Understanding Emotional Closeness in Distanced Intergenerational Relationships Between Young Children and Older Adults: A Scoping Review for HCIEmotional closeness (EC) is central to family relationships, however in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) it is often regarded as self-evident, invoked through adjacent constructs such as connection or co-presence. This ambiguity is particularly limiting for remote relationships between young children (aged 4-8 years) and their older relatives, where developmental asymmetries and generational roles shape how EC unfolds. To clarify how EC is understood in this specific intergenerational context, we conducted a scoping review of 30 papers (2010 - 2025) examining how EC is defined, evaluated, and technologically mediated. Our analysis reveals three key patterns: reliance on self-report evaluations, a persistent interaction-closeness assumption, and under-exploration of embodied and cultural framings. We synthesise a multidimensional definition of EC comprising Affective Expression, Relational Practices, Embodied Presence, and Cultural Belonging. We conclude with implications for HCI, including the need for multimodal and longitudinal methods and technologies that support multi-dimensional, culturally grounded, and meaningful intergenerational connection.2026YWYuehao Wang et al.Queensland University of TechnologyEmpathy & Emotional DesignRemote Family ConnectionChild-Computer Interaction DesignCHI
What's the Point? How Users Functionalise Points in Gamified SystemsPoints are widely used design elements in gamified systems. Yet how they motivate is still unclear: what motivational meaning or functional significance do users ascribe to points and when? To answer this question, we conducted a semi-structured interview study with 27 users of two popular gamified platforms, Duolingo and Habitica. Through reflexive thematic analysis, we constructed six different types of functionalisation variously proposed in prior gamification and personal informatics work but often not empirically supported. We highlight the importance of functional design detail (such as points should proportionally reward effort) and derive design guidelines.2026OLOcéane Lissillour et al.University of YorkGamification DesignBehavior Change & Reflection TechnologyCHI
Privacy Cards: Surfacing mental models and exploring privacy concerns of voice-first ambient interfacesWe investigate the ethical and privacy implications of voice-first ambient interfaces (VFAIs) for aging in place through an in-depth engagement with five older adults. Our participants were in the process of becoming experienced VFAI users, and had used a VFAI-based design probe for health data reporting. We create and iteratively refine an interview protocol using Privacy Cards. We customize Privacy Cards by drawing on participants’ previous interviews and device usage logs. Using Privacy Cards, we conduct interviews to surface their mental models, and explore their privacy concerns. We find insufficient mental models for proper consent. For example, participants did not know who could access their data, and experienced difficulty distinguishing built-in functionality from third-party apps. Participants initially expressed little worry about VFAI-related ethical concerns, but interviews with Privacy Cards revealed nuanced issues, resulting in various implications for future research and design.2026ACAndrea Cuadra et al.Olin CollegeVoice AccessibilityAging-in-Place Assistance SystemsPrivacy by Design & User ControlCHI
Empowering Stakeholders with Participatory Auditing of Predictive AI: Perspectives from End-Users and Decision Subjects without AI ExpertiseArtificial intelligence (AI) applications have become ubiquitous in their impact on individuals and society, highlighting a crucial need for their responsible development. Recent research has called for participatory AI auditing, empowering individuals without AI expertise to audit AI applications throughout the entire AI development pipeline. Our work focuses on investigating how to support these kinds of auditors through participatory AI auditing tools and processes. We conducted a series of co-design workshops, using two health-related predictive AI applications as examples. Our results show that participants wanted to be part of AI audits, and were insightful in identifying the potential impacts of applications, but needed to be assisted in conducting audits, especially how to measure impacts. Importantly, participants provided examples of impacts not considered in current risk/harm taxonomies. Our findings provide implications for the design of tools and processes to empower everyone to contribute to responsible AI development in the future.2026PVPatrizia Di Campli San Vito et al.University of GlasgowExplainable AI (XAI)Participatory DesignResearch Ethics & Open ScienceCHI
