Academic well-being is deeply influenced by peer-support networks, yet they remain informal, inequitable, and unsustainable, often relying on personal connections and social capital rather than structured, inclusive systems. Additionally, institutional well-being responses frequently focus on student populations, neglecting the emotional labour of faculty and staff, reinforcing an exclusionary academic culture. Drawing on HCI methodologies, participatory design, and care ethics, this workshop will provide a space for rethinking how academic communities can support inclusive networks. Through pre-workshop engagement, co-design activities, and reflection, participants will examine systemic gaps in networks and explore ways to embed care, equity, and sustainability into academic peer-support frameworks – from informal, exclusionary models to structured, inclusive care-based ecosystems. At the end of the workshop, participants will co-develop design strategies for integrating care and resilience in academic ecosystems, resources for designing equitable support systems, and a peer network invested and committed to fostering a supportive academic community.

This workshop explores how telepresence robots can be used for playful design speculation, leveraging their inherent asymmetries to create engaging and innovative experiences. By focusing on playfulness instead of purely utilitarian applications this workshop seeks to transform the limitations of telepresence robots into opportunities for creative interaction. We wish to explore the ways in which we can exploit the asymmetrical capabilities of remote and local users of telepresence robots. Given the person using the robot will always have more constraints due to the technical limitations of the robot (e.g., limited movement, limited space awareness, etc), we want to investigate if moving away from utilitarian applications towards playfulness can help make these robots more attractive and useful. In this workshop participants will adapt physical games using embodied methods embodied design ideation methods, such as magic machines, embodied sketching, and soma bits, to create playful interventions with robots and to discover new ways to enhance telepresence technology. The focus is on embracing asymmetry to foster innovative, inclusive, and enjoyable interactions.

Citizen Science (CS) is a research approach in which scientists and everyday people collaborate to address a research problem. Advancements in digital technologies have significantly expanded the reach of Citizen Science by enabling large-scale data collection and collaboration. In addition to its scientific benefits, citizen science enhances participants’ science literacy, fosters public engagement, and promotes collaborative problem-solving. Despite this being true, we believe that the true potential of CS has not yet been fully explored as a collaborative practice for transformative change. With this in mind, we planned a one-day workshop as a forum for critical discussions and reflections on the role of HCI researchers, designers, and practitioners in designing CS-empowered interactive systems for increasing awareness about social good and societal issues and promoting concrete actions and behavioural change, from data to sustainable futures. Participants will have the possibility to reflect on and discuss the main open challenges still affecting the design of CS-empowered interactive systems, and to prototype, exploiting data physicalization and co-design, solutions that focus on a specific real-world challenge as presented by experts of the Madeira Island that offers a unique ecosystem to spark reflections on the interplay between sustainability, technology and CS.

In the digital economy, data is regarded a critical resource for value creation, while digital technologies are reshaping how values are reflected and enacted in society. This transformation demands new frameworks for understanding both value creation and destruction. Yet, research in HCI reveals that these processes are far more complex than simple resource exploitation, posing significant theoretical and practical challenges. In this one-day, in-person workshop, we aim to deepen our understanding of the complexities of design practice, while envisioning the future of mindful value destruction in human-data interaction. Our goal is to provide an unapologetically honest platform for broader public discourse on the real societal, ethical and environmental impact of design and its unintended consequences.

For centuries, seafarers have developed an intuitive relationship with their vessels, reading the wind and feeling a ship’s movement through embodied engagement. However, as maritime systems become more automated, this connection shifts toward abstract, screen-based controls.

In a collaborative workshop, participants will prototype interaction ideas that balance automation and human control through simulated maritime tasks. They will develop tactile and multimodal interface concepts and test their effectiveness in a simulator for situational awareness and decision-making in dynamic environments.

The workshop’s three key outcomes are: (1) Insights into Tactile Interfaces – Participants will explore physical controls and their importance in safety-critical tasks. (2) Simulation-Based Evaluation –The workshop will explore the use of simulation as an evaluation method for interface prototypes. (3) Research Community Development – It will foster collaboration among researchers beyond the workshop by creating communication channels such as Discord.

The “Haka’a’Museum” workshop in Madeira explores how augmented reality (AR) enhances marine conservation education. This one-day, hands-on experience engages participants in co-creating AR experiences that make complex environmental issues more accessible. Following a structured approach, participants explore museum exhibits, collaborate on AR concepts, implement content using no-code tools, and evaluate their experiences. Leveraging Madeira’s unique marine ecosystem, the workshop addresses ocean pollution, climate change, and sustainability. Data from AR interactions will inform the best practices for museum education. Ultimately, the workshop fosters awareness and action for ocean sustainability, redefining how museums educate through immersive technology.

In this third installment of our GenAI workshop series at DIS, we focus on ‘stopsigns’—the blockages that impede progress in design research with GenAI. These stopsigns manifest as both semantic barriers (political, social, or mental frameworks) and pragmatic hurdles (technical limitations or implementation challenges) that persist despite the rapid advancements since the GenAI boom. Such stopsigns present a productive tension—they often contain partial truths worthy of consideration while simultaneously being shortsighted in ways that prevent progression. From blanket rejection to uncritical acceptance, these barriers affect how meaningfully we engage with GenAI’s potential. Our workshop welcomes both returning and first-time participants to share their experiences with these persistent challenges and work together to develop practical solutions. Through analysis of real cases and hands-on activities, we’ll build strategies for moving beyond these obstacles while acknowledging their legitimate concerns. Our goal is to foster more thoughtful integration of GenAI in design research and practice.

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research often requires deep engagement with people and their environments, making the researcher’s own well-being an integral, yet overlooked factor in the research process. Personal challenges, ranging from academic pressures to difficult life events, can influence how we conduct studies, interpret data, and relate to our work. Despite this, such experiences are rarely acknowledged in formal academic spaces, and there is limited discussion about their impact on research. Our workshop offers a space for HCI researchers to reflect on their well-being, share personal experiences, and examine how personal struggles intersect with their research practices. Together, we will foreground researchers’ well-being as an essential concern and explore how these lived realities can be meaningfully integrated into our methodologies. In doing so, we invite the HCI community to not only centre the human in our research, but also recognise the researcher as human; one whose life is deeply entangled with the work they do.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is advancing at a rapid pace, particularly with regard to large language models (LLMs) where capabilities, applications, and interfaces are frequently reshaped. While these developments create new opportunities for design research, they also bring forth important considerations regarding the temporality and continuity of design knowledge. The fast-paced evolution of AI reshapes research focus and methodologies, often rendering previously established knowledge obsolete. Additionally, emerging concerns related to usability, ethics, and societal impact necessitate ongoing reassessment of research priorities. Despite these challenges, foundational theories in design research remain relevant, offering valuable frameworks for sustaining design inquiry amid AI’s rapid progression. This one-day workshop examines how design research can navigate AI’s evolving technical landscape while fostering knowledge that remains relevant over time. It aims to equip design researchers with strategies to sustain meaningful contributions in an ever-changing technological landscape.

Speculation is inherent in HCI methods and practices that seek to explore futures. Although speculative approaches are embedded in HCI, they are often associated with a lack of rigour, occupying an uncomfortable position between art and academia. Specifically, the relationship between time and speculation remains understudied. This workshop examines how temporal norms are constructed in speculative practices, aiming to bring together researchers, designers, and practitioners to explore how different temporal norms affect speculative work. Participants will develop an initial “Six Degrees of Speculation” taxonomy to help speculative artefacts function as boundary objects for interdisciplinary collaboration. Participants will engage in critical discussions, artefact analysis, and collaborative activities to address challenges, including interdisciplinary barriers and ethical considerations. The workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners who use speculative methods explicitly or implicitly. By facilitating interdisciplinary dialogue and developing a shared framework, we aim to advance speculative practices by encouraging nuanced approaches to envisioning futures, making temporal norms of speculation and their implications for the real world explicitly visible in design processes.

Historically, racially minoritized communities have been the least prioritized in the design and development of AI systems. As a result of harmful technological tools and the failure to center minoritized communities in the design of various AI systems, Black communities have either adapted existing tools to meet their specific needs or created new tools themselves. While several studies have highlighted the importance of community-based design and its role in shaping how AI systems can be designed for racially minoritized communities, limited research has explored the experiences of Black technologists and developers who create tools centered on the Black experience, as well as the broader perceptions of these tools. Through participatory and community-based approaches, my proposal seeks to understand how Black people are designing culturally tailored tools that reflect their lived experiences while also examining Black community’s perceptions of existing culturally tailored tools.

In Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Speculative Design (SD) as a form of critically examining near-future technologies and their sociotechnical implications has gained momentum. However, despite its growing adoption, SD remains methodologically vague. This PhD aims to refine the methodological understanding of SD by examining its potentials, challenges, and “quality” for studying emerging technologies–more specifically “otherware” (e.g., robots, chatbots). By adopting a dual methodological lens—research through speculative design (practical application) and research into speculative design (theoretical analysis)—this doctoral research developed in three phases: (1) initial exploration through case studies, (2) expansion of insights into corporate research, and (3) a systematic investigation of the “quality” of SD in HCI. This advances the understanding of how SD practices can be effectively applied in HCI across academic and corporate settings.

