The new materials in public art installations give the birth to interactivity and participation, which in turn, introduces new challenges, not only in the creative design process, but also in how to involve the participants in this process and in evaluating the targeted experience such as such as social connectedness and inclusion. Six design cases are presented, as examples for interactive and participatory forms of these installations. The design techniques and the user experience evaluation methods overlap in these cases and many of these techniques and methods have been found to be useful in our practice.