Context, Uncertainty, and Interdependence: Crisis Informatics and Severe Weather Risk Communication for People with Visual ImpairmentsThe challenges faced by individuals with visual impairments during severe weather events are poorly understood by the fields of risk communication and crisis informatics. To develop a stronger foundation for HCI research and design in this area, we conducted interviews with adults with varying forms of visual impairment about their recent experiences during weather emergencies and the role of digital technologies in supporting actions related to disaster preparedness and safety. We make three arguments to help orient future work. First, despite the challenges involved, efforts to improve risk communication for this audience must account for the social and infrastructural contexts that shape individuals' embodied experiences of severe weather. Furthermore, risk communication efforts must carefully balance interventions aimed at supporting recipient independence with collective or social strategies to support the goals of disability justice. Second, we suggest the potential for risk communications to nurture interdependent networks of information sharing and support. Finally, we identify the opportunity to reframe longstanding assumptions regarding the forms of uncertainty that designers should attend to as part of efforts to improve severe weather risk communication.2026SJSophia S Jit et al.University of TorontoSocial Media Information Dissemination in DisastersVisual Impairment Technologies (Screen Readers, Tactile Graphics, Braille)CHI
“It Became My Buddy, But I’m Not Afraid to Disagree”: A Multi-Session Study of UX Evaluators Collaborating with Conversational AI AssistantsAI-assisted usability analysis can potentially reduce the time and effort of finding usability problems, yet little is known about how AI's perceived expertise influences evaluators' analytic strategies and perceptions over time. We ran a within-subjects, five-session study (six hours per participant) with 12 professional UX evaluators who worked with two conversational assistants designed to appear novice- or expert-like (differing in suggestion quantity and response accuracy). We logged behavioral measures (number of passes, suggestion acceptance rate), collected subjective ratings (trust, perceived efficiency), and conducted semi-structured interviews. Participants experienced an initial novelty effect and a subsequent dip in trust that recovered over time. Their efficiency improved as they shifted from a two-pass to a one-pass video inspection approach. Evaluators ultimately rated the experienced CA as significantly more efficient, trustworthy, and comprehensive, despite not perceiving expertise differences early on. We conclude with design implications for adapting AI expertise to enable calibrated human-AI collaboration.2026EKEmily Kuang et al.York UniversityHuman-LLM CollaborationAI-Assisted Decision-Making & AutomationAgent Personality & AnthropomorphismCHI
Towards Better Reflexive Thematic Analysis in HCI: A Scoping Review of Practice at CHIReflexive Thematic Analysis is an increasingly popular method of qualitative analysis in many disciplines, including HCI. However, previous work has questioned the quality of its application, often finding it misunderstood and misapplied. To establish a snapshot of current practice in HCI, we performed a scoping review to examine 147 CHI papers from a single year that purported to use the method. Markers of good and poor practice were assessed based on writings and guidelines by the method's originators. Similar to reviews in other domains, we found widespread issues such as methodological incongruence, insufficient detail, and poorly conceptualised and reported themes. Despite this, we highlight encouraging pockets of good practice. We conclude that HCI researchers should engage more holistically with Reflexive TA, and question whether it is always the most appropriate choice of method. To this end we offer several recommendations for improvement.2026JRJacob M Rigby et al.University of YorkUser Research Methods (Interviews, Surveys, Observation)Research Ethics & Open ScienceCHI
Normalizing Speed-accuracy Biases in 2D Pointing Tasks with Better Calculation of Effective Target WidthsFor evaluations of 2D target selection using Fitts' law, ISO 9241-411 recommends using the effective target width (W_e) calculated using the univariate standard deviation of selection coordinates. Related research proposed using a bivariate standard deviation; however, the proposal was only tested using a single speed-accuracy bias condition, thus the assessment was limited. We compared the univariate and bivariate techniques in a 2D Fitts' law experiment using three speed-accuracy biases and 346 crowdworkers. Calculating W_e using the univariate standard deviation yielded higher model correlations across all bias conditions and produced more stable throughput among the biases. The findings were also consistent in cases using randomly sampled subsets of the participant data. We recommend that future research should calculate W_e using the univariate standard deviation for fair performance evaluations. Also, we found trivial effects when using nominal or effective amplitude and using different perspectives of the task axis.2026SYShota Yamanaka et al.LY CorporationTouchscreen Usability & Performance Modeling (Fitts' Law)CHI