Mental Health (MH) is fundamental to overall well-being, yet Mental Health Literacy (MHL) remains low despite growing awareness. Many individuals feel uncomfortable discussing MH due to persistent stigma, leading to misconceptions, discrimination, and reluctance to seek help. Reducing stigma requires education and open dialogue. Games have been widely recognized as effective tools for learning, and digital platforms increasingly play a role in MH interventions by offering engaging, interactive experiences. Similarly, Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, are being adopted across various domains for answering questions and facilitating learning. However, when it comes to sensitive topics like MH, users may hesitate to engage with AI-driven models or be unaware of the proper ways to ask questions to the model. Moreover, the potential of AI-powered game agents in MH educational context remains largely unexplored. My research investigates the design of interventions that integrate game-based learning with AI-driven conversational agents as Non-Player Characters (NPC) to promote awareness of MH, encourage self-reflection, and reduce stigma. Using a Research Through Design approach, I develop and evaluate prototypes where users engage with games and a chatbot to explore MH topics. The findings aim to contribute to the “Artifacts and Systems” domain by providing insights into designing effective and engaging digital MH interventions.

Interaction design and HCI have traditionally focused on the body and the environment as separate, discrete sites of operation. How can we reach across these boundaries to think and design with their entangled relations? In my dissertation work, I bring together critical disability studies and more-than-human scholarship through creative and material engagements with data to design transcorporeally across bodies and environments. Specifically, I share three design projects that use research through design with first-person methods to explore more-than-human entanglements through the lens of chronic illness and bring the environment into relation with the body. Through this, my work seeks to build alliances between disability and ecological justice and open new possibilities of engaging with environmental problems through design in an uncertain time.

This doctoral research investigates how malleable instruments with distinctive interactive qualities can enhance participatory sound experiences. Building on two decades of creative practice in interactive arts and noise performance, I explore the intersection of materiality, agency, and participation through tactile, deformable interfaces that use soft circuitry and AI to facilitate improvisational play and collaborative expression. This expanded abstract summarises my rationale, research journey, methodology, findings to date, and anticipated contributions.

Ethics are enacted and values are inscribed by designers in user experience (UX) practice. Using a human-centric approach, UX practitioners focus on human values and ethical implications for technology users. Meanwhile, HCI and design researchers explore how ethics are performed by designers and investigate additional approaches for realizing social values through design. Recent scholarship also explores the roles of nonhumans in shaping and participating in design practice. In this study, I develop a conception of design ethics that is co-constituted and co-enacted by humans and technological artifacts by drawing on actor-network theory, postphenomenology, and designing-with. This research is based on ethnographies of two professional UX design projects at a digital design agency. I conclude with open questions for the doctoral consortium about possible generative opportunities for this research that build on my conceptual and analytical work.

Personal informatics systems have the potential to support well-being by helping individuals better understand themselves. However, most current systems focus on quantifiable behavioral data, making it difficult to capture the implicit, contextual, and subjective aspects that underlie meaningful self-awareness. In my dissertation, I explore how self-tracking technologies can be designed to promote eudaimonic well-being through the collection and reflection of nuanced personal data embedded in users’ lived experiences. I examine how personal informatics tools can be adapted to users’ everyday contexts, interpersonal dynamics, and workplace environments through a series of empirical studies and system deployments. These studies investigate how individuals engage with their data, how social feedback expands self-understanding, and how organizational structures can support or constrain personal well-being efforts. This work contributes a multi-layered perspective on personal informatics that integrates intrapersonal, interpersonal, and institutional dimensions of well-being, and opens up new possibilities for designing sustainable and socially embedded self-tracking systems.

In my PhD research, I investigate NoorBeam, a Spatial Augmented Reality (SAR) system that integrates a handheld projector (BeamPod), a fixed projector, and real-time computer vision to enable dynamic and immersive projection-based interactions. The BeamPod projects interactive digital objects, while the fixed projector creates the main interactive surface. User interaction occurs when BeamPod’s projected objects engage with elements on the fixed projector’s surface. NoorBeam tracks the characteristics of these projected objects, such as shape, size, color, location, and orientation, along with their interaction with the projected surface, enabling flexible, marker-less, and spatially responsive engagement. The system is under continuous refinement to expand its capabilities and explore novel approaches to SAR, broadening the potential for fluid and expressive projection-based experiences.

This PhD research is concerned with the experiences of menopausal bodies. Societal narratives often define and confine menopause as a pathological matter, an individualized problem of a cis-normative body. However, embodied experiences of menopause develop through entangled relational, sociocultural, political, and technological involvements. Grounded in critical-feminist HCI, feminist technoscience, and crip technoscience, my PhD research explores alternative ways to reshape how menopause can be represented and experienced to foreground care, agency, and diverse lived experiences and stories. This PhD research paper outlines the background, research objectives, methodological overview, current status, next steps and project’s contributions. It highlights design approaches that seek to challenge existing prejudices and taboos and cultivate care through technological interventions, while facilitating communication about menopause in everyday settings (such as online and on-site workspaces and homes).

In this submission, I present my research on the design of technological interventions to enhance self-perceptions of aging (SPA) and the well-being of older adults in India. My work focuses on aging experiences and technology opportunities for older adults in diverse living environments in urban India. These living environments include private homes (aging in place), assisted living townships (retirement homes), and old age institutions. Through interviews, the design of an Aging Reflection Probe Kit and field engagements, I highlight key aspects of SPA among older adults. These include social presence, self-efficacy, activities, age-related transitions, life satisfaction, agency, self-value, age associations, and emotional well-being. I propose a Research through Design (RtD) approach to explore how technological interventions can operationalize SPA theories in HCI and contribute to enhancing older adults’ well-being. In addition, I will examine how older adults in diverse living environments adopt and adapt these technologies and how these interventions shape their aging experiences, environments, and social networks.

Despite decades of accessibility guidelines, digital interfaces remain largely inaccessible, with over 95% of websites failing basic WCAG standards. My doctoral research examines how generative AI transforms accessibility implementation by investigating how Al-driven tools comply with accessibility standards, what patterns emerge in human-AI collaboration for accessible design, and how we can develop frameworks to guide AI systems toward more accessible outcomes. Through mixed-method studies-evaluating Al- generated interfaces, challenging Al’s understanding of accessibility principles, and interviewing professional designers I’ve identified key compliance patterns, discovered AI limitations, and developed novel interactive prompt engineering methods. This work contributes both theoretical understanding of human-AI collaboration and practical frameworks for integrating generative AI into accessible interface design workflows.

Data can enrich our understanding of the world and improve our society. However the datafication of our society comes with challenges for empowering communities. In designing systems for recording and representing data, a theme has emerged of these interfaces as the site of conversations and sense-making, and the participatory nature is valuable beyond the data itself. This insight has lead me to investigate tools and experiences that enable open-ended data creation and exploration as a grounding for discussion and prompting action. The goal is to design interfaces and systems for exploring places and futures through data, to empower communities and supporting civic participation, learning and making, situational awareness, and scenario planning. In this pictorial I present five ongoing research projects investigating these ideas.

Volumetric video (VV) is redefining immersive and interactive storytelling by enabling the capture of real people as three-dimensional holograms, viewable from any angle. This research investigates how VV, integrated into augmented reality (AR), can enhance cultural heritage (CH) experiences by fostering presence and immersion. Using a Research through Design (RtD) approach, we explore how narrative interactivity, user-centered design, and the embodied realism of volumetric performances influence audience experiences in AR environments. Through iterative prototyping and user evaluations, my work examines both the technical and artistic challenges of VV-AR storytelling, with an emphasis on how presence and immersion can be measured and optimized. I have developed a low-cost mobile VV studio, completed two case studies—including one under review—and am now evaluating a third prototype. In this consortium, I seek peer feedback on the evaluation methods for presence and immersion, strategies to scale VV-AR experiences in diverse CH contexts, and approaches to designing flexible and future-proof interactive narratives. Engaging with the community will help sharpen my research, enhance its impact, and foster meaningful collaborations.

Technology can widen access to mental health treatments, but digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) frequently have low engagement and high drop-out rates. Understanding user engagement with DMHIs can help researchers support long-term mental health behavior change through technology. Clinical researchers are leading DMHI projects, including design, and increasingly collaborating with HCI researchers. However, differences in how they operationalize engagement result in misalignment and deprioritization of designing for engagement. My preliminary study explored clinical researchers’ perspectives on engagement and how they operationalize it. Findings identified engagement dimensions to consider when creating DMHIs. Service Design could be a framework to integrate each engagement dimension into a user-centered DMHI. My main study will explore one of the dimensions of engagement that researchers identified as a challenge, “invisible engagement.” My dissertation will expand on the understanding of engagement and support digital mental health researchers in better designing for engagement in DMHIs.

