Dr Chris Elsden is a Lecturer in Design Futures based in Edinburgh College of Art, at the Institute for Design Informatics. He is Co-Director for the MSc in Service Management and Design in the Edinburgh Futures Institute, where he teaches interdisciplinary courses in service design, co-creation and participatory methods.
Chris is a design researcher, with a background in sociology, and expertise in the human experience of data-driven services and the cultural economy. Using and developing innovative design research methods, his work undertakes diverse, qualitative and often speculative engagements with participants to investigate emerging relationships with technology – particularly data-driven tools and financial technologies. In so doing, he hopes to reveal the many nuanced relationships people and organisations have with digital technologies in their everyday lives, and use these insights to identify new and future opportunities for design. His research is primarily in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Design Research (see Google Scholar for a full publication list).
Recent major research projects and interests include: the interdisciplinary EPSRC Next Stage Centre DECaDE (£3.8m, Co-I), investigating the decentralised digital economy; and Children’s Digital Money Futures, in partnership with Natwest Group, undertaking participatory design research with children and young people to explore their contemporary experiences of digital money. In partnership with YoungScot, and Edinburgh Futures Institute’s Compassion in Financial Services Hub, he is developing further projects to support the co-design and research of youth-centred financial services. Previously, Chris was a Chancellor’s Fellow in Service Design (2021 – 2026) and supported the initial development of the Future Institute’s Data and Design Lab.
