Designing with publics using hotspots: case study of the COVID-conscious public

This paper examines the challenge of designing for issue-driven groups, which participatory design (PD) has approached through the concept of publics. It identifies two methodological gaps: understanding how publics form and how to design with digitally mediated, distributed publics. To address these, this paper proposes a ‘hotspot’ method adapted from medical anthropology and refined through a year-long digital ethnography of the COVID-conscious public. The case study illustrates how this public forms via contested material practices at three hotspots: medical sites, schools, and indoor public spaces. The study demonstrates that the hotspot method can identify how publics are constituted and pinpoint specific sites for design intervention. This advances PD methodologies by offering an empirical framework for analysing large, distributed publics that moves beyond the limitations of localised, face-to-face workshops. Such a shift allows designers to pinpoint material entry points for addressing global issues without relying on institutional stakeholders to provide scale.