The rapid proliferation of misinformation online poses a substantial challenge for society, affecting public understanding in domains such as politics and public health. Current interventions (mainly professional fact-checking and behavioral nudges) face scalability limitations and criticism regarding their effectiveness and transparency. To address this gap, my doctoral dissertation explores diverse human-centered interventions, moving beyond a one-size-fits-all approach toward customized solutions for immediate assistance and long-term empowerment. Specifically, my research contributes in three ways: (1) identifying user perceptions, challenges, and preferences related to existing misinformation interventions; (2) investigating effective strategies to transparently communicate AI-based credibility assessments to users, improving their immediate discernment of misinformation; and (3) designing interactive, AI-enhanced educational interventions (such as serious games) rooted in inoculation theory to build lasting resilience and critical thinking skills. Through empirical studies combining qualitative insights and experimental evaluations, my work provides actionable recommendations to stakeholders (including social media platforms, educators, policymakers) and researchers aiming to contribute to the development of a more informed and resilient online community.

Variable speed media playback (VSMP) has become a staple of contemporary media consumption, yet the interactive potential of this feature remains only partially explored. This doctoral research examines how new interfaces and interaction paradigms can deepen users’ engagement with VSMP in both individual and collective contexts. Drawing on the history of variable speed control from early mechanical cranks to modern digital platforms, the project situates VSMP as a persistent yet evolving phenomenon. Through a user-centered, research-through-design methodology, I investigate audience perceptual thresholds, tolerances, and preferences for playback rate manipulation. Through prototyping tangible user interfaces, this work explores the embodied, hands-on control of media temporality that has largely been lost with digital streaming interfaces. In addition, I propose aggregating audience interactions to shape data-driven playback “rate curves,” enabling future viewers to inherit collectively informed playback dynamics. This work contributes to HCI by illuminating the experiential dimensions of VSMP and demonstrating how tangible, adaptive, and collaborative media playback interfaces can enrich both user experience and creative practice. Ultimately, the research aims to inspire broader conversations around the design of interactive systems that harness the power of temporal manipulation while preserving—or even enhancing—the essence of storytelling, education, and artistic expression.

Beach philosophies is an interactive narrative for the browser about observations that arise at the beach: metaphorical, actual, philosophical, slow. A beautiful stone, pocketed, coveted. A hand clenched around a stone. A mind, scattered like the shells and debris on the sand. Imperfections that the sea grinds to perfection. A work in progress. https://terhimarttila.com/beach-philosophies

Through the years, the tapestry technique has been used for utilitarian purposes and to tell stories. In our artwork, we took inspiration from this ancient craft and the need to reconnect with our senses. This piece invites visitors to touch, feel, and listen. Tapest[o]ry is a living tapestry that listens and responds with a narrative representing the sea’s natural “murmurs” and harmful anthropogenic sounds. The tapestry is turned into an interactive artwork by combining layers of wool, crochet, and felt intertwined with hidden conductive threads. Through storytelling and audience interaction, Tapest[o]ry hopes to awaken empathy for the invisible chaos in our oceans and invite reflection on how we, too, are part of this delicate rhythm.

Ocean Interactions is an interactive, multi-screen digital simulation that gamifies the biogeochemical cycling of marine microbial ecosystems in Narragansett Bay. Developed through collaboration between scientists and designers, it uses an agent-based model built in P5.js, integrating seasonal microbial data to create a responsive ecosystem. Participants manipulate key microbial players—cyanobacteria, heterotrophic bacteria, and phages—observing real-time changes in population dynamics and carbon flux making the invisible visible. Participants explore the fragile interdependencies of marine life as they engage with the simulation and discover their role in shaping global marine ecologies.

Every wave is the ocean gasping for breath.

Conjugate Breathing reflects the invisible threats human activity imposes on marine ecosystems. Inspired by the phenomenon of “jelly-like oceans” caused by oceanic deoxygenation, the installation integrates sensor technology, pneumatic structures, and immersive audiovisual feedback to create a resonant field where human emotion and ecological fragility are intertwined.

Viewers wear a custom-designed mask embedded with a pressure sensor and microcontroller that continuously monitors their breathing rhythm. A reverse-mapped algorithm drives the dynamic behavior of an ocean-like pneumatic body: shallow inhalation triggers turbulent waves; rapid breathing causes the sea to spasm and stiffen; only under calm, steady rhythms does the ocean settle into tranquility, accompanied by distant seabird calls.

By amplifying one’s awareness of their own breath, the work invites users to resonate with the breathing of the sea and to empathize with its suffocating state—evoking emotional reflection on environmental imbalance and awakening ecological consciousness.

Maritime cities have different relationships with the sea, influenced by geographical, geopolitical, and cultural factors. This project focuses on Shenzhen, exploring this relationship through a sensory interface. We captured underwater soundscapes from a canal in Shenzhen where it meets the sea, using a hydrophone. These recordings were transformed into an interactive artifact called “Q4 #101,” which features audio data rendered as an abstracted spectrogram, 3D-printed in transparent resin, and houses microelectronics and miniature loudspeakers. In an exhibition, Q4 #101 is suspended from the ceiling, emitting raw hydrophone recordings. An ultrasonic sensor triggers sounds from the 3D-printed shell as spectators approach, facilitating a physical interaction with Shenzhen’s waters. Q4 #101 makes the urban ocean tangible, challenging traditional boundaries. By bringing the ocean into a lab and an art gallery, we aim to amplify its presence, offering a poetic interpretation and revealing hidden materialities beneath the city’s surface.

Many marine organisms rely on sound for communication, navigation and understanding of the environment. However, the expansion of human activities, such as underwater extraction and shipping industries, increased the risk for marine species to lose hearing, augment stress, and develop behavioural disorders. Smoke in the Water is an interactive installation designed to raise awareness of the power of sound in marine life and the impact of anthropogenic noise, known as ocean noise pollution. Through an immersive experience, participants will navigate noisy, polluted waters, experiencing the same disorientation faced by aquatic organisms. By exploring the possibilities of positive awareness, the installation allows visitors to activate existing solutions, such as underwater barriers or noise-reduction technologies, to help mitigate the phenomenon. This drives the audience to engage in environmental conservation, inspiring action to protect the ocean from harmful noise pollution through participatory art and technology.

SUNK COSTS is an interactive sound and object installation that examines the Felicity Ace cargo shipwreck as a site where global supply chains, financial speculation, and ecological entanglements intersect. Using spatialized audio, sculptural fragments, and interactive engagement, the project navigates the complexities of economic abstraction, material afterlives, and speculative storytelling. Visitors encounter layered narratives—told through insurance documents, burned lithium batteries, submerged luxury goods, and emergent deep-sea ecologies—revealing the collision of capitalist excess and detrimental environmental transformation. The installation immerses audiences in an oceanic evidence room, where objects and voices trace the wreck’s logistical, financial, and biological aftershocks. This nonlinear experience encourages visitors to explore the wreck not as a clear-cut disaster but as a site of systemic opacity. SUNK COSTS challenges perceptions of catastrophe, reframing it as both an overwhelming crisis and an opportunity to reimagine value, lifestyles and planetary futures. What new methods of perception and accountability are needed in an era in which disasters become slow, ubiquitous and illegible?

The video installation When Pixels Wash Ashore explores the plight of Tuvalu, a Pacific island nation facing submersion due to global warming and rising sea levels. In response, Tuvalu’s government has announced plans to transition the nation into a fully digital entity, raising urgent questions about environmental fragility, digital preservation, and the ethics of virtual nationhood [1]. The project examines the tension between digital custodianship and the unsustainable practices of the tech industry, asking how we can care for and mourn disappearing landscapes. Navigating the intersection of digitization and statecraft, the installation critiques the methods used to map climate change’s impact, exposing the vulnerability of territorial frameworks. It questions the reliability of remotely sensed data in defining statehood and proposes alternative ways to conceptualize resilience. How many centimeters of water would erase Tuvalu? How many grains of sand would let it endure?

Ecological ethics has long been a central topic in art and design, with non-anthropocentrism becoming a dominant philosophical foundation. The binary opposition between humans and non-humans has also given rise to new discussions. However, can this concept truly break free from the constraints of anthropocentrism? Using the method of design fiction, we envision a submarine designed for pet goldfish. Through the fictional narrative of an extreme pet owner and the analysis of an experimental installation, we explore the complex relationship between ecological ethics, artificial domestication, and ecological release, as well as the contradictions between anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism in design. This study highlights the challenges faced by contemporary artists and designers in constructing de-anthropocentric narratives.

Conversations can take many forms: verbal exchanges, letters, gifts, voice notes, and even drawing together. In this demonstration, we propose creating a space for conversation through real time sketching and a playful exchange with the Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) community. Using our resonating research practices and ourselves as the artefacts to be demonstrated — we open up for different forms of prompting in order to collaboratively create a sea of sketches. This performance combines physical and digital sketching, responding to a selection of audio, text and visual materials around the theme of water. Through our broad and somewhat provocative interpretation of demonstration, we challenge the traditional understanding of conversations and visual practices in interaction design, expanding this form of knowledge towards the ephemeral format of the demo.

