Designing interactive technology with an aim to encourage social interaction between nearby strangers is challenging. While there are various social norms, cultural practices and privacy concerns that hinder interaction with strangers, ignoring the other people can be even more detrimental in the long term (e.g., leading to a low sense of community and missed opportunities).

We explore the design space for playful interactions with nearby strangers during 3 co-design sessions based on dialogue-labs with 14 participants. We conceptualize and theorize this design space by analyzing 60 ideas produced in the co-design workshops.