Staff Profile

David Chatting is an Innovation Fellow at Open Lab, Newcastle University. He is an experienced interaction designer who confronts technical systems through a process he describes as designerly hacking to find alternative design spaces and to make compelling new experiences. He works across a range of emerging and established technologies, being equally comfortable with software and hardware. Over the past 30 years, he has worked with corporate clients, start-ups, artists, and latterly in academia.

David has a PhD in Design from Goldsmiths, University of London; an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art; and a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Birmingham. His recent work concerns the domestication of the Internet, proposing some alternative, practical ways to design technologies for the home. To these ends he takes some critical perspectives on current trends in the design of domestic technologies, and of Internet of Things products in particular.

David was previously a Senior Researcher at BT's Broadband Applications Research Centre and a Visiting Researcher at the MIT Media Lab. He has taught at the Royal College of Art, University College London, as well as Newcastle University.

David holds seven patents for his inventions and has published over twenty peer-reviewed papers in the fields of design research, HCI, tangible interfaces, computer vision, and computer graphics.

David cofounded the Curiosity Collective artist group (2005-2015) and convened the dorkbot anglia talks (2010-2015).

• Artefact

  • Galani A, Durrant A, Chatting D. Sit with Me. Newcastle upon Tyne: Discovery Museum, 2016.

• Articles

  • Chatting D. Pace Layer Prototyping: How Prototypes Learn. Interactions 2023, 30(2), 14-15.
  • Chatting D. Automated Indifference. Interactions 2023, 30(2), 22–26.
  • Galani A, Durant A, Chatting D, Farley R. Designing for intersubjectivity and dialogicality in museum interactive installations about migration. Digital Creativity 2020, 31(4), 302-319.
  • Chatting D. Home Network Map: An Instrument for Design-Led Inquiry. CHI 2017 Workshop on Making Home: Asserting Agency in the Age of IoT 2017, 1-5.

• Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstracts)

  • Claisse C, Chatting D, Wolf S, Morris B, Durrant AC. Resound: A Moment of Reflection in a Techno-Spiritual RtD. In: TEI '25: Nineteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction. 2025, Bordeaux, France: ACM. In Press.
  • Berger A, Hildebrandt S, Kurze A, Odom W, Jenkins T, Pierce J, Chatting D, Oogjes D, Nabil S, Boucher A, Gaver W. Research Products and Time: When, For How Long, And Then What?. In: CHI EA '25: Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2025.
  • Chatting D, Claisse C, Wolf S, Morris B, Durrant AC. Pace Layers and Research Products. In: Research Products and Time: When, For How Long, And Then What? CHI '25. 2025, Yokohama, Japan.
  • Chatting D. The Router of All Evil: Designerly Hacking a Network of One’s Own. In: TEI '24: Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction. 2024, Cork, Ireland: Association for Computing Machinery.
  • Claisse C, Chatting D, Wolf S, Morris B, Durrant AC. Making Alternatives through Design for Mediated Spiritual Practice. In: HttF '24 : Halfway to the Future Symposium. 2024, Santa Cruz, CA: ACM.
  • Taylor N, Chatting D, Rogers J. Data Probes: Reflecting on Connected Devices with Technology-Mediated Probes. In: TEI '24: Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction. 2024, Cork, Ireland: Association for Computing Machinery.
  • Chatting D, Morris B, Claisse C, Durrant AC. Seeking Resonances for Remote Communal Chanting Practices. In: Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) 2023. 2023, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA: ACM.
  • Garbett A, Chatting D, Wilkinson G, Lee C, Kharrufa A. ThinkActive: Designing for pseudonymous activity tracking in the classroom. In: CHI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2018, Montreal, Canada: Association for Computing Machinery.
  • Durrant A, Kirk D, Trujillo-Pisanty D, Moncur W, Orzech L, Schofield T, Elsden C, Chatting D, Monk A. Transitions in Digital Personhood: Online Activity in Early Retirement. In: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '17). 2017, Denver, CO: ACM.
  • Elsden C, Chatting D, Durrant AC, Garbett A, Nissen B, Vines J, Kirk DS. On Speculative Enactments. In: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2017, Denver, Colorado, USA: ACM.
  • Chatting D, Kirk DS, Durrant AC, Elsden C, Yurman P, Bichard JA. Making Ritual Machines: The Mobile Phone as a Networked Material for Research Products. In: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2017, Denver, Colorado, USA: ACM.
  • Chatting D, Wilkinson G, Marshall K, Desjardins A, Green D, Kirk D, Boucher A. Making home: Asserting agency in the age of IoT. In: CHI EA '17: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2017, Denver, Colorado: ACM.
  • Kirk D, Chatting D, Yurman P, Bichard J. Ritual Machines I & II: Making Technology at Home. In: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2016. 2016, San Jose, CA, USA: ACM.
  • Elsden C, Nissen B, Garbett A, Chatting D, Kirk D, Vines J. Metadating: Exploring the Romance and Future of Personal Data. In: CHI '16: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2016, San Jose, CA, USA: ACM Press.
  • Chatting DJ, Kirk DS, Yurman P, Bichard J. Designing for Family Phatic Communication: A Design Critique Approach. In: British HCI 2015. 2015, Lincoln, UK.
  • Bichard J, Yurman P, Kirk DS, Chatting D. Quotidian Ritual and Work-Life Balance: An Ethnography of Not Being There. In: Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings (EPIC). 2014.

• Reports

  • Taylor N, Chatting D, Rogers J. The Reappearing Computer. Newcastle upon Tyne: Newcastle University; Northumbria University; PETRAS, 2023.
  • Chatting D. A Network of One’s Own: Struggles to Domesticate the Internet [PhD thesis]. London: Goldsmiths, University of London, 2023.