Beyond the Spotlight: Co-Designing AI for Theatre Audience CommunicationTheatres and concert halls play a crucial role within the performing arts, where managerial and administrative staff are essential to bringing live performances to audiences. Existing AI research has focused on artistic creation, but less attention has been paid to the purposeful design of AI systems that support organisational practices. This paper addresses this gap by identifying the needs, challenges and opportunities for AI integration into everyday workflows, forming the basis for design principles to guide the architecturing, training, and deployment of AI systems that empower staff, rather than replace them. This is explored through a co-design workshop with theatre marketing and communication professionals. Through reflections of the themes explored in the workshop and by following the guiding principles, this paper presents examples of implementation of AI systems that could be adopted, offering concrete directions for developing AI that benefits the cultural sector.2026ACAlan Pedrassoli Chitayat et al.University of YorkGenerative AI (Text, Image, Music, Video)Creative Collaboration & Feedback SystemsDigital Art Installations & Interactive PerformanceCHI
Trust and Friction: Negotiating How Information Flows through Decentralized Social MediaDecentralized social media protocols enable users in independent, user-hosted servers (i.e., instances) to interact with each other while they self-govern. This community-based model of social media governance opens up new opportunities for tailored decision-making about information flows---i.e., what user data is shared to whom and when---and in turn, for protecting user privacy. To better understand how community governance shapes privacy expectations on decentralized social media, we conducted a semi-structured interview with 23 users of the Fediverse, a decentralized social media network. Our findings illustrate important factors that shape a community's understandings of information flows, such as rules and proactive efforts from admins who are perceived as trustworthy. We also highlight ''governance frictions'' between communities that raise new privacy risks due to incompatibilities in values, security practices, and software. Our findings highlight the unique challenges of decentralized social media, suggest design opportunities to address frictions, and outline the role of participatory decision-making to realize the full potential of decentralization.2025SHSohyeon Hwang et al.Core Concepts in Privacy ResearchCSCW
Queer Archival Un/Making as Tangible Information ActivismWe introduce queer archival un/making, i.e. both making and unmaking with historical materials, which invites reflection on queer identities and community archives, toward information activist engagements (or, how LGBTQIA+ people strategically use communication technologies to access knowledge and further social movements). We hosted workshops where participants created buttons by drawing and collaging with materials from the Queer Zine Archive Project, then embedded buttons with their own personal oral histories. From our workshops, we provide the following design reflections on queer archival un/making: (1) un/making from queer perspectives encourages questioning, trying on, and exploring identities both personally and collectively; (2) queer archival un/making can encompass sharing artifacts outside of research institutions to engage community archives and information activist practices; (3) queer archival un/making invites reflections on what is missing from community archives and how un/making with historical materials can configure alternatives. Our design reflections expand the practices of unmaking in HCI by looking to queer archives, paralleling the messiness through which queer identities and histories are made and interpreted.2025ARAlexandra Teixeira Riggs et al.LGBTQ+ Community Technology DesignMuseum & Cultural Heritage DigitizationDIS
Chorus of the Past: Toward Designing a Multi-agent Conversational Reminiscence System with Digital Artifacts for Older AdultsReminiscence has been shown to provide benefits for older adults, but traditionally relies on personal photos as memory cues and interactions with real people who may not always be available. We present ReminiBuddy, a novel LLM-powered multi-agent conversational system, which allows older adults to engage with two distinct agents—one embodying an older identity and the other a younger identity—while using not only personal photos but also 3D models of generic nostalgic objects as memory cues. Our study, with older adult participants, found that the conversational approach both enjoyable and beneficial for reminiscence. While the younger agent was perceived as more emotionally engaging, the older one fostered greater resonance in content. Personal photos prompted autobiographical memories, whereas 3D generic nostalgic objects evoked shared memories of an era, contributing to a more multifaceted reminiscence experience. We further present design implications for better supporting older adults in reminiscing with LLM-powered conversational agents.2025JSJingwei Sun et al.Lenovo ResearchHuman-LLM CollaborationElderly Care & Dementia SupportCHI