The rapid turnover of clothing contributes significantly to textile waste. Modular garment-making offers a potential solution by extending the lifetime of garments through repair, resizing, and re-purposing, but producing modular garments introduces new challenges that are not supported by existing design approaches and fabrication techniques. In our research, we explored the integration of computational design and digital fabrication to propose an alternative path for fashion, where making and re-making become integral to our relationship with garments. We present texTile, a modular fashion workflow that enables designers to assemble reusable crochet tiles into different garments. To facilitate our workflow, we developed digitally fabricated connectors that enable easy assembly and disassembly of tiles, a custom pattern solver and user interface to guide garment design, and a visualization tool that helps designers plan manual assembly and reassembly operations. In this demonstration, people will have the opportunity to learn to use our assembly and dis-assembly technique; generate custom garment pattern designs using our software tool; and view and feel modular crochet granny square garments made with texTile.

This demonstration paper presents CipherPal, a next-generation prototype that integrates advanced mood-related sensing, on-device encryption, and decentralized storage to deliver a secure and ergonomic interface for personal digital interactions. Our research builds upon previous explorations to create an interactive smart fidget device that makes the experience of secure biometric and interaction data collection natural and engaging. This paper discusses how we can utilize blockchain technology alongside interaction design to foster a more mindful and sustainable approach to personal data management. The device features dual heartbeat sensors integrated into natural interaction points, and LED feedback for different device states. Users can securely store their interactions using IPFS storage and blockchain technology through its companion application, maintaining complete control over their data. CipherPal investigates the delicate balance that must be kept for sustainability between data sharing and digital privacy.

Visually impaired individuals face significant challenges in maintaining autonomy during daily shopping activities. Through interviews and a co-design process, we developed an innovative smart shopping suite with accessible sensing hardware and an AI assistant powered by large language models (LLMs), enabling visually impaired users to discover and learn about products in real-time through tactile and conversational interactions. In our initial evaluation, two participants expressed a strong willingness to use the system in the future, highlighting its potential to enhance their shopping experiences. The system promotes more independent, inclusive, and sustainable shopping experience for all visually impaired customers.

The use of nonverbal mediums such as haptics offers new ways of interacting in a world dominated by verbal communication. In order to facilitate affective tactile interpersonal communication in shared spaces or across distances, SYMBIONT is designed as a pair of bioinspired soft robotic objects. SYMBIONT integrates Biomorphic aesthetics and Biomimetic behavior through Iterative Prototyping, Annotated Portfolio, and Research through Design. By using SYMBIONTs, users can communicate through nuanced interactions enabled by bend and pressure sensors paired with vibrating, curling actuators. SYMBIONT aims to utilize tactile mediums to address geographical, social, and communication barriers, improving a sense of presence. Attendees will be invited to engage with SYMBIONT’s mediated tactile experience and reflect on its emotional and sensory aspects. This paper outlines the iterative prototyping process, the system’s design, aesthetics, fabrication and interaction logic.

This demonstration introduces the Magnetic Primitive Library (MPL) as a platform for hands-on exploration of programmable magnetic materials in interaction design. The MPL consists of a collection of magnetically actuated structures, each documented through domain configurations, fabrication guides, and visual notations. These primitives enable designers to engage with dynamic material behaviors by folding, programming, and activating silicone composites embedded with neodymium powder. We present the MPL as a platform for playful, hands-on material interaction, combining research-through-design with interdisciplinary material science. Through developing and demonstrating the library, we reflect on how the MPL fosters aesthetic ambiguity, curiosity, and material literacy, supporting designers in prototyping shape-changing interactions beyond functional outcomes.

How would you feel if you saw an image of yourself doing something you didn’t do? How would you feel knowing said image was created without your consent? For many people, especially women, these questions are not just hypothetical. Technological advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically Generative AI, have made it extremely easy and cheap to generate and distribute (non-consensual) synthetic images and videos that depict real people’s voices, faces, or bodies (i.e., deepfakes). Non-consensual synthetic imagery often depicts intimate and sexually explicit scenarios and is considered a form of sexual abuse. We demonstrate Photo BOO-th, an interactive installation designed to turn the creation of non-consensual intimate imagery into a visceral, creepy experience. Through this experience, we invite attendees to grapple with the questions above, discuss the societal harms associated with creating and distributing non-consensual synthetic imagery, and critique how consent is understood and enacted between people and technology.

We present a demonstration of Phraselette, an artistic support tool designed for compatibility with the writerly values of experimental poets. Following a theory of “material writing support”, we introduce affordances for selecting short spans of text (on the order of a few words) to vary; constraining text generation procedures (some based on language models) to adhere to poetic intent; and searching through large spaces of potential variations for phrases that satisfy users’ constraints in unexpected but evocative ways. Phraselette has been validated through an extended expert evaluation with 10 published poets; we found that, in contrast to the dominant prompting-based approach to interacting with language models as writing support tools, Phraselette is better aligned with experimental poetry practice, providing deeper support for navigating spaces of potential interpretations of poetic text.

This study explores the integration of AIGC with ecological interaction design, proposing a real-time interactive ecological narrative system to enhance public awareness and engagement in environmental protection. Traditional ecological interaction designs are often relatively static and one-dimensional, while AIGC generates dynamic artistic content, offering unique narrative experiences with each interaction and advancing the development of ecological storytelling. Furthermore, AIGC empowers users to co-create with the environment, transforming them from passive participants into active co-creators of ecological narratives. Through case studies and design demonstration, this study presents an interactive installation named “Plast-ocean” and proposes an innovative approach to ecological narrative interaction design, aiming to provide new ideas and practical pathways for fields such as environmental protection, education, exhibitions, and public art.

Kinesthetic interaction systems on mobile augmented reality (MAR) platforms remain largely conceptual. To explore this design space, we present karP, an experiential prototype that serves as a proof of concept for integrating kinesthetic systems with MAR. karP’s device features a manipulandum-exoskeleton design that supports kinesthetic input and output for striking gestures with handheld items. Leveraging the native capabilities of MAR, the smartphone functions simultaneously as the visual-spatial interface and spatial tracker, coordinating with the kinesthetic device to control the avatar’s physical interaction in virtual environments. We further introduce game-mechanism-inspired experiential scenes to demonstrate diverse interactions made possible by our system. Ultimately, karP embodies our vision for kinesthetic design in MAR that is playful, portable, and producible.

The construction of the MOSE gates in the Venice Lagoon, designed to prevent flooding, has unintentionally disrupted the ecosystem’s balance. By blocking natural sediment flow, MOSE has altered hydrodynamics and impacted salt marshes and the species that rely on them, raising questions about resource distribution, ecological privilege, and the consequences of human-centered infrastructure. This more-than-human fabulation speculates on the long-term social, economic, and political impacts of such ecological disruptions. By amplifying the voice of marginalized non-human entities, the interactive installation provokes public debate on power dynamics in resource allocation, challenging existing governance models and advocating for ecologically attuned, regenerative lifestyles. Through embodied interaction—using weight redistribution and audio-visual modulation—Ripples makes resource imbalances tangible, allowing people to experience privilege and scarcity. Interacting with Ripples prompts reflection on governance, tourism, and urban planning, questioning anthropocentric sustainability models and revealing how society might transform ecological change into opportunities for adaptive coexistence.

Neuköllnopoly – the Gentrification Game, is a design intervention that critiques the systemic inequalities underpinning gentrification in Berlin’s Neukölln district. Its design approach follows theories of critical game studies and speculative design. Reflecting local socio indicators, the game operates as a design parody of a traditional board game to foster critical reflection on gentrification’s impacts in this specific context. The game features characters representing demographic groups and encodes social disparities into its mechanics – for example while investors inherit properties and are not affected by bureaucracy, a single mother or an unhoused person might inherit debits and face harsher penalties, like prison – to simulate the lived experiences of urban exclusion. This provocative dynamic aims to shed light on the psychological and social aspects of characters affected by the process of gentrification, serving as a platform for collaboratively and critically addressing contested urban issues.

We present Immersive Antarctica: A Frozen Night – a VR experience, in which users follow the oral history testimony of an Antarctic expedition researcher as he navigates extreme weather conditions during fieldwork. This project focuses on balancing user agency whilst they experience a pre-determined, lived historical narrative. Our preliminary study suggests that directorial and design decisions were positively received in achieving this balance. The study aligns with existing VR research in the field of cultural heritage, and we argue the strength of our experience lies in developing sustainability actions in relation to the Antarctic Peninsula.

Cast Ashore presents two interactive artefacts—Agar Piano and Sea Tile—that invite audiences to touch, see, and hear an artistic reflection on the porous boundaries between humans, nonhumans, technology, and the vital aquatic world. These artefacts encourage playful, sensorial engagement with sea-derived materials— often cast ashore by the ebbing and flowing of tides — foregrounding their ecological origins, lifecycles, and entanglements with more-than-human agencies. Developed through a collaborative practice between a digital media PhD researcher and a computer scientist, this work emerged from mutual curiosity to combine biomaterials and interaction in an open-access citizen science lab and makerspace. Drawing on the Arts of Noticing, the first author engaged in a reflective making practice¹ that underpins the design of these interactive objects. These artefacts celebrate the vitality and agency of once-living sea-derived matter, prompting curiosity about where these materials come from, how they transform, and what kinds of stories they might tell.

What does it mean to feel as if you are causing harm to nature, even metaphorically? We present an interactive installation (see Figure 1) that invites participants into a tactile encounter with ecological loss. As participants rest their hand on a soft textile surface illustrated with blue coral forms, heat-activated threads respond to their touch, slowly warming and causing corals to fade from blue to white. This transformation mirrors coral bleaching phenomena – a process triggered by rising ocean temperatures, symbolized in this work by warmth triggered by human touch. By making the effects of climate change felt through the body, the work offers a moment of reflection on how entangled we are in the slow disappearance of life beneath the surface, a process that often remains invisible or abstract.

Emerging from an innate longing for unity, our connection to the sea is visceral. Sailing offers an immersive and sustainable way to engage with the sea, requiring an intimate understanding of its dynamics. In this work, we aim to showcase the depth of the connection between the interoceptive rhythm of our bodies and that of the sea. We present MareVivo, an interactive system that visualizes this relationship by overlaying human heartbeats on the sea’s rhythm, as captured through the movement of a sailboat. Angular motion data from a pre-recorded sailing session was processed into a dynamic data visualization, while participants can interact with it by pressing their finger on a pulse sensor, overlaying their real-time heartbeats on the sea. This interactive system makes the unseen rhythm of the sea visible, allowing people to experience—visually and viscerally—how we and the sea beat with the same rhythm.

This demonstration presents In My Cycle, an interactive installation that externalizes hormonal and emotional sensations through touch, sound, and spatial storytelling. Developed through artistic performance and soma design, the work translates lived menstrual experience into a walkable sound installation consisting of 19 suspended wooden spheres. Each sphere represents one recurring bodily sensation encountered across two decades of menstrual cycles. Through quiet interaction and embodied memory, the installation creates a shared space for self-reflection, conversation, and menstrual literacy. By engaging with feminist HCI, soma design, and critical menstruation studies, this work explores how menstrual technologies can become sites of poetic attention, public dialogue, and intimate knowledge exchange.

Inspired by traditional charm bracelets, we developed CharmInk — an interactive, low-cost, and personalisable charm system. Using e-ink displays, CharmInk allows users to upload and personalise visual content while requiring power only for updates. We demonstrate how CharmInk can display various cherished content, such as personal photos, symbols, and artwork, to express identity, commemorate loved ones, or serve as a remembrance. We demonstrate how this design encourages emotional attachment to digital wearables by fostering user creativity and aesthetic control.

As generative AI technologies enter school settings, educators face uncertainty around how to meaningfully integrate these tools into teaching and learning. We present Prompt Machine, a tangible learning tool designed to support AI literacy, scaffold curriculum-aligned writing activities, and spark critical reflection on the role of AI in education. Informed by interviews with secondary school teachers and grounded in theoretical design considerations, Prompt Machine enables learners to input text, modify it using a physical prompt language, and receive AI-generated rewritings in tangible form. This demo showcases how physical interaction and collaborative exploration can make AI technologies more accessible, explainable, and reflective in classroom contexts. In line with DIS 2025’s theme of Designing for a Sustainable Ocean, this demo features customised tangible blocks and example texts centred on ocean sustainability, inviting conference participants to engage in hands-on exploration and dialogue around AI and environmental themes.

Energy Communities (ECs) are confronted by diverse and intricate challenges concerning sustainability development goals and climate change awareness. This demonstration introduces En-join, a speculative game that addresses these complexities by using Large Language Models (LLMs) to engage players in negotiating solutions for such challenges. En-join demonstrates a novel approach by integrating an LLM as a dual-agent, serving simultaneously as a narrative guide and evaluator, to simulate EC dynamics. Players interact with LLM-powered Non-Player Characters (NPCs) to navigate open-ended scenarios, promoting reflection on sustainability and community participatory decisions on their own resources, alongside pro-social behaviors. This work highlights the potential of LLMs as mediators in serious games, fostering engagement and critical thinking on sustainable energy practices.

As an island nation at the epicenter of marine geopolitics and climate change, Singapore provides the context for this research-through-design project that critically examines posthumanist design practices, aiming to rethink ocean conservation alongside non-human voices. This demonstration merges natural language-driven conversational AI, AI-based 3D model generation technologies, and spatial computing interactions. The system leverages spatial computing capabilities to transform natural language inputs into immersive 3D scenes and provide intuitive spatial interaction experiences. Participants become maritime planners of symbiotic futures, co-creating with non-human agents through voice dialogue and spatial gesture controls to address sea level rise, plastic pollution, and habitat collapse. The project combines advanced technologies with design fiction, local culture, and marine conservation to encourage multi-species thinking and interdependent futures.

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a severe and life-threatening psychiatric disorder that predominantly affects teenagers. A critical component of the treatment of AN involves overcoming “fear foods,” specific foods that elicit intense anxiety in the patient. To support patients in this process, we present Marbly, a mobile fear food diary application developed through a patient-centered design approach. Marbly integrates gamification techniques and emotional attachment mechanisms through digital and tangible companions to support gradual exposure to fear foods in a gentle, engaging way. We conducted an exploratory in-the-wild evaluation with three patients and psychotherapists to gather early feedback on the app’s design and use. Initial findings suggest that Marbly may foster motivation and emotional support during recovery while highlighting areas for refinement and future investigation.

Eating with others offers several health and social benefits, which could potentially be preserved through the use of robotic companions when dining with another person is not an option. This study examined enjoyment of interaction, social connection, desired features, and concerns regarding a lunchtime commensal interaction between a human and a social robot. Participants were asked to eat lunch, unexpectedly accompanied by a NAO robot capable of conversing with them, and to participate in a qualitative study afterward.

Twenty-two users took part in interviews focused on their experience with a robot and their thoughts on the ideal functionalities an artificial commensal companion should have. Users unanimously enjoyed the interaction, and stated that they would prefer eating with a robot to eating alone. They also suggested novel applications and specific improvements, including stronger personalization and the ability to discuss personal topics and interests as well as show empathy.

Due to their haptics, textile interfaces are promising UIs to control devices eyes-free, e.g., in darkness or when controls are placed out of sight, but there are few haptic design guidelines for such interfaces. Therefore, we conducted five experiments investigating the space and size requirements of such textile controls and how users understand the orientation of textile interfaces not placed horizontally in front of them. Our participants preferred symbols to be larger than the literature suggests, they preferred larger controls when interfaces were placed vertically next to them, and they memorized symbols from a world-centric perspective when they were out of sight. Using our findings, we identified future directions for follow-up research on design guidelines for textile interfaces.

The datafication of our lives has led to ethical challenges and questions on what happens to our personal data when we die. This paper describes “Personal Computer”, an interactive project that explores issues around posthumous data privacy and digital legacies through a familiar, tangible artefact. A laptop is presented as belonging to a recently deceased individual, which contains a curated archive of digital artefacts, involving authentic content and AI-generated data such as email accounts, medical records, personal communications, family photographs, and other digital traces. Participants can explore the display and reflect on how digital remains persist after death while considering questions about access, ownership, and ethical obligations regarding posthumous data. This project offers two contributions: a novel approach to materialising abstract concepts around posthumous data privacy through embodied interaction and insights into designing experiences that can surface the temporal and relational dimensions of digital remains.

The concept of “in-betweenness” encompasses diverse cultural, linguistic, and identity dimensions, offering valuable insights for inclusive design practices. This paper introduces a novel workshop format designed to explore and creatively channel the experiences of individuals navigating such liminal spaces. The workshop integrates sensory probes, code-switching creative exercises, and personal taxonomy mapping to guide participants in reflecting on their lived experiences of in-betweenness and its implications for design. Drawing from sensory anthropology, sociolinguistics, and critical design, the workshop transforms participant narratives into actionable design insights, emphasizing the potential of liminality as a source of innovation. By addressing classification systems and their limitations, this work contributes to participatory and inclusive design discourses within the HCI community. The findings highlight how engaging with liminal experiences can inform the development of design practices that are more empathetic, inclusive, and reflective of diverse identities.

Care workers in high-income countries face a significant gap due to aging population and labor shortage, and compared to existing HCI literature, research on the invisible work of age care home workers remains a noticeable deficiency. This study addresses this gap through an ethnographic investigation of migrant care workers at a non-profit long term aged care home in Singapore. The findings reveal the diverse forms of invisible work they face, including challenges related to their migrant identity, communication with multiple stakeholders, balancing caregiving roles, and constraints imposed by efficiency-focused technology. We explore the complex relationship between technology’s role in automating or enhancing the visibility of invisible work and its impact on improving well-being and agency of care workers. These findings provide insights for existing aged care homes to reimagine socio-technical systems that better support workers’ invisible work and promote more sustainable caregiving practices.

With the advent of SketchPad [19] in 1963 by Ivan Sutherland, digital toolsets are now reaching the age of 60-plus years. It is interesting to note that the core instinct of Suterhland’s work was to adapt computer hardware to an intuitive artist-friendly interface, known as SketchPad’s “light pen.” The formalization of Sutherland’s demonstration begins with the breakthrough of no longer using text-based prompts to interact with computers. Yet, in 2025, the most common interfaces for artists still remain: mouse and keyboard or tablet and stylus. Whereas a child could easily interact with traditional artistic mediums by picking up a stick of charcoal, forming a slab of clay, or dipping a paintbrush, it is laughable to imagine placing a child in front of a modern workstation. In contrast, traditional mediums were mastered by many over the centuries using the exact same mediums a child would find intuitive to use. Now, artists are left with deeply technical systems that do not meet the artist in their world. Instead, modern professional toolsets ask artists to translate their processes into complex workflows. AI toolsets present paradigms nearly anyone can use but offer little control over the medium. Additionally, we theorize that technically cumbersome workflows and overly simplified AI tools have seemed to become less enjoyable experiences for the artist. Tool design for artist workflows must take on different considerations than other industrial user experience and user interface considerations. In this paper, we survey the evolution of artists’ toolsets and the trends, achievements, and shortcomings to create stronger design pillars for artists’ tool creation. We do this by accentuating the practitioner’s craft and process through a historical lens and formal review of modern toolsets. By studying the evolution of artists’ tools, we create new opportunities for artist-centric tool design. These artistic-centric design principles focus on quality, efficiency, control, enjoyment, and potential for mastery that meets the artists in their natural workflows.

Informal caregivers (ICs) often grapple with demanding schedules and high stress, leaving little time for themselves. This lack of time can harm their overall well-being and health. While previous research shows the benefits of Immersive Virtual Nature (IVN) environments for ICs, further exploration of the implications of the choice of environment is needed. This study investigates the effects of chosen versus random IVN environments on the emotional state of ICs. The results highlighted that choosing an IVN environment significantly enhanced their emotional state compared to a randomized IVN experience. While ICs acknowledged the potential of choosing IVN as a valuable tool for improving their emotional state and autonomy, barriers like the cost of the Virtual Reality equipment can be a reason for ICs not to use IVN in their daily routines. Our findings suggest that incorporating the choice of IVN in their routines can be an important factor for ICs.

This work in progress introduces a research through design (RtD) approach to inquiry into communicating chronic pain experiences beyond clinical metrics. We propose a multi-stage generative co-design workshop in which participants are guided through reflection on metaphorical representation and communication through making/unmaking using diverse materials. Our process aims to generate new insight for interaction design in person-centered healthcare by fostering self-advocacy based on narrative building and emotional articulation. These workshops will inform our design of interactive systems for patients, caregivers, and clinicians, that facilitate expressive communication and empathetic care.

Biofeedback in mixed reality offers a powerful means of enhancing users’ bodily awareness and reconnecting people with nature. “Respireal” is an innovative mixed reality breathing game that enables participants to foster the growth of virtual plants through conscious breathing, while also facilitating seamless transitions between virtual and real natural environments via breath control. A preliminary study involving seven participants indicated that the system not only heightened their awareness of breathing but also enriched their engagement with nature. This work aims to inspire HCI researchers to further explore how interactive technologies can deepen the connection between humans and the natural world.

Recent advancements in HCI and AI have predominantly centered on individual user experiences, often neglecting the emergent dynamics of group interactions. This provocation introduces Group Experience(GX) to capture the collective perceptual, emotional, and cognitive dimensions that arise when individuals interact in cohesive groups. We challenge the conventional Human-centered AI paradigm and propose Group-centered AI(GCAI) as a framework that actively mediates group dynamics, amplifies diverse voices, and fosters ethical collective decision-making. Drawing on social psychology, organizational behavior, and group dynamics, we outline a group-centered design approach that balances individual autonomy with collective interests while developing novel evaluative metrics. Our analysis emphasizes rethinking traditional methodologies that focus solely on individual outcomes and advocates for innovative strategies to capture group collaboration. We call on researchers to bridge the gap between micro-level experiences and macro-level impacts, ultimately enriching and transforming collaborative human interactions.

Interaction is one of the most crucial aspects of virtual reality. Controller-based interaction remains widely used, with button-based techniques being particularly common, while hand tracking is gaining popularity, focusing on fine finger gestures. However, there is still significant room for improvement, as these interaction methods are not immediate to learn and often require concentration and attention, which can disrupt the experience. We believe that interaction in virtual reality should remain within virtual reality, allowing users to enjoy the experience without having to focus on their fine finger movements in the physical space. To validate our theory, we designed a fully virtual interaction system, SpatialFlow, and compared it with a state-of-the-art button-based interaction technique, evaluating them in terms of enjoyment, usability, and sense of presence. The results support our theory, as our method is more enjoyable, easier to use, and inclusive, while also maintaining a high sense of presence.

While providing convenient market access, mobile investment applications often amplify emotional trading through features such as real-time market data and news updates. Our study explored design opportunities for AI-mediated interventions that help investors recognize their emotional biases. Through interviews with 13 investors, we examined how emotions emerge throughout the investment process, how they are reflected in investment behavior, and whether emotion-based interventions can be effective. Our findings revealed that participants experienced recurring cycles of impulsive decisions driven by anxiety, overconfidence, and immediate reward-seeking, which persisted due to intermittent successes and platform convenience. They preferred objective data over directive interventions and valued real-time support that preserves autonomy and retrospective analysis capabilities for long-term improvement. Drawing on these insights, we propose a design concept featuring data-driven reflection mechanisms that help users recognize deviations from established investment patterns. Our work highlights opportunities for adaptive, reflection-oriented AI interventions explicitly tailored to investors’ emotional awareness.

This contribution presents a playful yet critical provocation, exploring how Large Language Models (LLMs) can generate synthetic personas inspired by the spirit of Barbie Land—a utopian world where empowerment, inclusivity, and imagination are central themes. Grounded in feminist and queer perspectives, the speculative approach emphasizes the value of fictional narratives as sources of inspiration for researchers, framing LLM-generated synthetic personas as tools for fostering critical dialogue, challenging systemic inequities, and advancing equity-driven design in research and practice. As part of on-going research, this contribution shows the initial findings of a multi-faceted speculative investigation, revealing biases present in AI-generated synthetic personas, and examining pathways for harnessing their creative potential to support more inclusive and socially conscious technological futures.

We present a work in progress that explores using a Large Language Model (LLM) as a design material for an interactive museum installation. LLMs offer the possibility of creating chatbots that can facilitate dynamic and human-like conversation, engaging in a form of role play to bring historical persons “to life” for visitors. However, LLMs are prone to producing misinformation, which runs counter to museums’ core mission to educate the public. We use Research-through-Design to explore some approaches to navigating this dilemma through rapid prototyping and evaluation and propose some directions for further research. We suggest that designers may shape interactions with the chatbot to emphasize personal narratives and role play rather than historical facts or to intentionally highlight the unreliability of the chatbot outputs to provoke critical reflection.

Designing hospital layouts that improve healthcare delivery and patient experience is a complex challenge. Traditional methods rely on architects’ subjective expertise, often lacking tools for iterative testing and validation. To address this, we developed Structura, an interactive simulation tool combining modular design, real-time path simulation, and data-driven reporting to optimize hospital layouts. Built on Unity3D, Structura enables architects to refine layouts through a user-friendly interface while generating insights based on patient journey simulations. A study with 16 participants showed significant reductions in walking distances and improvements in spatial efficiency. Participants praised the tool’s intuitive interface and dynamic evaluation, emphasizing its potential to transform hospital planning. Structura offers features like modular configuration, real-time path analysis, and scalability for diverse healthcare settings. Future work will explore advanced analytics and multi-floor integration to further enhance its capabilities, providing a novel approach to hospital layout optimization and supporting patient-centered medical facilities globally.

The increasing pervasiveness of commercially available smart speakers calls for critical design research engagement to challenge traditional notions of utility and efficiency. In this paper, we report on the design of three provotypes (prototypes to provoke thought rather than refine the design process) – the Climate Change Smart Speakers (CCSS) – and the results from a one-week real-life probe study involving three participants. The CCSS are designed to make people reflect on smart speaker design and interactions using climate crisis as a catalyst, and each has a distinct persona: the Activist, the Robot, and the Voice of the Forest. Our preliminary findings indicate that CCSS are affectively engaging artifacts that prompt critical reflections on the sociocultural roles of smart speakers and our interactions with them. Based on this, we provide future directions for more diverse voice-user interfaces (VUI) in smart speaker design.

We postulate the need for the creation of computational methods to model interactions specific to commensal settings. They would be used to analyze and quantify interactions during shared meals, and to design new devices for commensality. To illustrate the concept, we present algorithms for measuring: 1) food intake ratio and synchronization, and 2) smile ratio and synchronization in pairs of eaters. They process images of two commensals captured simultaneously to extract information specific to their nonverbal behaviors and subsequently apply the Event Synchronization algorithm to compute their degree of synchronization. Next, we test the proposed methods on videos of 12 dyads sharing meals. Our findings suggest that the self-reported strength of the relationship is positively correlated with the degree of food intake synchronization and inversely correlated with the quantity of smiles. We conclude by discussing potential applications for developing artificial companions to support solo eaters.

Digital notifications are central to diabetes self-management technologies, providing reminders to track glucose levels, meals, and physical activity. However, frequent alerts can contribute to fatigue, burnout, and disengagement, particularly for individuals experiencing diabetes-related fatigue. In this study, we explore the lived experience of individuals with diabetes-related fatigue engaging with health-related notifications. Through semi-structured interviews with ten participants, we identified three themes; lack of contextual awareness, shared care and buried reminders. We present three early-stage design explorations that reimagine notifications as empathetic, collaborative, and context-aware interactions. Our work contributes to HCI research on chronic care by exploring how notifications can be designed to reduce emotional and cognitive burden in long term self-management.

The typical approach to gesture set design, which relies on one-to-one mappings between gestures and system functions, often presents challenges for users in terms of gesture discoverability, learnability, and memorability. In this paper, we examine the hypothesis that semantically related system functions can benefit from the use of congruent gestures, whereas functions structured in the form of parameterized action may be better supported by hierarchical gestures. We report the results of a gesture elicitation study conducted with n₁ = 24 participants, who proposed stroke gestures for a multi-display touchscreen to effect file-related manipulation referents either locally on a central display or remotely on a lateral display. In a follow-up study, an original mixed method combining elicitation and identification, another sample of n₂ = 24 participants was instructed to focus on congruent and hierarchical gestures for the same referents. Our results reveal higher agreement and an increased perceived goodness of fit between gestures and system functions in the second study.

As Educational Technology (EdTech) platforms become increasingly integrated into higher education, concerns arise regarding the use of deceptive patterns—manipulative UX/UI strategies that influence user decisions. This study systematically examines deceptive patterns across Learning Management Systems (LMS), Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), new media platforms, and AI-driven learning tools. Using a mixed-methods approach, we conducted a survey with 12 university students and 6 educators to analyze their experiences and awareness of deceptive practices. Findings reveal that LMS platforms are trusted but lack flexibility, MOOCs often employ deceptive pricing strategies, new media platforms leverage algorithm-driven engagement tactics, and AI tools raise concerns about academic integrity. These insights highlight the tension between personalization and user protection, emphasizing the need for transparent and ethical EdTech design. This study contributes to UX regulation discussions and provides recommendations for balancing user engagement, accessibility, and fairness in digital learning environments.

The increasing integration of technology into care work, once regarded as an inherently human practice, raises questions about ethics, fairness, and the relational implications for care work and workers. This study explores the complex interplay of technology and care work through a co-speculative workshop involving sixteen participants from diverse regions working on care-focused technologies. The findings reveal critical themes: embracing tensions in delivering care, establishing infrastructure for fair AI and data practices, and enhancing the visibility of care work. A lack of resources for understanding care realities hinders the innovation of empathetic technological solutions. From the findings, we provide a framework as a provocation for mapping care relationality and situating the care orientation of technologies.

Using tangible objects for immersive augmented reality (AR) experiences offers various benefits, such as providing a physical means of interacting with virtual objects and enhancing the functionality of everyday objects. However, designing AR experiences with tangible objects presents unique challenges, particularly due to the diverse physical properties that can influence user interactions. In this provocation, we explore effective approaches for ideating such AR experiences, by designing two exergames intended for AR head-mounted displays (HMDs). We found that role-playing and mimicry, both with and without tangible objects, provide valuable benefits in the design of such experiences. Building on this insight, we introduce ChARades, an iterative and playful gamestorming technique that incorporates role-playing and mimicry in both forms, to ideate immersive AR experiences involving tangible objects.

This research explores more-than-human HCI by designing a music generation system for everyday human-plant engagement. The system leverages the unique photosynthetic activity of coontail, a resilient aquatic plant that produces small, subtle bubbles. These bubbles’ raw sounds, captured via hydrophone, are converted into ambient music that dynamically responds to the diurnal cycle and health condition of the plant. Through this enriching sonic experience, users are encouraged to observe the plant’s activity, care for the plant more proactively and reflect on their coexistence with the environment. This research also aims to conduct a long-term user study to investigate how this system can influence human-plant engagement and relationships, providing provocative insights into more-than-human design in everyday contexts.

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) intervention efforts have traditionally focused on reactive responses, often neglecting proactive strategies that address the harmful gender norms that can lead to IPV. This paper presents ongoing insights from Bold Sky. Bold Sky is an interactive narrative game co-designed with an interdisciplinary Advisory Committee comprising of young men, IPV experts, and game designers to foster gender-equitable attitudes and promote healthy relationships. Utilizing a participatory co-design approach, we engaged the Advisory Committee to iteratively develop the game. Preliminary findings from our first co-design session highlight three key design considerations for Bold Sky: 1) narrative complexity and avoiding didactic messaging enhance engagement; 2) perspective-shifting mechanics for gender transformative change; and 3) the role of game mechanics to support attitude changes. These insights inform the continued development of Bold Sky as we continue to develop and refine this digital IPV prevention tool.

Does a run count if it is not logged and datafied? What about intentionally or unintentionally missing a run? Does missing a scheduled run count if it is not logged and datafied? In this paper, we grapple with these and other questions as we reflect on, discuss, and critique our interactions with our physical activity data as individuals with a chronic health condition. We describe the preliminary results of a six-week duoethnography study where we use our Garmin wearable devices – and the data collected and generated by them – as our object of study. We draw from critical and feminist perspectives on data to interrogate what is and is not captured by the data and reflect on the temporality of physical activity, data, and our chronic health conditions. We conclude by discussing three considerations on how data could be reconfigured to meaningfully account for our chronic health conditions.

This study explores Stresstrike, an augmented reality (AR)-based health intervention designed to alleviate neck discomfort caused by prolonged sitting. Unlike traditional applications, Stresstrike combines neck relaxation exercises with immersive virtual environments, offering a personalized and engaging experience. By utilizing eye-tracking and gesture-based interactions, the game dynamically adjusts exercise intensity based on real-time feedback and individual needs. Sixteen participants, primarily engaged in sedentary activities, evaluated the game through surveys and interviews. Results highlighted the game’s innovation, entertainment value, and personalization, with participants suggesting improvements in scientific grounding, exercise balance, and narrative elements. This study demonstrates the potential of AR technology in health interventions, especially for enhancing user engagement and providing personalized exercise guidance. Future research could explore the game’s application in different contexts and refine its design to improve its effectiveness as a health intervention.

Strong social relationships significantly impact the physical and emotional well-being of older adults and their informal caregivers. However, existing AI caregiving technologies often focus on either older adults or caregivers, overlooking the critical relational dynamics between them. To investigate these dynamics, we conducted a contextual inquiry with six pairs of older adults and their informal caregivers in home settings. Our findings revealed two key relational challenges: older adults experience increasing dependency on caregivers and growing isolation from their broader social networks, while caregivers grapple with emotional tensions in managing older adults’ needs and mediating their social interactions. In response, we propose a new role for AI as a mediator between older adults and their extended social networks. Our proposed AI system bridges communication gaps related to modality, presence, and language, thereby addressing the relational needs of older adults while alleviating the caregiving burden.

Design research processes are complex, and it is difficult to open them to others. As design researchers, we are often challenged with communicating the nuances behind these processes in ways that highlight what might be meaningful and transferable to others. Further, there are often specific lenses that we use to analyse and cut across our work, but these cuts are often difficult to convey. This Work in Progress presents an analytical approach to investigate a design research process through the lens of voice. This uses annotations to investigate voice in a set of design research artefacts, such as sketches and embroidery pieces. Re-examining these artefacts through this specific lens allowed us to reveal deeper layers of information, uncovering richer and more nuanced insights. The result is an analysis that foregrounds voice in design research, which we propose is a way to consider the complexities of such processes in greater depth.

Generative UI is transforming interface design by facilitating AI-driven collaborative workflows between designers and computational systems. This study establishes a working definition of Generative UI through a multi-method qualitative approach, integrating insights from a systematic literature review of 127 publications, expert interviews with 18 participants, and analyses of 12 case studies. Our findings identify five core themes that position Generative UI as an iterative and co-creative process. We highlight emerging design models, including hybrid creation, curation-based workflows, and AI-assisted refinement strategies. Additionally, we examine ethical challenges, evaluation criteria, and interaction models that shape the field. By proposing a conceptual foundation, this study advances both theoretical discourse and practical implementation, guiding future HCI research toward responsible and effective generative UI design practices.

Borders have often been viewed as static, territorial lines separating nation-states. Contesting this static conception that fails to capture their evolving complexities, this paper conceptualizes borders as rhizomatic infrastructures—fluid, adaptable systems embedded in sociotechnical networks shaped by language, technology, and governance. These infrastructures not only regulate mobility but also construct systems of inclusion and exclusion, often invisibly shaping global inequalities. This paper examines borders as dynamic, interactive, infrastructures that are part of larger socio-technical systems that extend far beyond territorial boundaries.

Dark patterns refer to design practices which undermine users’ ability to make autonomous and informed choices in relation to digital systems. The recent EU Digital Services Act (DSA) aims to protect users from such dark patterns and their effects. DSA Article 25 prohibits three autonomy violation types: deception, manipulation and distortion/impairment. However, for regulation of dark patterns, it is important to reason about why an observed design practice constitutes a particular autonomy violation type, to show that it indeed violates the DSA. In this work-in-progress, two experts (with HCI, CS and legal background) mapped 59 known dark patterns onto these three autonomy violation types. We then analysed our rationale for this mapping to identify eight design factors which can help determine the dark pattern autonomy violation(s). Our analysis aims to situate existing dark patterns knowledge within the DSA legal framework, to support regulation and compliance of such design practices.

We present “Gaze and Glow,” an interactive installation that reveals the often-invisible efforts of social media editing. Through narrative personas, experimental videos, and sensor-based interactions, the installation explores how audience attention shapes users’ editing practices and emotional experiences. Deployed in a two-month public exhibition, Gaze and Glow engaged viewers and elicited responses. Reflexive thematic analysis of audience feedback highlights how making editing visible prompts new reflections on authenticity, agency, and performativity. We discuss implications for designing interactive systems that support selective memory, user-controlled visibility, and critical engagement with everyday digital self-presentation.

Assistive technologies designed for autistic users often aim to treat the condition through training them to engage or not engage in certain behaviors. This has encompassed the disruption of self-injurious actions as well as other evidently essential interventions, but it has also expanded into areas such as ’appropriate’ eye contact and other subjective communication forms. However, few technologies serve as prostheses to aid autistic people in challenging areas. Many autistic individuals face sensory processing differences, leading to over-reactions to stimuli such as loud noises, and struggle with Alexithymia which causes difficulty identifying and describing one’s own emotional state. Together, these conditions can cause autistic people to become overwhelmed in certain environments without realizing until it is too late to take actions to prevent extreme distress. This paper introduces a wearable prosthetic designed to address this problem by using reported stress and noise levels to alert users about potentially overwhelming environments

Improvisation training for actors presents unique challenges, particularly in maintaining narrative coherence and managing cognitive load during performances. Previous research on AI in improvisation performance often predates advances in large language models (LLMs) and relies on human intervention. We introduce ImprovMate, which leverages LLMs as GPTs to automate the generation of narrative stimuli and cues, allowing actors to focus on creativity without keeping track of plot or character continuity. Based on insights from professional improvisers, ImprovMate incorporates exercises that mimic live training, such as abrupt story resolution and reactive thinking exercises, while maintaining coherence via reference tables. By balancing randomness and structured guidance, ImprovMate provides a groundbreaking tool for improv training. Our pilot study revealed that actors might embrace AI techniques if the latter mirrors traditional practices, and appreciate the fresh twist introduced by our approach with the AI-generated cues.

Makerspaces are identified in HCI to have great potential in fostering diverse participation in technology and computing–considering making as a democratic form of innovation. However, growing research also indicates many current makerspaces fail to address non-white and non-cisheteronormative perspectives. Prior works suggest embodiment as a core but seldom understood consideration for intersectional inclusion. Current trends in technologies and computing also stifle such considerations through two phenomena: broader implications of “woman lite” thinking, and what this provocation defines as “techno-disembodiments.” To combat perpetuating these phenomena in makerspaces, we posit looking to bodily and sensory responses, or embodied reflections, from communities of Trans and Black, Indigenous and People of Color (TBIPOC). Further, we examine prior works in visual auto-ethnography and diary studies for approaches to inquire about embodied reflections. In considering embodied reflections of TBIPOC communities, researchers can gain insights on decentering cisheteronormative whiteness to afford broader inclusion in maker culture.

Hybrid physical-digital games often rely on screen-based interactions, which can detract from their tactile nature. We introduce Connect!, a card game that integrates paper circuits and real-time LED feedback, enabling players to construct functional circuits as part of gameplay. Unlike traditional hybrid games, Connect! embeds feedback directly into physical components while preserving material interaction. We conducted a user study comparing gameplay with and without electronic feedback. Our findings suggest that real-time feedback not only increased engagement but also altered players’ behavior, encouraging rule exploration and emergent play. Our work contributes to tangible interaction and game-based learning, demonstrating the potential of low-cost electronics in enhancing interactive experiences.

Increasing research on the growing space of ethical and legal implications around persuasive interaction design implementations has shown a need to devise diverse forms of deceptive design detection and manipulation literacy. However, while existing research touches upon the felt experience of end users, there has not yet been an extensive body of research on this matter addressing the habitual, unconscious side of user interaction that deceptive patterns rely on. This paper argues that the widespread existence of deceptive design patterns calls for HCI research to expand ways of researching people’s felt experience surrounding such practices. Connecting to existing efforts in HCI to center the body’s role in interaction through frameworks such as embodied cognition, this paper explores the application of sociodrama as an action research method for uncovering people’s felt experience surrounding coercive consenting practices in the design of everyday app Terms of Service (ToS).

Designers have ample opportunities to impact the healthcare domain. However, hospitals are often closed ecosystems that pose challenges in engaging clinical stakeholders, developing domain knowledge, and accessing relevant systems and data. In this paper, we introduce a making-oriented approach to help designers understand the intricacies of their target healthcare context. Using Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) as a case study, we explore how manually crafting synthetic datasets based on real-world observations enables designers to learn about complex data-driven healthcare systems. Our process involves observing and modeling the real-world RPM context, crafting synthetic datasets, and iteratively prototyping a simplified RPM system that balances contextual richness and intentional abstraction. Through this iterative process of sensemaking through making, designers can still develop context familiarity, when direct access to the actual healthcare system is limited. Our approach emphasizes the value of hands-on interaction with data structures to support designers in understanding opaque healthcare systems.

Given the rapid advancements of Augmented Reality (AR) Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs), researchers are increasingly exploring their potential for everyday use, including outdoor and on-the-move settings. However, studies examining the use of AR HMDs in real-world environments remain scarce. Thus, we conducted an autoethnographic study capturing the lived experience of an AR expert using three different AR HMDs in the context of a crowded Christmas market. Our work contributes first-person insights into the experience, limitations, and social implications of interacting with AR HMDs in-the-wild; it shedding light on the social experience of using AR technology in public spaces and outlining design considerations regarding trust, context-aware deployment, and non-user perceptions. We highlight how device form factors, interface behaviors, and environmental components shape interaction quality, user experience, and non-users’ perception and engagement. Our findings emphasize the importance of adaptive interfaces, improved peripheral awareness, and socially transparent device designs suited for public, real-world use.

We present an AI-assisted workflow that supports architects in designing wall assemblies using sustainable materials. Material selection in architecture is a complex process involving multiple data points and trade-offs across environmental performance, cost, and constructability. Making this process more efficient is essential for encouraging sustainable design practices. Our approach uses artificial intelligence and large language models to streamline aspects of material analysis and information management. The workflow integrates into standard architectural practice by translating wall assembly sketches into graph representations that reflect components and their relationships. Through an interactive interface with graph visualisation, architects can explore material options, review properties and substitute components in line with their design intent. We contribute a prototype workflow and report findings from a preliminary study on the integration of AI tools in early design stages. The study highlights benefits such as reduced decision effort, increased confidence, and improved access to material information.

Short-form videos on platforms like YouTube Shorts provide accessible entertainment and quick information. Yet, excessive consumption can lead to psychological, cognitive, and emotional side effects. To design interventions that seamlessly integrate balanced short-form video consumption into daily routines, understanding how users engage with these videos in their everyday lives is crucial. However, few studies have qualitatively explored users’ daily interactions with short-form videos. To this end, we conducted a four-day diary study with eight active users. Our findings show that users watch videos during brief breaks or moments of mental fatigue, appreciating the value of short-form videos in their everyday lives. However, they often lose awareness of their viewing, passively consume content, and struggle to recall any videos afterward, which leads to regret and self-blame. Drawing from these insights, we propose a holistic intervention aimed at supporting more mindful and balanced consumption that naturally fits within users’ existing routines.

Data physicalization unlocks the opportunity for us to more closely engage with data, to learn about ourselves and our environments. However, data physicalization artifacts are often abstract without details, leading to an assumption-based interpretation. In this work, we propose an interaction approach called “Integrated Data Physicalization” – highlighting the hybrid integration with an additional digital interface as PhysLens next to a data physicalization artifact. PhysLens guides users in exploring data mapping details in data physicalization. Together with an exemplar data physicalization artifact that encodes indoor environmental data, PhysLens was evaluated in a semi-lab setting (N=16). The hybrid approach of interacting with the data physicalization helped and played an essential role for individuals to understand data physicalization through detailed information. The potential of integrating PhysLens longitudinally was demonstrated with its possible expandability in personalizing physicalization, providing data scales, integrating IoT control, and resurfacing different temporal moments of the data.

BioVR explores the integration of biofeedback into immersive virtual reality (VR) to create personalized fitness experiences. The prototype leverages heart rate data from smartwatches to dynamically adapt VR environments, encouraging users to sustain exercise intensity levels tailored to their biometric profiles. This study addresses key gaps in current VR fitness systems by focusing on real-time adaptability, engagement, and exercise intensity maintenance while mitigating challenges such as overexertion and disengagement during exercise. Additionally, this project explores a novel interaction method in VR, enabling users to gain a more tailored and immersive experience based on their internal physiological status. A pilot study was conducted to explore exercise intensity trends and user experience, revealing that participants in the BioVR condition maintained a moderate fitness level for a longer duration and reported a more satisfying experience. Future work will include formal user testing and expanding the system’s applications, contributing to the evolving paradigm of human-computer integration in health and fitness.