There is a growing body of literature in HCI examining the intersection between policymaking and technology research. However, what it means to engage in policymaking in our field, or the ways in which evidence from HCI studies is translated into policy, is not well understood. We report on interviews with 11 participants working at the intersection of technology research and policymaking. Analysis of this data highlights how evidence is understood and made sense of in policymaking processes, what forms of evidence are privileged over others, and the work that researchers engage in to meaningfully communicate their work to policymaking audiences. We discuss how our findings pose challenges for certain traditions of research in HCI, yet also open up new policy opportunities for those engaging in more speculative research practices. We conclude by discussing three ways forward that the HCI community can explore to increase engagement with policymaking contexts. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Field studies.

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The OxChain project is investigating the design of blockchain applications in partnership with a large and traditionally trusted institution, Oxfam. We outline some of the potential opportunities that distributed ledger technologies could offer the charity and development sector as a whole, but focus on the challenges of undertaking co-design work in the context of large institutions. We suggest the need to leverage existing trusted relationships and understand the unique value that such institutions offer.

Background: Co-creation in policymaking is of increasing interest to national governments, and designers play a significant role in its introduction.<br/>Aims and objectives: We discuss instances from our fieldwork that demonstrated how UK Policy Lab used design methods to gain insight into the design-oriented methods introduced to policymakers’ practices, and how these may influence conventional policy design processes.<br/>Methods: This paper reports on the learnings from a two-month participant observation at UK Policy Lab conducted in early 2019.<br/>Findings: We found that, beyond human-centred and future-oriented practices, the designers working at this unit appropriate design as a reflective practice for the context of policymaking. We discuss how the use of visual and creative methods of design are utilised by policy designers to facilitate co-creative reflective practices, and how these make a valuable contribution to policymaking practices in UK Government.<br/>Discussion and conclusions: As deliberation and decision making is influenced both by what is thought about as well as who is doing the thinking, reflective practices allow notions and assumptions to be unpicked. Moreover, when done as a group activity, reflection leads to a co-production of a deepened understanding of policy challenges.<br/>Consequently, we argue, the reflective practices introduced by Policy Lab are an essential contribution to developing a co-creation tradition in evidence-informed policymaking processes.<br/><br/>Key messages<br/><br/>Beyond human-centred and future-oriented methods, UK Policy Lab appropriates design as a reflective practice, to contribute to policymaking by supporting deliberation and decision making.<br/><br/>Creative and visual methods from design enable collaborative policymaking processes, as they externalise thinking and surface overlaps and differences among policymakers’ perspectives.<br/><br/>We argue that design can support the reflective practice of policymakers, highlighting explicit and implicit frames structuring decision making.

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