Development and Translation of Human-AI Interaction Models into Working Prototypes for Clinical decision-makingIn the standard interaction model of clinical decision support systems, the system makes a recommendation, and the clinician decides whether to act on it. However, this model can compromise the patient-centeredness of care and the level of clinician involvement. There is scope to develop alternative interaction models, but we need methods for exploring and comparing these to assess how they may impact clinical decision-making. Through collaborating with clinical, AI safety, and HCI experts, and patient representatives, we co-designed a number of alternative human-AI interaction models for clinical decision-making. We then translated these models into ‘Wizard of Oz’ prototypes, where we created clinical scenarios and designed user interfaces with different types of AI output. In this paper, we present alternative models of human-AI interaction and illustrate how we used a co-design approach to translate them into functional prototypes that can be tested with users to explore potential impacts on clinical decision-making.2024MHMuhammad Hussain et al.AI-Assisted Decision-Making & AutomationPrototyping & User TestingDIS
Process, Roles, Tools, and Team: Understanding the Emerging Medium of Virtual Reality TheatreVirtual reality (VR) theatre artists are combining theatre production and game development practices to create live performances in VR. To date, little is known about VR theatre creators' experiences of this process or how staging a play in VR might affect the audience's experience. To capture the experience of developing a VR theatre production we interviewed the production team behind the VR play You Should Have Stayed Home. Members of this team felt the process was a learning experience and shared the lessons they plan to incorporate into their future work. We report on the team's efforts to understand the VR theatre medium, how this team was constructed, and challenges that they encountered. In this paper we present the opportunities that the production team members identified for creating novel experiences for VR audiences, and their own needs as creators.2024MWMichaelah Wales et al.Queen's UniversitySocial & Collaborative VRInteractive Narrative & Immersive StorytellingCHI
How Low is Low? Crowdworker Perceptions of Microtask Payments in Work versus Leisure SituationsGetting paid for completing microtasks online via crowdsourcing (i.e., microworking) has become a widely accepted way to earn money. Despite disputes over low pay rates, however, little is known about the extent of “lowness” and about the perceptions of microworkers concerning the value of micro-paid online activity. In an online survey on a microtask crowdsourcing platform, respondents demonstrated the dual attitudes of work and leisure toward microworking. Although actual wage rates were lower than microworkers expected, the perceived value of the money earned from microworking was paramount. The monetary equivalent, a newly developed metric calibrating microworkers’ subjective evaluations of monetary and nonmonetary dimensions, of microworking outstripped that of alternative activities, the majority of which were leisure activities. Instead of struggling with below-expectation pay rates, microworkers tend to appreciate the value of small gains, especially in contrast to potential losses incurred by alternatives activities.2024LJLing Jiang et al.York UniversityCrowdsourcing Task Design & Quality ControlParticipatory DesignCHI
Writing out the Storm: Designing and Evaluating Tools for Weather Risk MessagingCommunicating risk to the public in the lead-up to and during severe weather events has the potential to reduce the impacts of these events on lives and property. Globally, these events are anticipated to increase due to climate change, rendering effective risk communication an integral component of climate adaptation policies. Research in risk communications literature has developed substantial knowledge and best practices for the design of risk messaging. This study considers the potential for quantifying the compliance of severe weather risk messages with these best practices, individually and at scale, and developing tools to improve risk communication messaging. The current work makes two contributions. First, we develop a string-matching approach to evaluate whether messaging complies with best practices and suggest areas for improvement. Second, we conduct an interview study with risk communication professionals to inform the design space of authoring tools and other technologies to support severe weather risk communicators.2024SJSophia S Jit et al.University of TorontoContext-Aware ComputingClimate Change Communication ToolsCHI
