Surfing the Opportunities for Water Sustainability when Designing Outdoor Water Sports Experiences

Workshop at DIS 2025

People performing water sports activities encounter situations that highlight a specific aspect of sustainability awareness. A) A scuba diver is seen rescuing a whale entangled in a fishing net. B) Two people are paddleboarding over crystal-clear waters with vibrant coral reefs visible beneath them. C) Kayaking in a river filled with pollution.

Overview

Oceans, lakes and rivers, dynamic and vital ecosystems, face increasing threats from climate change. To ensure their sustainability, there is an urgent need for technologies that promote responsible and sustainable human-water interactions. Water sports engagement fosters mental and physical health benefits, as well as environmental care when responsible practices are encouraged. Although prior work has investigated how interactive technology can support sports practice to make it sustainable, water sports are less explored due to their unique technical challenges. Hence, there is an opportunity for human-computer interaction (HCI) to explore how interactive technology can be adapted to the dynamic, unpredictable nature of outdoor water sports to foster water conservation and ocean sustainability. We argue that by exploring the design of interactive water sports experiences through a soma design lens, we will better understand the intricate synergy between our bodies and the felt and lived body of water, hence, supporting meaningful body-water interactions. We aim to engage researchers in exploring the potential of soma design in the context of water and water sports guided by preliminary posthumanist water frameworks. The workshop outcomes include a design framework supporting engagement in outdoor water sports to foster sustainability through soma design. Insights from the workshop will be documented in a future academic publication to advance the WaterHCI field.  

Intended Audience

We welcome HCI researchers with a background in games and play, such as serious games for conservation and sustainability, researchers with a background in design for water and nature, and researchers with expertise or practice in water sports. We also welcome attendees with expertise in soma design for sports and art performers in water.  

Full Day Workshop 

In this one-day workshop, we aim to enable vibrant discussions related to the potential of designing interactive water sports to foster ocean sustainability. Activities include participants’ introductions, a water sensitization activity, familiarization with a WaterHCI design framework, design prototyping and theoretical discussions.

Organizers

MARIA F. MONTOYA, Exertion Games Lab, Department of Human-Centred Computing, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
VINCENT VAN RHEDEN, University of Salzburg, Austria
JOSH ANDRES, The Australian National University, Australia
IAN SMITH, University of New Brunswick, Canada
DON SAMITHA ELVITIGALA, Exertion Games Lab, Department of Human-Centred Computing, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
ANDRII MATVIIENKO, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
LAIA TURMO VIDAL, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
ALEXANDER MESCHTSCHERJAKOV, University of Salzburg, Austria
FABIO ZAMBETTA, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia