University of Michigan School of Information faculty and PhD students are creating and sharing knowledge that helps build a better world. 

Here are their publications and workshops for the 2025 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in Yokohama, Japan. They are organized by papers, workshops, journals, late breaking work, panels, special interest groups, case studies and doctoral consortiums. 

Papers

Large Language Models in Qualitative Research: Uses, Tensions, and Intentions

CHI 2025, Mon, 28 Apr | 11:22 AM - 11:34 AM 

Hope Schroeder, Marianne Aubin Le Quere, Casey Randazza, David Mimno, Sarita Schoenebeck

Qualitative researchers use tools to collect, sort, and analyze their data. Should qualitative researchers use large language models (LLMs) as part of their practice? LLMs could augment qualitative research, but it is unclear if their use is appropriate, ethical, or aligned with qualitative researchers’ goals and values. We interviewed twenty qualitative researchers to investigate these tensions. Many participants see LLMs as promising interlocutors with attractive use cases across the stages of research, but wrestle with their performance and appropriateness. Participants surface concerns regarding the use of LLMs while protecting participant interests, and call attention to an urgent lack of norms and tooling to guide the ethical use of LLMs in research. We document the rapid and broad adoption of LLMs across surfaces, which can interfere with intentional use vital to qualitative research. We use the tensions surfaced by our participants to outline recommendations for researchers considering using LLMs in qualitative research and design principles for LLM-assisted qualitative research tools.

Toward Language Justice: Exploring Multilingual Captioning for Accessibility

CHI 2025, Mon, 28 Apr | 11:22 AM - 11:34 AM 

Aashaka Desai, Rahaf Alharbi, Stacy Hsueh, Richard E. Ladner, Jennifer Mankoff

A growing body of research investigates how to make captioning experiences more accessible and enjoyable to disabled people. However, prior work has focused largely on English captioning, neglecting the majority of people who are multilingual (i.e., understand or express themselves in more than one language). To address this gap, we conducted semi-structured interviews and diary logs with 13 participants who used multilingual captions for accessibility. Our findings highlight the linguistic and cultural dimensions of captioning, detailing how language features (scripts and orthography) and the inclusion/negation of cultural context shape the accessibility of captions. Despite lack of quality and availability, participants emphasized the importance of multilingual captioning to learn a new language, build community, and preserve cultural heritage. Moving toward a future where all ways of communicating are celebrated, we present ways to orient captioning research to a language justice agenda that decenters English and engages with varied levels of fluency.

Weaving Sound Information to Support Real-Time Sensemaking of Auditory Environments: Co-Designing with a DHH User

CHI 2025, Mon, 28 Apr | 11:58 AM - 12:10 PM

Jeremy Zhengqi Huang, Jaylin Herskovitz, Liang-Yuan Wu, Cecily Morrison, Dhruv Jain

Current AI sound awareness systems can provide deaf and hard of hearing people with information about sounds, including discrete sound sources and transcriptions. However, synthesizing AI outputs based on DHH people’s ever-changing intents in complex auditory environments remains a challenge. In this paper, we describe the co-design process of SoundWeaver, a sound awareness system prototype that dynamically weaves AI outputs from different AI models based on users’ intents and presents synthesized information through a heads-up display. Adopting a Research through Design perspective, we created SoundWeaver with one DHH co-designer, adapting it to his personal contexts and goals (e.g., cooking at home and chatting in a game store). Through this process, we present design implications for the future of “intent-driven” AI systems for sound accessibility.

Intriguing, Concerning, and Questioning the Impact on Immersion: An Exploration of VR Users' Advertising Experiences and Attitudes

CHI 2025, Mon, 28 Apr | 2:10 PM - 2:22 PM

Abraham Mhaidli, Selin Erin Fidan, Florian Schaub 

Many companies are experimenting with, and developing, advertisements for virtual reality (VR) consumer applications. So far, the development of VR advertising has not accounted for the voices of VR users. Since VR users will be the ones impacted by VR advertising, it is both a requirement and a moral imperative to center their voices in the discussion. We interviewed 22 VR users (14 of which had experienced VR ads, 8 of which had not) to understand their experiences with, and attitudes towards, VR advertising. Many participants had already encountered VR advertisements, ranging from static billboards in virtual worlds to virtual markets. While some participants acknowledged that VR advertising could provide benefits (including monetizing the VR ecosystem and more informative advertising), many were concerned about in-app VR advertisements ruining the immersion of VR experiences, unavoidable ads that were forced on users, privacy risks, physical harms, and manipulation. We conclude by discussing avenues for designing VR advertisements that align with users' needs and wants.

The Virtual Jail: Content Moderation Challenges Faced by Chinese Queer Content Creators on Douyin

CHI 2025, Mon, 28 Apr | 2:22 PM - 2:34 PM

Caoyang Shen, Oliver Haimson

Queer users of Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, suspect that the platform removes and suppresses queer content, thus reducing queer visibility. In this study, we examined how Chinese queer users recognize and react to Douyin's moderation of queer content by conducting interviews with 21 queer China-based Douyin content creators and viewers. Findings indicate that queer users actively explore and adapt to the platform's underlying moderation logic. They employ creative content and posting strategies to reduce the likelihood of their expressions of queer topics and identities being removed or suppressed. Like Western platforms, Douyin's moderation approaches are often ambiguous; but unlike Western platforms, queer users sometimes receive clarity on moderation reasons via direct communication with moderators. Participants suggested that Douyin's repressive moderation practices are influenced by more than just platform policies and procedures - they also reflect state-led homophobia and societal discipline. This study underscores the challenges Chinese queer communities face in maintaining online visibility and suggests that meaningful change in their experiences is unlikely without broader societal shifts towards queer acceptance.

Public Perceptions About Emotion AI Use Across Contexts in the United States

CHI 2025, Mon, 28 Apr | 2:46 PM - 2:58 PM 

Nazanin Andalibi, Alexis Shore Ingber

Emotion artificial intelligence (AI) is deployed in many high-impact areas. However, we know little about people's general attitudes towards and comfort with it across application domains. We conducted a survey with a U.S. representative sample, oversampling for marginalized groups who are more likely to experience emotion AI harms (i.e., people of color, disabled people, minoritized genders) (n=599). We find: 1) although comfort was distinct across 11 contexts, even the most favorable context (healthcare) yielded low comfort levels; 2) participants were significantly more comfortable with inferences of happiness and surprise compared to other emotions; 3) individuals with disabilities and minoritized genders were significantly less comfortable than others across a variety of contexts; and 4) perceived accuracy explained a large proportion of the variance in comfort levels across contexts. We argue that attending to identity is key in examining emotion AI's societal and ethical impacts, and discuss implications for emotion AI deployment and regulation.

eXplainMR: Generating Real-time Textual and Visual eXplanations to Facilitate UltraSonography Learning in MR

CHI 2025, Mon, 28 Apr | 4:32 PM - 4:44 PM 

Jingying Wang, Jingjing Zhang, Juana Nicoll Capizzano, Matthew Sigakis, Xu Wang, Vitaliy Popov

Mixed-Reality physical task guidance systems have the benefit of providing virtual instructions while enabling learners to interact with the tangible world. However, they are mostly built around single-path tasks and often employ visual cues for motion guidance without explanations on why an action was recommended. In this paper, we introduce eXplainMR, a mixed-reality tutoring system that teaches medical trainees to perform cardiac ultrasound. eXplainMR automatically generates subgoals for obtaining an ultrasound image that contains clinically relevant information, and textual and visual explanations for each recommended move based on the visual difference between the two consecutive subgoals. We performed a between-subject experiment (N=16) in one US teaching hospital comparing eXplainMR with a baseline MR system that offers commonly used arrow and shadow guidance. We found that after using eXplainMR, medical trainees demonstrated a better understanding of anatomy and showed more systematic reasoning when deciding on the next moves, which was facilitated by the real-time explanations provided in eXplainMR.

Promoting Comprehension and Engagement in Introductory Data and Statistics for Blind and Low-Vision Students: A Co-Design Study 

CHI 2025, Mon, 28 Apr | 4:56 PM - 5:08 PM 

Danyang Fan, Olivia Tomassetti, Aya Mouallem, Gene S-H Kim, Shloke Nirav Patel, Saehui Hwang, Patricia Leader, Danielle Sugrue, Tristen Chen, Darren Reese Ou, Hariharan Subramonyam, Victor Lee, Lakshmi Balasubramanian, Sile O’Modhrain, Sean Follmer 

Statistical literacy involves understanding, interpreting, and critically evaluating statistical information in a contextually grounded way. Current instructional practices rely heavily on visual techniques, which renders them inaccessible to students who are blind or have low vision (BLV). To bridge this gap, we formed an extended co-design partnership with a statistics teacher, a teacher for students with visual impairments (TVI), and two BLV students to develop accessibility-first practices for building statistical literacy. Through several months of collaboration that included discussion, exploration, design, and evaluation, we identified specific approaches to promote comprehension and engagement. The enactive approaches we designed, using scaffolding and timely feedback, fostered insights through pattern recognition and analogical reasoning. Additionally, inquiry-based methods promoted contextually situated reasoning and reflection on how statistics can improve students' lives and communities. We present these findings alongside participants’ experiences and discuss their implications for inclusive learning frameworks and tools.

Cataloging Augmented, Ambivalent Transgender Futures: Designing Inclusive AR Technologies for Trans Communities Through Speculative, Participatory Zine-Making

CHI 2025, Mon, 28 Apr | 5:20 PM - 5:32 PM

F. Ria Khan, Kat Brewster, Aloe DeGuia, Denny L Starks, Malaya Mañacop, Samuel Mayworm, Tawanna Dillahunt, Oliver Haimson

Technologies designed to support marginalized communities have often led to unintended harm. This frequently occurs when misaddressing or failing to understand communities’ experiences, needs, and desires. User-centered research often focuses on needs versus desires (leveraging deficit versus assets-based approaches), which have been contested in HCI. To promote technology design that better balances the tensions between needs and desires, we contribute participatory zine-making as an effective approach for speculatively designing trans augmented reality (AR) technologies. We facilitated in-person and virtual workshops with trans participants (n=44) focused on designing AR technologies, observing participants' zine-making processes and artifacts to gather visual ethnographic data alongside transcripts and facilitator field notes. In participants’ zines we identified ambivalence as critical in addressing trans people's needs and desires, and participants conveyed this ambivalence through metaphor and anti-assimilationist aesthetics. Our participatory zine-making approach enabled us to uncover perspectives and design implications crucial to designing trans technologies.

Creative Writers’ Attitudes on Writing as Training Data for Large Language Models

CHI 2025, Best Paper*, Mon, 28 Apr | 5:32 PM - 5:44 PM

Katy Ilonka Gero, Meera Desai, Carly Schnitzler, Nayun Eom, Jack Cushman, Elena L. Glassman

The use of creative writing as training data for large language models (LLMs) is highly contentious and many writers have expressed outrage at the use of their work without consent or compensation. In this paper, we seek to understand how creative writers reason about the real or hypothetical use of their writing as training data. We interviewed 33 writers with variation across genre, method of publishing, degree of professionalization, and attitudes toward and engagement with LLMs. We report on core principles that writers express (support of the creative chain, respect for writers and writing, and the human element of creativity) and how these principles can be at odds with their realistic expectations of the world (a lack of control, industry-scale impacts, and interpretation of scale). Collectively these findings demonstrate that writers have a nuanced understanding of LLMs and are more concerned with power imbalances than the technology itself.

Micro-narratives: A Scalable Method for Eliciting Stories of People’s Lived Experience

CHI 2025, Honorable Mention*, Mon, 28 Apr | 5:32 PM - 5:44 PM

Amira Skeggs, Ashish Mehta, Valerie Yap, Serau B Ibrahim, Charla “Aubrey” Rhodes, James J. Gross, Sean A. Munson, Pedrag Klasnja, Amy Orben, Petr Slovak

Engaging with people's lived experiences is foundational for HCI research and design. This paper introduces a novel narrative elicitation method to empower people to easily articulate ‘micro-narratives’ emerging from their lived experiences, irrespective of their writing ability or background. Our approach aims to enable at-scale collection of rich, co-created datasets that highlight target populations' voices with minimal participant burden, while precisely addressing specific research questions. To pilot this idea, and test its feasibility, we: (i) developed an AI-powered prototype, which leverages LLM-chaining to scaffold the cognitive steps necessary for users’ narrative articulation; (ii) deployed it in three mixed-methods studies involving over 380 users; and (iii) consulted with established academics as well as C-level staff at (inter)national non-profits to map out potential applications. Both qualitative and quantitative findings show the acceptability and promise of the micro-narrative method, while also identifying the ethical and safeguarding considerations necessary for any at-scale deployments. 

Collaborative Health-Tracking Technologies for Children and Parents: A Review of Current Studies and Directions for Future Research 

CHI 2025, Tue, 29 Apr | 9:00 AM - 9:12 AM

Yoon Jeong Cha, Jiongyu Chen, Yasemin Gunal, Qiying Zhu, Mark Newman, Sun Young Park

Collaborative health-tracking technologies for children and parents have gained significant attention in recent years in HCI. This review examines the current state of these technologies by analyzing 29 studies screened from 15,973 search results across three databases. Our findings revealed three primary goals in these technologies: promoting family health, improving children’s health through child-parent co-tracking, and fostering children’s independence in self-tracking. For each goal, we examined child-parent roles, data types collected, and features that facilitate or hinder collaboration. Our findings highlight key directions for future research, including designing adaptable technologies to reflect evolving child-parent roles, exploring different technologies and tracking topics that impact child-parent dynamics, involving children in the system design stage to enhance collaborative features, and studying diverse populations with varied family characteristics. These insights aim to guide the creation of more effective and inclusive collaborative health-tracking technologies for children and parents.

Who Reaps All the Superchats? A Large-Scale Analysis of Income Inequality in Virtual YouTuber Livestreaming

CHI 2025, Tue, 29 Apr | 9:12 AM - 9:24 AM

Ruijing Zhao, Brian Diep, Jiaxin Pei, Dongwook Yoon, David Jurgens, Jian Zhu

The explosive growth of Virtual YouTubers (VTubers)---streamers who perform behind virtual anime avatars---has created a unique digital economy with profound implications for content creators, platforms, and viewers. Understanding the economic landscape of VTubers is crucial for designing equitable platforms, supporting content creator livelihoods, and fostering sustainable digital communities. To this end, we conducted a large-scale study of over 1 million hours of publicly available streaming records from 1,923 VTubers on YouTube, covering tens of millions of dollars in actual profits. Our analysis reveals stark inequality within the VTuber community and characterizes the sources of income for VTubers from multiple perspectives. Furthermore, we also found that the VTuber community is increasingly monopolized by two agencies, driving the financial disparity. This research illuminates the financial dynamics of VTuber communities, informing the design of equitable platforms and sustainable support systems for digital content creators.

What's in a Place? On Platformization of Traditional Agricultural Marketplaces

CHI 2025, Tue, 29 Apr | 9:48 AM - 10:00 AM 

Anubha Singh, Patricia Garcia, Priyank Chandra 

In this paper, we pay ethnographic attention to the failed attempts at platformization of agricultural trade in one of Asia's largest onion markets, located in rural western Maharashtra. We focus on e-NAM, or the electronic National Agricultural Market, a state-sponsored digital trading platform intended to create a transparent, efficient, and frictionless online national agricultural market by collapsing geographical barriers of traditional marketplaces, commonly known as mandis. We found that despite e-NAM's intended benefits, mandis continue to be the preferred mode of transaction for trading agricultural commodities. We demonstrate that these two agricultural marketplaces foster different meanings of information transparency, efficiency, and participation among stakeholders. In agrarian societies dominated by smallholder farmers, such as India, social collectives and non-economic relationships are crucial for providing safety and risk mitigation when dealing with perishable commodities like onions. We argue that e-NAM fails because its digital intermediation prioritizes an ahistorical and depoliticized free-market approach, which treats farmers (and traders) as independent units driven solely by the economic logic of demand and supply, disconnecting them from their historical and political agrarian social class.

Plurals: A System for Guiding LLMs via Simulated Social Ensembles 

CHI 2025, Honorable Mention*, Tue, 29 Apr | 11:34 AM - 11:46 AM

Joshua Ashkinaze, Emily Fry, Narendra Edara, Eric Gilbert, Ceren Budak

Recent debates raised concerns that language models may favor certain viewpoints. But what if the solution is not to aim for a "view from nowhere'' but rather to leverage different viewpoints? We introduce Plurals, a system and Python library for pluralistic AI deliberation. Plurals consists of Agents (LLMs, optionally with personas) which deliberate within customizable Structures, with Moderators overseeing deliberation. Plurals is a generator of simulated social ensembles. Plurals integrates with government datasets to create nationally representative personas, includes deliberation templates inspired by deliberative democracy, and allows users to customize both information-sharing structures and deliberation behavior within Structures. Six case studies demonstrate fidelity to theoretical constructs and efficacy. Three randomized experiments show simulated focus groups produced output resonant with an online sample of the relevant audiences (chosen over zero-shot generation in 75% of trials). Plurals is both a paradigm and a concrete system for pluralistic AI.

A Law of One's Own: The Inefficacy of the DMCA for Non-Consensual Intimate Media

CHI 2025, Tue, 29 Apr | 11:58 AM - 12:10 PM 

Li Qiwei, Shihui Zhang, Samantha Paige Pratt, Andrew Timothy Kasper, Eric Gilbert, Sarita Scheonebeck

Non-consensual intimate media (NCIM) presents internet-scale harm to individuals who are depicted. One of the most powerful tools for requesting its removal is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). However, the DMCA was designed to protect copyright holders rather than to address the problem of NCIM. Using a dataset of more than 54,000 DMCA reports and over 85 million infringing URLs spanning over a decade, this paper evaluates the efficacy of the DMCA for NCIM takedown. Results show that for non-commercial requests, while more than half of URLs are deindexed from Google Search within 48 hours, the actual removal of content from website hosts is much slower. The median infringing URL takes more than 45 days to be removed from website hosts, and only 5.39% URLs are removed within the first 48 hours. Additionally, the most frequently reported domains for non-commercial NCIM are smaller websites, not large platforms. We stress the need for new laws that ensure a shorter time to takedown that are enforceable across big and small platforms alike.

The Unintended Costs of Platform Interventions: Black-Owned Restaurants and Yelp Reputation

CHI 2025, Tue, 29 Apr | 11:58 AM - 12:10 PM

Cameron Moy, Matthew Bui

In Spring 2020, digital review-based platform Yelp added the searchable ``Black-owned'' attribute to support Black-owned businesses. Based on the literature, the impacts of this design intervention were mixed. As such, we sourced an original dataset of 250,000+ Yelp reviews from Black and non-Black-owned restaurants in Detroit and Los Angeles. Performing statistical and trend analyses, we compared the reputation metrics of Black-owned restaurants to their non-Black-owned counterparts before and after the intervention. Although Yelp reported positive impacts, our results contribute to the growing evidence of the harms and unintended costs of platform interventions. Specifically, while awareness of Black ownership and the number of Black-owned restaurant reviews increased, assumedly among and by Yelp’s predominately non-Black users, Black-owned restaurants saw a decline in average star ratings. Altogether, the findings highlight the need to interrogate underlying assumptions in the design process, integrating critical race concepts to better contextualize and evaluate interventions targeting marginalized users.

Exploring the Design Space of Privacy-Driven Adaptation Techniques for Future Augmented Reality Interfaces

CHI 2025, Honorable Mention*, Tue, 29 Apr | 12:10 PM - 12:22 PM

Shwetha Rajaram, Macarena Peralta, Janet G Johnson, Michael Nebeling

Modern augmented reality (AR) devices with advanced display and sensing capabilities pose significant privacy risks to users and bystanders. While previous context-aware adaptations focused on usability and ergonomics, we explore the design space of privacy-driven adaptations that allow users to meet their dynamic needs. These techniques offer granular control over AR sensing capabilities across various AR input, output, and interaction modalities, aiming to minimize degradations to the user experience. Through an elicitation study with 10 AR researchers, we derive 62 privacy-focused adaptation techniques that preserve key AR functionalities and classify them into system-driven, user-driven, and mixed-initiative approaches to create an adaptation catalog. We also contribute a visualization tool that helps AR developers navigate the design space, validating its effectiveness in design workshops with six AR developers. Our findings indicate that the tool allowed developers to discover new techniques, evaluate tradeoffs, and make informed decisions that balance usability and privacy concerns in AR design.

ShamAIn: Designing Superior Conversational AI Inspired by Shamanism

CHI 2025, Honorable Mention*, Tue, 29 Apr | 3:10 PM - 3:22 PM

Hyungjun Cho, Jiyeon Amy Seo, Jiwon Lee, Chang-Min Kim, Tek-Jin Nam

This paper presents the design process, outcomes, and installation of ShamAIn, a multi-modal embodiment of conversational AI inspired by the beliefs and symbols of Korean shamanism. Adopting a research-through-design approach, we offer an alternative perspective on conversational AI design, emphasizing perceived superiority. ShamAIn was developed based on strategies derived from investigating people's experiences with shamanistic counseling and rituals. We deployed the system in an exhibition room for six weeks, during which 20 participants made multiple visits to engage with ShamAIn. Through subsequent in-depth interviews, we found that participants felt a sense of awe toward ShamAIn and engaged in interactions with humility and respect. Our participants disclosed personal and profound concerns, reflecting deeply on the responses they received. Consequently, they relied on ShamAIn and formed relationships in which they received support. In the discussion, we present the design implications of conversational AI perceived as superior to humans, along with the ethical considerations involved in designing such AI.

Self-Disclosure in Social Virtual Reality: The Influence of Information Management Dynamics, Social Presence, and Privacy Concerns

CHI 2025, Tue, 29 Apr | 4:20 PM - 4:32 PM

James Cummings, Alexis Shore Ingber, Yihan Danny Jia

Social virtual reality (SVR) aims to recreate embodied social experiences similar to those offline. However, concerns about privacy and safety have hindered its widespread adoption. This study examines how information disclosure and perceived control over information in SVR are influenced by 1) boundary permeability (e.g., interruptions from an unknown external user) and 2) identifiability of one’s conversation partner (e.g., access to their offline profile). We also explore how different social presence perceptions and privacy concerns may mediate these relationships. Comparing the experiences of participants (n = 94) randomly assigned to four different mock interview scenarios, we find the perceived actorhood of one’s conversation partner mediated the positive relationship between offline profile access and disclosure. Additionally, more permeable environmental boundaries led to significantly lower levels of disclosure. Qualitative responses emphasized SVR’s limitations in saliently conveying nonverbal expressions. Implications for future research and the design of SVR as a viable communication medium are discussed.

XCam: Mixed-Initiative Virtual Cinematography for Live Production of Virtual Reality Experiences

CHI 2025, Tue, 29 Apr | 4:56 PM - 5:08 PM

Michael Nebeling, Liwei Wu, Hanuma Teja Maddali

VR is often utilized for organizing virtual events such as meetings, conferences, and concerts; however, support for live production is lacking in most existing VR tools. We present XCam, a toolkit enabling mixed-initiative control over virtual camera systems---from fully manual control by users to increasingly automated, system-driven control with minimal user intervention. XCam's architectural design separates the concerns of object tracking, camera motion, and scene transition, giving more degrees of freedom to operators who can adjust the level of automation along all three dimensions. We used to conduct two studies: (1) interviews with six VR content creators probe into what aspects should and shouldn't be automated based on six applications developed with XCam; (2) three workshops with experts explore XCam's utility in live production of an interactive VR film sequence, a lecture on cinematography, and an alumni meeting in social VR. Expert feedback from our studies suggests how to balance automation and control, and the opportunities and limits of future AI-driven tools.

Designing Accessible Audio Nudges for Voice Interfaces 

CHI 2025, Wed, 30 Apr | 10:00 AM - 10:12 AM 

Hira Jamshed, Novia Nurain, Robin Brewer

Older adults (65+) increasingly use voice assistants for information-seeking, but experience challenges and uncertainty in assessing information quality due to limited visual cues. HCI researchers have primarily used nudging, subtle approaches to guide users towards better decision-making, in visual interfaces to mitigate online misinformation and facilitate critical thinking. Thus, we extend nudging to voice-based systems to help older adults alleviate uncertainty in voice-based searches. We evaluate four audio nudge prototypes (i.e., non-speech and speech-based) with older adults (n = 34). Findings show that speech nudges more effectively prompt critical reflection than non-speech nudges because they are more disruptive. We discuss the significance of these findings for designing accessible audio nudges, highlighting the tension between disruption and accessibility best practices. Further, we propose that effective audio nudges should be explanatory and interactive to help older adults mitigate information uncertainty and raise open questions for the community about designing reflective nudges.

Children using Tabletop Telepresence Robots for Collaboration: A Longitudinal Case Study of Hybrid and Online Intergenerational Participatory Design

CHI 2025,  Wed, 30 Apr | 11:10 AM - 11:22 AM

Casey Lee Hunt, Kaiwen Sun, Zahra Dhuliawala, Fumi Tsukiyama, Allison J Druin, Amanda Huynh, Daniel Leithinger, Jason Yip

Improving telepresence for children expands educational opportunities and connects faraway family. Yet, research about child-centered physical telepresence systems (tangible interfaces for telepresence) remains sparse, despite established benefits of tangible interaction for children. To address this gap, we collaborated with child designers (ages 8-12) over 2-years of online/1-year of hybrid participatory design. Together, we adapted one approach to physical telepresence (tabletop robots) for child users. Using a case study methodology, we explore how our tabletop telepresence robot platform influenced children’s connections with one another over the 3-year study. In our analysis, we compare four vignettes representing cooperation/conflict between children while using the platform; centering theories of ownership, collaboration, and co-design roles. Through this exploration of children’s interpersonal dynamics while using the platform, we uncover four key features of tabletop telepresence robots for children: (1) Anonymous Robot Control (2) Robot/Material Distribution, (3) Robot Form/Size, and (4) Robot Stewardship.

`I don't want to watch grown-up stuff': Children's and Parents' Perspectives and Recommendations for Health-Centered Digital Media Design

CHI 2025, Wed, 30 Apr | 11:22 AM - 11:34 AM

Olivia K. Richards, Tiffany Veinot

Screen time is ubiquitous in children's lives and has both positive and negative health impacts. Calls for developmentally appropriate design and restrictions on manipulative design are ongoing, yet children's and parents' perspectives to inform interventions are lacking. This research uses design workshops with children (n=16) and focus groups with their parents (n=17) to understand whether and how digital media could be more health-centered. Participants shared concerns that manipulative design may inhibit screen time limits and transitions, and present age-inappropriate content. Participants expressed strong interest in health-centered designs incorporating nudges, moderation, and controls. Children's self-generated designs aimed to reduce negative impacts by limiting screen time (e.g., time-related feedback, changed defaults), facilitating transitions (e.g., pause capabilities), minimizing age-inappropriate content (e.g., expanded shared controls), and reducing hurtful experiences (e.g., online video game moderation). To increase positive health impacts, participants suggested promoting physical activity (e.g., suggested screen breaks) within and away from digital media.

Divisi: Interactive Search and Visualization for Scalable Exploratory Subgroup Analysis

CHI 2025, Wed, 30 Apr | 11:34 AM - 11:46 AM 

Venkatesh Sivaraman, Zexuan Li, Adam Perer

Analyzing data subgroups is a common data science task to build intuition about a dataset and identify areas to improve model performance. However, subgroup analysis is prohibitively difficult in datasets with many features, and existing tools limit unexpected discoveries by relying on user-defined or static subgroups. We propose exploratory subgroup analysis as a set of tasks in which practitioners discover, evaluate, and curate interesting subgroups to build understanding about datasets and models. To support these tasks we introduce Divisi, an interactive notebook-based tool underpinned by a fast approximate subgroup discovery algorithm. Divisi's interface allows data scientists to interactively re-rank and refine subgroups and to visualize their overlap and coverage in the novel Subgroup Map. Through a think-aloud study with 13 practitioners, we find that Divisi can help uncover surprising patterns in data features and their interactions, and that it encourages more thorough exploration of subtypes in complex data.

Enhancing Pediatric Communication: The Role of an AI-Driven Chatbot in Facilitating Child-Parent-Provider Interaction

CHI 2025, Wed, 30 Apr | 11:46 AM - 11:58 AM

Woo Suk Seo, Young-Ho Kim, Ji Eun Kim, Megan Tao Fan, Mark Ackerman, Sung Won Choi, Sun Young Park

Communication with child patients is challenging due to their developing ability to express emotions and symptoms. Additionally, healthcare providers often have limited time to offer resources to parents. By leveraging AI to facilitate free-form conversations, our study aims to design an AI-driven chatbot to bridge these gaps in child-parent-provider communication. We conducted two studies: 1) design sessions with 12 children with cancer and their parents, which informed the development of our chatbot, ARCH, and 2) an interview study with 15 pediatric care experts to identify potential challenges and refine ARCH's role in pediatric communication. Our findings highlight three key roles for ARCH: providing an expressive outlet for children, offering reassurance to parents, and serving as an assessment tool for providers. We conclude by discussing design considerations for AI-driven chatbots in pediatric communication, such as creating communication spaces, balancing the expectations of children and parents, and addressing potential cultural differences.

TeachTune: Reviewing Pedagogical Agents Against Diverse Student Profiles with Simulated Students

CHI 2025, Wed, 30 Apr | 2:10 PM - 3:40 PM

Hyoungwook Jin, Minju Yoo, Jeongeon Park, Yokyung Lee, Xu Wang, Juho Kim

Large language models (LLMs) can empower teachers to build pedagogical conversational agents (PCAs) customized for their students. As students have different prior knowledge and motivation levels, teachers must review the adaptivity of their PCAs to diverse students. Existing chatbot reviewing methods (e.g., direct chat and benchmarks) are either manually intensive for multiple iterations or limited to testing only single-turn interactions. We present TeachTune, where teachers can create simulated students and review PCAs by observing automated chats between PCAs and simulated students. Our technical pipeline instructs an LLM-based student to simulate prescribed knowledge levels and traits, helping teachers explore diverse conversation patterns. Our pipeline could produce simulated students whose behaviors correlate highly to their input knowledge and motivation levels within 5% and 10% accuracy gaps. Thirty science teachers designed PCAs in a between-subjects study, and using TeachTune resulted in a lower task load and higher student profile coverage over a baseline.

Placebo Effect of Control Settings in Feeds Are Not Always Strong

CHI 2025, Best Paper*, Wed, 30 Apr | 2:58 PM - 3:10 PM

Silas Hsu, Vinay Koshy, Kristen Vaccaro, Christian Sandvig, Karrie Karahalios

Recent work has catalogued a variety of ``dark'' design patterns, including deception, that undermine user intent. We focus on deceptive ``placebo'' control settings for social media that do not work. While prior work reported that placebo controls increase feed satisfaction, we add to this body of knowledge by addressing possible placebo mechanisms, and potential side effects and confounds from the original study. Knowledge of these placebo mechanisms can help predict potential harms to users and prioritize the most problematic cases for regulators to pursue. In an online experiment, participants (N=762) browsed a Twitter feed with no control setting, a working control setting, or a placebo control setting. We found a placebo effect much smaller in magnitude than originally reported. This finding adds another objection to use of placebo controls in social media settings, while our methodology offers insights into finding confounds in placebo experiments in HCI.

“A Bridge to Nowhere”: A Healthcare Case Study for Non-Reformist Design

CHI 2025, Honorable Mention*, Wed, 30 Apr | 3:10 PM - 3:22 PM

Linda Huber 

In the face of intensified datafication and automation in public- sector industries, frameworks like design justice and the feminist practice of refusal provide help to identify and mitigate structural harm and challenge inequities reproduced in digitized infrastruc- tures. This paper applies those frameworks to emerging efforts across the U.S. healthcare industry to automate prior authoriza- tion - a process whereby insurance companies determine whether a treatment or service is “medically necessary” before agreeing to cover it. Federal regulatory interventions turn to datafication and automation to reduce the harms of this widely unpopular process shown to delay vital treatments and create immense administrative burden for healthcare providers and patients. This paper explores emerging prior authorization reforms as a case study, applying the frameworks of design justice and refusal to highlight the in- herent conservatism of interventions oriented towards improving the user experience of extractive systems. I further explore how the abolitionist framework of non-reformist reform helps to clarify alternative interventions that would mitigate the harms of prior authorization in ways that do not reproduce or extend the power of insurance companies. I propose a set of four tenets for non- reformist design to mitigate structural harms and advance design justice in a broad set of domains.

Back to the 1990s, BeeperRedux!: Revisiting Retro Technology to Reflect Communication Quality and Experience in the Digital Age

CHI 2025, Wed, 30 Apr | 3:22 PM - 3:34 PM

Jiyeon Amy Seo, Hyungjun Cho, Seolhee Lee, EunJeong Cheon

As computer-mediated communication tools have evolved from beepers to 2G cell phones, and now to today's smartphones, people have consistently embraced these technologies to maintain relationships and enhance the convenience of their daily lives. However, while contemporary communication technologies clearly diverge from their traditional roles, few studies have critically examined their effects, particularly in relation to communication quality and relationships. To address what contemporary technologies may have overlooked, our study revisits retro communication technologies—specifically, the beeper. We recreated the beeper experience through BeeperRedux, a mobile application, and conducted a two-week deployment study involving ten groups. Our findings highlight three valuable aspects of retro communication technologies: fostering sincerity, restoring recipients' autonomy over their communication, and prioritizing offline engagement. In the discussion, we present design guidelines for improving technology-mediated communication and offer methodological reflections on recreating obsolete technology to empirically explore past experiences. 

Designing Daily Supports for Parent-Child Conversations about Emotion: Ecological Momentary Assessment as Intervention

CHI 2025, Honorable Mention*, Wed, 30 Apr | 5:32 PM - 5:44 PM

Seray B Ibrahim, Predrag Klasnja, James J. Gross, Petr Slovak 

Parental emotion coaching approaches that advocate for noticing and validating child emotions can greatly impact children's regulatory abilities. However, in daily life, parents often struggle to apply emotion coaching strategies that they access through parenting programmes or online help, suggesting a need for in situ support. This paper explores a potential new avenue for providing such support. We undertook conceptual work to develop a set of emotion-focused reflective questions that could increase parents’ attention to child emotions and delivered these as daily ecological momentary assessments (EMAs). We investigated the perceived impact of the approach through a 2-week online trial (n=33) and then co-designed child-facing component with parents through a 4-week asynchronous remote community study (n=15). Our paper contributes (1) conceptual insights on designing a potential novel intervention approach, (2) empirical insights on its acceptability and perceived impacts for parents, and (3) design implications for applying the approach to wider psychological constructs.

Preparing and Experiencing Food During Life Events: Implications for Technology Supporting Social and Value Changes

CHI 2025, Wed, 30 Apr | 5:32 PM - 5:44 PM 

Seung Wan Ha, Novia Nurain, Elena Agapie, Chia-Fang Chung

Healthy eating is essential to overall well-being. Deciding what and how to eat often requires collaboration and coordination with others to develop routines and create enjoyable experiences. However, life changes like moving or unemployment can disrupt food routines and social dining. Current technologies often overlook these evolving changes and do not adequately support individuals in collaborating with others to adapt to these impacts. In this paper, we interviewed 18 participants who experienced various routine changes during life events. Findings highlight the need for tools to support individuals in adapting to food practices, facilitating social coordination, and mediating conflicts during transitions. We explore design opportunities that facilitate technology reconfiguration, value clarification and mediation, and social coordination, aiming to better support individuals in times of change, both for those who undergo life events and others who offer help with food practices. Our work offers design considerations for technologies that enhance healthy eating and food service, ensuring sustained support during life changes.

Gesture and Audio-Haptic Guidance Techniques to Direct Conversations with Intelligent Voice Interfaces

CHI 2025, Thu, 1 May | 9:00 AM - 9:12 AM 

Shwetha Rajaram, Hemant Bhaskar Surale, Codie McConkey, Carine Rognon, Hrim Mehta, Michael Glueck, Christopher Collins

Advances in large language models (LLMs) empower new interactive capabilities for wearable voice interfaces, yet traditional voice-and-audio I/O techniques limit users' ability to flexibly navigate information and manage timing for complex conversational tasks. We developed a suite of gesture and audio-haptic guidance techniques that enable users to control conversation flows and maintain awareness of possible future actions, while simultaneously contributing and receiving conversation content through voice and audio. A 14-participant exploratory study compared our parallelized I/O techniques to a baseline of voice-only interaction. The results demonstrate the efficiency of gestures and haptics for information access, while allowing system speech to be redirected and interrupted in a socially acceptable manner. The techniques also raised user awareness of how to leverage intelligent capabilities. Our findings inform design recommendations to facilitate role-based collaboration between multimodal I/O techniques and reduce users' perception of time pressure when interleaving interactions with system speech.