Designing for Uncontrollability: Drawing Inspiration from the Blessing CompanionThis paper presents an inspirational concept for companion technology design, uncontrollability, and a corresponding artefact, the Blessing Companion. Both originated from a research through design project exploring companion technologies for blessing rituals. We established an exchange with Protestant theologians, explored believers' experiences of blessings, co-speculated on potential technologies, and refined the resulting ideas through ideation, prototyping, and testing. Inspired by believers' descriptions of blessing experiences as not plannable, predictable, controllable, or enforceable, we adopted the concept of uncontrollability, explored how it might be implemented in companion technologies, and designed the Blessing Companion. The Blessing Companion embodies uncontrollability through its ambiguous appearance and (partly) uncontrollable behaviour. It thus stands in contrast to the prevailing on-demand and user-driven interaction paradigms. We discuss how uncontrollability can be reflected in content, form, and interaction, highlight respective possibilities for companion technologies, and reflect on the Blessing Companion as an example of designing for religious rituals.2023SWSara Wolf et al.Institute Human-Computer Media, Julius-Maximilians-UniversitätDesign FictionHuman-Nature Relationships (More-than-Human Design)Interactive Narrative & Immersive StorytellingCHI
“Knowledge Comes Through Participation”: Understanding Disability through the Lens of DIY Assistive Technology in Western KenyaPeople with disabilities in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) have limited access to digital assistive technologies (ATs). Most ATs in LMICs are manufactured elsewhere and are expensive and difficult to maintain. Do-It-Yourself Assistive Technologies (DIY-ATs) designed, customized, and repaired by non-technical users offer exciting directions in these contexts. We have been exploring the possibilities and challenges of DIY-ATs in Western Kenya for the past three years, where we used a DIY-AT prototyping platform in community-engaged workshops at rural and urban special education schools. In this paper, we present findings from a concluding-stage research activity: a focus group in which stakeholders, including teachers, disability advocates, and representatives from the local government and technology innovation hubs, discussed the possibilities and challenges of addressing disability issues through DIY-ATs in this context. Participants identified opportunities for homegrown DIY-ATs for social inclusion, disability assessment, and inclusive education. They also shared concerns about the sustainability, safety, and contextual relevance of future ATs.2022FHFoad Hamidi et al.ICTD, Rural Environments, and Immigration; ICTD, Rural Environments, and ImmigrationCSCW
CommunityPulse: Facilitating Community Input Analysis by Surfacing Hidden Insights, Reflections, and PrioritiesIncreased access to online engagement platforms has created a shift in civic practice, enabling civic leaders to broaden their outreach to collect a larger number of community input, such as comments and ideas. However, sensemaking of such input remains a challenge due to the unstructured nature of text comments and ambiguity of human language. Hence, community input is often left unanalyzed and unutilized in policymaking. To address this problem, we interviewed 14 civic leaders to understand their practices and requirements. We identified challenges around organizing the unstructured community input and surfacing community's reflections beyond binary sentiments. Based on these insights, we built CommunityPulse, an interactive system that combines text analysis and visualization to scaffold different facets of community input. Our evaluation with another 15 experts suggests CommunityPulse's efficacy in surfacing multiple facets such as reflections, priorities, and hidden insights while reducing the required time, effort, and expertise for community input analysis.2021MJMahmood Jasim et al.Interactive Data VisualizationCitizen Science & Crowdsourced DataDIS
Sneak Pique: Exploring Autocompletion as a Data Discovery Scaffold for Supporting Visual AnalysisNatural language interaction has evolved as a useful modality to help users explore and interact with their data during visual analysis. Little work has been done to explore how autocompletion can help with data discovery while helping users formulate analytical questions. We developed a system called Sneak Pique as a design probe to better understand the usefulness of autocompletion for visual analysis. We ran three Mechanical Turk studies to evaluate user preferences for various text- and visualization widget-based autocompletion design variants for helping with partial search queries. Our findings indicate that users found data previews to be useful in the suggestions. Widgets were preferred for previewing temporal, geospatial, and numerical data while text autocompletion was preferred for categorical and hierarchical data. We conducted an exploratory analysis of our system implementing this specific subset of preferred autocompletion variants. Our insights regarding the efficacy of these autocompletion suggestions can inform the future design of natural language interfaces supporting visual analysis.2020VSVidya Setlur et al.Interactive Data VisualizationVisualization Perception & CognitionUIST