Student Design Competition
Quick Facts
SportsHCI 2025 is a full on-site conference held from November 17–November 19 hosted at the University of Twente in Enschede, Netherlands.
Important Dates
All times are in Anywhere on Earth (AoE) time zone. When the deadline is day D, the last time to submit is when D ends AoE. Check your local time in AoE.
Submission deadline: September 5th, 2025
Notification: September 26th, 2025
Submission Details
Online submission: Please submit to easychair by the submission deadline.
Template: ACM Master Article Submission Templates (single column)
Submission format: submissions must be up to 8 pages long (including references) following the ACM Master Article Submission Templates (single column), a 5-minute video clip, a poster in one standard letter page size, and proof of all team members’ student status.
For this venue, references DO count towards page length.
Submissions are not anonymous and should include all author names, affiliations, and contact information.
Juried Selection Process
Content is reviewed by a committee but in a less rigorous process than refereed and does not include an author’s response or conditional acceptance. Juried content is generally not required to make the same level of lasting and significant contribution to our knowledge and understanding as refereed content. Authors who submit to juried tracks may expect to receive light feedback of up to a few paragraphs in length.
Chairs
Don Samitha Elvitigala
Regina Bernhaupt
Contact: sdc2025@sportshci.com
At the Conference
Accepted submissions will participate in a juried interactive poster session. Four teams will then be chosen to advance to the next round which will involve giving a short presentation.
What is the Student Design Competition?
The Student Design Competition is aimed at meeting three goals:
Provide an opportunity for students from a variety of design backgrounds (HCI, industrial design, product design, visual design, interaction design, etc.) to participate in SportsHCI and demonstrate their problem-solving and design skills in an international competition with their peers.
Provide SportsHCI attendees with refreshing perspectives on how design teams from different disciplines and different parts of the world approach a common design problem.
Provide SportsHCI attendees with a chance to meet future professionals in our area, and provide competition participants with an opportunity to network with experienced HCI and Design professionals.
The Design Brief: Design for Grand Challenges
The sports industry is rapidly evolving, driven by technological innovations that enhance the performance, engagement, and overall experience of athletes, coaches, and spectators. However, as this sector continues to grow, we face a critical challenge: the stagnation of innovation in Sports Human-Computer Interaction (SportsHCI). There has been a proliferation of interactive technology products for sports but these products are all similar. For example, there are many smartphone apps focused on performance comparisons and performance tracking. HCI can have a much deeper impact on the sports experience. Hence, there is a need for bold, fresh ideas that break the mold.
This competition invites students to explore the *grand challenges* within the SportsHCI field and design innovative interactive technologies that could transform the future of sports. The overarching aim is to foster new, multi-disciplinary solutions that optimize athletic performance, deepen sports engagement, and address broader challenges related to human well-being through sports and technology.
Competition Objectives
Explore and respond to the grand challenges in SportsHCI, a growing field that integrates interactive technology with human-centered design principles.
Develop concepts for new technologies or experiences that can impact sports at all levels, whether for elite athletes, amateur players, or recreational sports enthusiasts.
Foster innovation by encouraging participants to think beyond traditional methods (e.g., smartphone apps) and explore new forms of interaction, immersive experiences, or novel data-driven decision-making tools.
Address real-world constraints such as the athlete’s diverse needs, usability, and technological integration in varied physical environments.
Target Users
Participants are encouraged to target one or more of the following target users.
- Athletes from any level (from amateurs to professionals) who seek to optimize their performance, gain insights into their training, and improve their mental and physical well-being. Participants are encouraged to focus on either a single level of athlete, a range of levels, or all levels.
- Coaches and trainers who rely on data, insights, and user-friendly tools to enhance the training experience.
- Spectators who want to engage with the sport in deeper, more interactive ways.
- Recreational sportspeople who participate in sports for health, socialization, and personal enjoyment. Compared to athletes, recreational sports people have different purposes and motivations for participating in sport.
Grand Challenges for SportsHCI
Participants are encouraged to address one or more of the following themes that emerged from a five-day workshop with renowned SportsHCI researchers and practitioners:
1. Athletic Performance Optimisation Analysis
- Develop technologies that enable athletes and coaches to track, measure, and optimize performance in real-time.
- Design systems that can analyze physical performance data (e.g., motion tracking, biometrics) and offer actionable insights.
2. The Athlete as a Multifaceted Individual
- Address the holistic experience of athletes by considering physical, mental, emotional, and social factors.
- Design solutions that consider personalized needs, including mental well-being and injury prevention, in addition to physical performance.
3. Human-Centered Design and Sports Engagement
- Create solutions that deepen athlete, coach, and spectator engagement through intuitive interfaces, immersive experiences, and participatory design.
- Develop systems that motivate athletes, create a sense of community, or transform fan interactions during sports events.
4. Technological Considerations in the Real World
- Explore the integration of technologies that function seamlessly in various real-world sports environments (e.g., outdoor sports, extreme conditions).
- Tackle challenges such as battery life, device durability, and real-time processing of data in physically demanding settings.
5. Strategic Vision for the Future of SportsHCI
- Conceptualize the next-generation technologies that can bridge the current gaps in SportsHCI.
- Consider long-term sustainability, scalability, and the responsible development of sports technologies.
