How Can We Make Precision Medicine (PM) Contestable? : Provotyping for PM Service Ecosystems

Sun, Yuhao and Tenesa, Albert and Vines, John (2026) How Can We Make Precision Medicine (PM) Contestable? : Provotyping for PM Service Ecosystems. In: CHI EA '26: Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems :. ACM, New York, pp. 1-9. ISBN 9798400722813

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Abstract

Precision Medicine (PM) relies on predictive models and large-scale biomedical data to shape clinical and consumer health services. Yet model performance alone does not resolve key questions. As probabilistic risk estimates are generated, shared, interpreted, and acted on across consultations, reports, platforms, and family discussions, PM may be experienced as a service context – an interconnected set of touchpoints, roles, routines, and governance arrangements through which uncertainty and responsibility are handled in practice. This poster argues that provotyping, grounded in speculative and critical design traditions, can make these emerging service logics open to critique and contestation before they stabilise as implementation defaults. We present a set of seven provotypes situated in a fictional PM provider. Rather than proposing solutions, these artefacts are deliberately plausible yet structurally incomplete, inviting stakeholders to question what predictive care may normalise. We offer the set as design resources to support interdisciplinary deliberation on PM futures.