Topic:

Designing Attention

Brief description:

In a world where digital interfaces constantly compete for our focus, how can designers create experiences that are engaging yet respectful of attention? This five-day workshop invites you to investigate, track, and visualize attention in new ways—through public observation, self-tracking, and environmental documentation. You’ll explore how digital distractions shape behavior, experiment with data-driven design, and develop a final project that brings your insights to life.

Through hands-on activities, fieldwork, and visual storytelling, you’ll create heatmaps, timelines, zines, or interactive maps—tools that expose the hidden dynamics of attention in the digital world. By the end of the week, you’ll have a fully developed project based on your research, a deeper understanding of attention design, and fresh ways to think about digital interaction. This is not just a workshop—it’s an exploration into the way we interact with screens, distractions, and each other. Ready to see where attention goes?

Who Should Join? This workshop is for design students interested in digital behavior, data-driven storytelling, and experimental visualization. No coding or prior data experience is required—just curiosity, an eye for observation, and a willingness to rethink attention in the digital age. What You’ll Walk Away With:· A new awareness of attention behaviors in public and digital spaces· Hands-on experience turning real-world field observations into design artifacts· A personal project that explores focus, distraction, and engagement experimentally· The ability to apply attention design principles to your future work.

Biography:

Irene Pereyra co-founded Anton & Irene, a studio specializing in interaction design. The studio has developed interactive experiences for diverse clients, including digital redesigns for the Met Museum and M+ Museum, projects for USAToday, artist Shantell Martin, Zumtobel, and a future living survey with SPACE10/IKEA. The studio also dedicates three months a year to self-initiated projects such as the interactive documentary onesharedhouse.com and only8.org, which explore themes of communal living and gender disparity. Irene is the author of “Universal Principles of UX” published by Quarto in March 2023, and is a member of AGI (Alliance Graphique Internationale). Her work is globally recognized, with over 100 talks at design conferences given worldwide. Academically, she's the Digital Experimentation Masters director at Elisava, Barcelona, teaching Digital Ethics and Playful Research, and co-chairs the Interaction Design program at Harbour.Space in Barcelona and Bangkok.