IxD Lab

Temporal Infrastructures: Design Ethnographies of Delay, Care, and Institutional Life
2025-08-14 13:00 - 14:00 (Europe/Copenhagen)
Catherine Wieczorek, Georgia Institute of Technology
Abstract
This talk explores time as a form of infrastructure, something not only scheduled or measured but built, sustained, and contested through everyday institutional practice. Temporal patterns such as delays, shifting priorities, and overlapping demands are not simply dysfunctions to be resolved, but are fundamental to how systems behave under conditions of ongoing uncertainty. Based on preliminary findings from design ethnographies at two U.S.-based sites (i.e., sexual healthcare delivery and public libraries), we consider how actors navigate time as a material and political force, increasingly entangled with hybrid socio-technical systems. By studying how time is patterned and negotiated within institutions, this research invites designers to consider how historical and organizational temporalities shape the conditions under which technical systems succeed, fail, or are re-interpreted in practice.
Bio
Catherine Wieczorek (she/her) is a designer and researcher pursuing a PhD in Human-Centered Computing at Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing. Her work integrates design research, qualitative methods, and science and technology studies to examine how time, infrastructure, and institutional life shape the use and experience of technology in everyday settings. Before her doctoral studies, she worked as a design researcher at public health research centers and consultancies, including Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s D-Lab, Flip Labs, and the Design Lab at the Center for Interdisciplinary Inquiry and Innovation in Sexual and Reproductive Health (Ci3) at the University of Chicago. Catherine holds an MS in Informatics from Penn State University, a Master of Design from the IIT Institute of Design, and a BA in Visual Communication from Loyola University Chicago.