Development of the Critical Reflection and Agency in Computing Index

CHI 2025, Honorable Mention*, Thu, 1 May | 9:12 AM - 9:24 AM

Aadarsh Padiyath, Mark Guzdial, Barbara Ericson

As computing's societal impact grows, so does the need for computing students to recognize and address the ethical and sociotechnical implications of their work. While there are efforts to integrate ethics into computing curricula, we lack a standardized tool to measure those efforts, specifically, students' attitudes towards ethical reflection and their ability to effect change. This paper introduces the novel framework of Critically Conscious Computing and reports on the development and content validation of the Critical Reflection and Agency in Computing Index, a novel instrument designed to assess undergraduate computing students' attitudes towards practicing critically conscious computing. The resulting index is a theoretically grounded, expert-reviewed tool to support research and practice in computing ethics education. This enables researchers and educators to gain insights into students' perspectives, inform the design of targeted ethics interventions, and measure the effectiveness of computing ethics education initiatives.

"That Moment of Curiosity": Augmented Reality Face Filters for Transgender Identity Exploration, Gender Affirmation, and Radical Possibility

CHI 2025, Thu, 1 May | 9:48 AM - 10:00 AM

Kat Brewster, Aloe DeGuia, Samuel Mayworm, F. Ria Khan, Mel Monier, Denny L Starks, Oliver Haimson

Transgender people often use face filters to try and see different possible futures: versions of what they might look like during or post transition, or how they might appear in an ideal future or alternate world. However, there are effectively no face filters made for trans people to feel good using. As a result, people often end up feeling bad or dysphoric instead of supported in their pursuit to envision the future. We asked 44 trans people about augmented reality and face filters, and to speculate on future technologies that would support their wellbeing and desires for transition. We found that trans-affirming face filters would be designed to support data privacy, agency, intersectionality, and consideration for expansive identity categories. Meeting these design goals would enable trans people to explore many different radically possible futures, facilitating expansive, transformative, self-perceptions that honor the multiplicity inherent in trans identity.

The Making of Performative Accuracy in AI Training: Precision Labor and Its Consequences

CHI 2025, Thu, 1 May | 10:00 AM - 10:12 AM 

Ben Zefeng Zhang, Tianling Yang, Milagros Miceli, Oliver Haimson, Michaelanne Thomas

Accuracy and precision are central values in the AI communities and the technology sector. This paper provides empirical evidence on the construction and organizational management of technical accuracy, demonstrating how technology companies' preoccupation with such values leads to harm. Drawing on nine months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in China, we document how AI trainers' everyday work practices, challenges, and harms stem from clients' demands for high levels of technical accuracy. We introduce the concept of precision labor to unpack the labor dimension of constructing and performing accuracy in AI training. This concept highlights the hidden and excessive labor required to reconcile the ambiguity and uncertainty involved in this process. We argue that precision labor offers a new lens to illuminate three critical aspects of AI training: 1) the negative health and financial impacts of hidden and excessive labor on AI workers; 2) emerging harms, including workers' subordinate roles to machines and financial precarity; and 3) a conceptual contribution to contexts beyond AI training. This contribution re-centers arbitrariness in technical production, highlights the excessive demands of precision labor, and examines the legitimization of labor and harm. Our study also contributes to existing scholarship on the prevailing values and invisible labor in AI production, underscoring accuracy as performative rather than self-evident and unambiguous. A precision labor lens challenges the legitimacy and sustainability of relentlessly pursuing technical accuracy, raising new questions about its consequences and ethical implications. We conclude by proposing recommendations and alternative approaches to enhance worker agency and well-being.

How Scientists Use Large Language Models to Program

CHI 2025, Thu, 1 May | 10:12 AM - 10:24 AM 

Gabrielle O’Brien 

Scientists across disciplines write code for critical activities like data collection and generation, statistical modeling, and visualization. As large language models that can generate code have become widely available, scientists may increasingly use these models during research software development. We investigate the characteristics of scientists who are early-adopters of code generating models and conduct interviews with scientists at a public, research-focused university. Through interviews and reviews of user interaction logs, we see that scientists often use code generating models as an information retrieval tool for navigating unfamiliar programming languages and libraries. We present findings about their verification strategies and discuss potential vulnerabilities that may emerge from code generation practices unknowingly influencing the parameters of scientific analyses.

Workshops

Advancing Post-growth HCI 

CHI 2025, Sat, 26 Apr | 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM

Vishal Sharma, Hongjin Lin, Asra Sakeen Wani, Jared Lee Katzman, Anupriya Tuli, Naveena Karusala, Shaowen Bardzell, Christoph Becker, Martin Tomitsch, Neha Kumar 

The field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) both shapes and is shaped by the forces of economic growth. Extending the calls to move beyond the growth imperative in HCI, this workshop aims to bring HCI researchers, designers, and practitioners together in a critical dialogue on examining the often-hidden ways growth patterns manifest in HCI. We ask how the HCI community can use its research, design, and praxis to build a more emancipatory future. The workshop aims to nurture the Post-growth HCI Collective of scholars and practitioners to work together, in solidarity, to reflect and resist the commodification and drive for infinite capital accumulation in/through digital technologies for the betterment of HCI and the broader computing community. Through collective action, we aim to operationalize post-growth principles in HCI, contributing to more tangible pathways toward socio-ecologically just and sustainable technology-mediated futures for the planet and its residents.

