Cataloging Augmented, Ambivalent Transgender Futures: Designing Inclusive AR Technologies for Trans Communities Through Speculative, Participatory Zine-Making

Technologies designed to support marginalized communities have often led to unintended harm. This frequently occurs when misaddressing or failing to understand communities’ experiences, needs, and desires. User-centered research often focus on needs versus desires (leveraging deficit versus assets-based approaches), which have been contested in HCI. To promote technology design that better balances the tensions between needs and desires, we contribute participatory zine-making as an effective approach for speculatively designing trans augmented reality (AR) technologies. We facilitated in-person and virtual workshops with trans participants (n=44) focused on designing AR technologies, observing participants’ zine-making processes and artifacts to gather visual ethnographic data alongside transcripts and facilitator field notes. In participants’ zines we identified ambivalence as critical in addressing trans people’s needs and desires, and participants conveyed this ambivalence through metaphor and anti-assimilationist aesthetics. Our participatory zine-making approach enabled us to uncover perspectives and design implications crucial to designing trans technologies.