My dissertation project explores the intersections between ritual and the design of interactive technologies. Drawing on social science and historical examples, I examine how new interaction rituals get invented “in the wild” and develop design methods that draw inspiration from these examples. I have examined this topic through both qualitative social science and design research lenses, and my publications in this area can be found here. My qualitative research includes a project conducted at Microsoft Research’s Social Media Collective, where I studied how people make sense of novel technological affordances as they adapt and invent new communication practices. I also conduct futures-oriented fieldwork to gather insights about emerging sociotechnical practices. For example, I have researched evolving methods of VR and AR design to bridge the gap between “what is” for VR/AR/MR designers and “what could be” for creatives in other fields. In my design work, I have developed a methodology I call speculative ritual design. This approach involves creating speculative prototypes that tinker with the implicit rule-sets of interaction in order to probe new forms of embodied social practice. Here are a few examples of what I mean. Lately I’ve also been exploring this concept of speculative ritual through immersive design fiction in VR and through a speculative film that explores how romantic relationships might be mediated by augmented reality in the near future.