Student Team Requirements
Teams must consist of at least two, but no more than five students. There is no limit to the number of teams that may compete from any given University or organization. However, one student cannot be part of multiple teams.
Submissions are invited from all students at all stages of their university careers, from undergraduate to postgraduate. While not a mandatory requirement.
The Student Design Competition is for students, but we understand that advisors may assist in conceptualization and writing. The list of authors should include 1) a majority of students and 2) at most two non-student supervisors. To be eligible for the student competition, all student participants must provide either:
A) a signed letter from their academic supervisor confirming that they follow an academic course of study and that they were not employed within design-related industries when working on the team’s submission
B) proof of registration/enrollment in your respective institution.
Each team must provide one proof package – a single file containing a scanned proof document for each team member – together with their project submission.
If your submission got accepted for the conference at least one member should participate in person to present your work at the SDC poster session.
Preparing and Submitting your Student Design Competition Submission
Student Design Competition submissions must be submitted via the easychair Submission System by September 5th, 2025. The submission must have the following four components.
Paper submission: Teams will submit a non-anonymized document, up to 8 pages long (including references) following the ACM Master Article Submission Templates (single column). Submissions not meeting the page limit or formatting requirements will be automatically disqualified. This document should be submitted as a single PDF and the file must be no larger than 10 Mb in size. The Paper submission should include:
A description of your chosen design focus, grand challenge addressed, and proposed solution, with a summary of the approaches taken within your design process, the real life problems that you are solving, and your main claims for your proposed solution with, if possible, evaluation results
Reference to design principles, sources of inspiration, and HCI theory where appropriate and relevant
Acknowledgement of partial or incomplete solutions
Acknowledgement of any assistance drawn from outside the student team (advisors, faculty, domain experts, existing solutions, users, etc.)
Poster: The poster design should be reduced to one standard letter page in size and submitted in PDF format and the file must be no larger than 10 Mb in size. The poster must include:
The proposed solution’s name, team name, school affiliation
The Grand Challenge addressed
The perspective taken to address the design challenge
A concise description of the proposed solution
Clear illustrations of key aspects of your proposed solution
Compelling, effective visual design
Video. Teams must provide a supplementary video (max 5-minutes with a file-size no larger than 100Mb. The video may illustrate how your solution fits the lives of the users with the help of scenarios. It may also illustrate some details of the interface and the information presented. The Supplementary Video may include:
Examples of significant contextual data and its analysis (primary, secondary research or both)
Key creative sources of design inspiration (existing designs and systems)
Sketches of the evolving solution
Scenarios depicting how the solution fits in the life of users and solves problems / engages them / entertains them
Details of the interface and information design where relevant
Highlights of significant evaluation results
Proof of Student Status: submit a note signed by your academic supervisor verifying all of the following information:
your university
whether you were a graduate or undergraduate when the work was done
confirmation that all members of the team are currently registered in an academic program. Participants must be students pursuing an academic degree at the time of initial submission. Transcripts or scanned IDs will not be accepted as a proof. All students must provide proof of their student status by the letter mentioned above. Each team must provide one proof package (a single file containing scanned signed letters for each team member) together with their project submission.
The Competition Structure
The competition follows a three-round process. Each team’s short paper submission will be reviewed by both academic and professional design and usability experts. Each round focuses on communicating the team’s ideas through a different mode.
Round One: Paper Submission, Poster and Video
Expert reviewers will evaluate submissions of paper, video and poster. A maximum of 12 teams will be selected to attend the CHI conference. All submissions must be in English and must include title and author information, including author affiliations. Please be sure that submissions do not contain proprietary or confidential material and do not cite proprietary or confidential publications. Student Design Competition authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection by email along with instructions about how to submit the publication-ready version of their Paper, Poster Design, and Video.
Round Two: Poster Presentation
Submissions selected for round two of the competition will be evaluated during a poster session at SportsHCI 2025. A scheduled poster presentation event will take place during the conference. Accepted teams are expected to attend the conference to give a poster presentation outlining their design, and discuss their proposed solution with a panel of Student Design Competition Judges. Based on the results from the poster session, the judges will select one winner and two honourable mention awards.
Student Design Competition Selection Criteria
Each team’s paper submission will be reviewed by both academic and professional design and usability experts.
Round one, the written submission, will be reviewed based on:
Short description of how your proposed design fits with this year’s design prompt
Use of appropriate design methods such as ethnography, contextual research, phenomenological/autobiographical methods, secondary research, reflection, critique, analysis, and empirical evaluation
Clarity and credibility of design focus, purpose and solution relative to the posed challenge
Originality and quality of the design solution, including claims and their supporting evidence
Innovation within the design process
Quality of design management
Clarity of the submission and supplementary material
Round two, the poster submission, will be judged based on:
Clear communication of key aspects of solution
Clear communication of design approaches
Clear communication of arguments for proposed solution
Craft quality of the solution
Submissions should not contain sensitive, private, or proprietary information that cannot be disclosed at publication time. Submissions should NOT be anonymous. However, confidentiality of submissions will be maintained during the review process. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity. All submitted materials for accepted submissions will be kept confidential until the start of the conference, with the exception of title and author information which will be published on the website prior to the conference.