Circular HCI: Tools for Embedding Circular Thinking in Material-Driven Design

This paper reflects on the process of embedding circular thinking within a multidisciplinary research project on future smart materials. We have identified a series of complexities and saw the need for facilitating a shared material understanding between stakeholders. As an attempt to tackle these complexities and integrate circularity as core part of the material development process, we report on the creation of two design tools; a (i) material properties capturing tool to classify smart materials based on their technical properties and a (ii) scenario mapping tool to articulate future use-case scenarios where smart materials circulate in closed loop systems. Following numerous iterations and feedback sessions with our collaborators, we discuss a range of emerging challenges and how we tackled them.