange experiences, identify common challenges, and reflect on what can be learned from these situations over time through group discussions and shared reflection.

We seek participants from a range of different career stages, backgrounds, and experiences: we welcome established researchers to share experiences of challenges/breakdowns/unexpected situations, early-career researchers to share their concerns/worries/fears, and everyone in-between. If you wish to attend the workshop please submit a 'position paper' of 1-2 pages (using the ACM single column format) in the form of a personal diary entry reflecting on a topic relevant to the workshop; this could be an account of your own experience of failure in your work, an exploration of your own concerns/worries/fears about conducting a research study with children, an imagined account of a particularly unsuccessful research activity, or a provocation to support reflection and learning. In your diary entry please try to include what your conception of success is (ie your goal), the key challenges/barriers to success and any relevant contextual information, prior or related experiences that your draw on, and key learnings.

We accept up to 20 participants to support in-depth discussion and small-group work; submissions will be selected based on their relevance to the workshop topic and with the aim of forming a diverse and balanced group of participants. At least one author of each accepted position paper must attend the workshop, and all workshop participants are required to register for both the workshop and the main conference. We look forward to creating an open and supportive space for sharing experiences that are rarely discussed in formal publications!

Submission form link: https://forms.gle/iQaWx95sCdrf...

Submission deadline: April 14, 2026

Notification of acceptance: May 1st, 2026

Accepted position papers will be shared with workshop organisers and, with authors’ consent, with other participants to support preparation and discussion. Papers may also be used to help shape workshop activities. Authors can choose whether their paper is published on the workshop webpage (with name, anonymised, or not published online).

Workshop Structure (tentative)

This half-day workshop supports reflection on how success in research with children is shaped by recurring challenges in practice, while fostering shared understandings and sharing experience among researchers in this space. Activities are adapted according to the number of workshop participants. The planned outline is as follows:

Introduction (30 min). The workshop begins with a welcome, including topics of focus and why more attention could be paid to challenges that arise in research with children. To support reflection, a lens is introduced highlighting different aspects of research success (e.g., children’s engagement, stakeholder experience, data collection), and areas where challenges may arise. Participants introduce themselves and their motivation to participate in the workshop.

Sharing experiences (120 min). Participants work in groups of 4-5. Each participant shares at least one concrete experience involving a challenge, breakdown, or unexpected situation that shaped research in important ways. Groups document these experiences using a provided template, guiding the participants to describe what happened, identify key challenges, and note which aspects of the research were affected, and what was the outcome. Groups analyse their experiences to identify recurring challenges, tensions, and points of difference. Each group selects one or two challenges they see as particularly important to bring forward to the whole-group attention and briefly discuss how the study or activity might be approached differently in the future, including what could be reasonably changed, what may remain difficult or unavoidable, and what was learned from the situation.

Collective reflection (50 min). Participants come back together for a whole-group reflection. Each group briefly shares one or two key challenges, tensions, or open questions from their discussions. These challenges are analysed and grouped across contexts, making recurring patterns and differences between settings visible. Building on this analysis, participants work collectively to formulate short success statements grounded in practice and experience that capture what success means in relation to the challenges.

Closing and next steps (20 min). The workshop concludes with a reflection on what participants are taking away and how this may inform their research practice. Organisers describe plans for post-workshop outputs and invite participants to remain involved in follow-up activities.

Organisers

Heidi Hartikainen is a postdoctoral researcher at the INTERACT research group at University of Oulu. Her work focuses on participatory and critical design with youth, particularly in projects involving emerging technologies, digital fabrication, and questions of power, safety, and social change. She has worked in a range of projects where activities rarely unfold as planned, and where learning often comes from responding to challenges or unexpected situations.

Leena Ventä-Olkkonen is a postdoctoral researcher at the INTERACT research group at the University of Oulu. Her current research interests are on empowerment of children and people in the risk of social exclusion through design and making. Her research has focused on participatory and critical design and making with children and understanding children’s digitalized everyday life and practices.

Sumita Sharma is a research fellow at the INTERACT research group at the University of Oulu. Her research focuses on designing inclusive and collaborative technology for classrooms for children across the world. She is interested in design and making, participatory AI, empowerment and inclusion, and critical design fiction for and with children.

Dan Fitton is an associate professor at Lancaster University, his research focus is on HCI and UX issues within the context of child users with an emphasis on evaluation and design techniques for this group. He has over 100 peer-reviewed publication in the field of HCI and has organised many successful workshops at ACM SIGCHI conferences, in addition to having previously acted in many roles supporting the ACM Interaction Design and Children conference.

Eva Durall is a postdoctoral researcher at the INTERACT research group at the University of Oulu. She examines how learning, technology, ethics, and democratic participation intersect through critical, participatory, and futures-oriented design approaches. Her work is rooted in science and technology studies, media studies, and collaborative design. It focuses on supporting learners’ agency, critical engagement, and ethical reflection in technology-mediated settings.

Yusra Niaz is a doctoral researcher at the INTERACT research group at the University of Oulu. She explores relationality in CCI, focusing on how young people participate as design partners in imagining future technologies. Her interests include participatory and speculative design, futures thinking, and critical approaches to learning.

Marianne Kinnula is a professor of human-centred design and digitalisation at the INTERACT research group at the University of Oulu. Her research focuses on co-evolution of humans and technology and futures design from the perspective of children’s inclusion and empowerment in digital technology design and use, taking also an innovation/business-oriented perspective.

Netta Iivari is a professor of Information Systems and research group leader at the INTERACT research group at the University of Oulu, Finland. Her long lasting research interest concerns understanding and strengthening children’s participation in shaping and making their digital futures. She has explored empowerment, inclusion, critical design, speculative design, and ethics in collaboration with children.