Developing Sociotechnical Solutions to Mitigate New Harms in Immersive and Embodied Virtual Spaces: A Workshop at CHI 2025

CHI 2025, Sat, 26 Apr | 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM 

Guo Freeman, Julian Frommel, Regan L. Mandryk, Jan Gugenheimer, Lingyuan Li, Douglas Zytko, Afsaneh Razi, Cliff Lampe

Mitigating new harms in immersive and embodied virtual spaces (e.g., embodied harassment in social VR, new AI-powered online attacks, and harmful virtual world design to manipulate users) is a critically needed HCI research agenda for achieving safer online environments in the future, which requires cross-disciplinary, community-wide discussion, and collective reflections. Building upon our CHI 2024 workshop on identifying and understanding these new harms, this workshop aims to gather researchers and practitioners from various domains to collectively design and develop concrete and actionable sociotechnical solutions that specifically target new harms in immersive and embodied virtual worlds. This includes but is not limited to the four themes identified in our CHI 2024 workshop: monetizing embodied harms, blurring reality with the online world, platforming perpetrators by investigating their motivations and emotions, and embodied harms specifically targeting children. Through this workshop, we will not only synthesize and map our existing interdisciplinary efforts and challenges in this space but also collaboratively create a roadmap detailing our developed sociotechnical solutions to address these new harms in immersive and embodied virtual spaces as a community.

Bridging HCI and Industrial Manufacturing

CHI 2025, Sat, 26 Apr | 2:10 PM - 3:40 PM 

Saki Suzuki, Ilan Mandel, Kenshikimyo Terao, Nikolas Martelaro, Amritansh Kwatra, Kiroshi Yasuda, Yuichi Inobori, Tom Igoe, Lionel Robert, Wendy Ju

This workshop explores the integration of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) principles within the manufacturing sector, examining the challenges and opportunities that arise in academia-industry collaborations. The workshop aims to foster dialogue on how HCI methods can enhance manufacturing practices, while addressing the specific hurdles these partnerships face. We will discuss areas of HCI research including: collaborative robots, industrial augmented reality, advances in digital fabrication, and systems for workplace communication as they apply to existing problems in industrial settings. The key goals include generating actionable insights for both academic and industrial participants, fostering practical, cross-disciplinary collaborations that will drive innovation in user-centered industrial systems. Hosting this workshop at CHI 2025 in Japan offers a unique opportunity to engage with Japan’s world-class manufacturing sector, renowned for its precision and innovation, making it an ideal setting to bridge HCI research and industrial practices.

Journals

What Makes XR Dark? Examining Emerging Dark Patterns in Augmented and Virtual Reality through Expert Co-Design

CHI 2025, Wed, 30 Apr | 2:10 PM - 2:22 PM 

Veronika Krauß, Pejman Saeghe, Alexander Boden, Mohamed Khamis, Mark McGill, Jan Gugenheimer, Michael Nebeling

Dark patterns are deceptive designs that influence a user’s interactions with an interface to benefit someone other than the user. Prior work has identified dark patterns in windows, icons, menus, and pointer (WIMP) interfaces and ubicomp environments, but how dark patterns can manifest in Augmented and Virtual Reality (collectively XR) requires more attention. We therefore conducted 10 co-design workshops with 20 experts in XR and deceptive design. Our participants co-designed 42 scenarios containing dark patterns, based on application archetypes presented in recent HCI/XR literature. In the co-designed scenarios, we identified 10 novel dark patterns in addition to 39 existing ones, as well as 10 examples in which specific characteristics associated with XR potentially amplified the effect dark patterns could have on users. Based on our findings and prior work, we present a classification of XR-specific properties that facilitate dark patterns: perception, spatiality, physical/virtual barriers, and XR device sensing. We also present the experts’ assessments of the likelihood and severity of the co-designed scenarios and highlight key aspects they considered for this evaluation, for example, technological feasibility, ease of upscaling and distributing malicious implementations, and the application’s context of use. Finally, we discuss means to mitigate XR dark patterns and support regulatory bodies to reduce potential harms.

Encouraging Users to Change Breached Passwords Using the Protection Motivation Theory

CHI 2025, Wed, 30 Apr | 3:10 PM - 3:22 PM 

Yixin Zou, Khue Le, Peter Mayer, Alessandro Acquisti, Adam J Aviv, Florian Schaub

We draw on the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) to design interventions that encourage users to change breached passwords. Our online experiment (𝑛 = 1,386) compared the effectiveness of a threat appeal (highlighting the negative consequences after passwords were breached) and a coping appeal (providing instructions on changing the breached password) in a 2 × 2 factorial design. Compared to the control condition, participants receiving the threat appeal were more likely to intend to change their passwords, and participants receiving both appeals were more likely to end up changing their passwords. Participants’ password change behaviors are further associated with other factors, such as their security attitudes (SA-6) and time passed since the breach, suggesting that PMT-based interventions are useful but insufficient to fully motivate users to change their passwords. Our study contributes to PMT’s application in security research and provides concrete design implications for improving compromised credential notifications.

Late Breaking Work

A Comparative Analysis of Social Media Platforms: Cultivating Psychological Safety for Financially-Constrained Aspiring Entrepreneurs

CHI 2025, Mon, 28 Apr | 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM 

Annisa Permata Yudiani, Tawanna Dillahunt, Aarti Israni

Psychological safety, which allows people to seek feedback and ask questions without fear, is essential for aspiring entrepreneurs in financially-constrained communities to access support online. However, little is known about how existing social media platforms support psychological safety for individuals in these communities. To address this gap, we conducted a competitive analysis of seven social media platforms frequently used by entrepreneurs, evaluating each based on established criteria for fostering psychological safety. These criteria included features that guided interactions, highlighted shared identities among community members, protected user privacy, and fostered interpersonal trust. We identify untapped opportunities for social media platforms to better support financially-constrained aspiring entrepreneurs. These include incorporating effective conversational prompts, emphasizing more meaningful shared identities, and promoting synchronous interactions. Our findings offer actionable insights for designing psychologically safe and inclusive social media platforms to support financially-marginalized communities.

Beyond the Blackout Qualitative Insights and Sentiment Analysis on the Impact, Adaptation, and Design Solutions During the Recent Internet Shutdown in Bangladesh 

CHI 2025, Mon, 28 Apr | 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM 

Farhan Tahmidul Karim, Sardar Md. Saffat Zabin, Ishika Tarin, Novia Nurain, A.B.M. Alim Al Islam

The recent period of Internet restriction in Bangladesh, which occurred from July 14 to August 5 during the anti-discrimination student movement, had a significant impact on individuals' lives. This study aims to know how their communication, information access, and daily activities were affected and how they used to cope with that, again what were their expectations from social media and communication tools. Through interviews with 15 individuals from diverse demographics, supported by qualitative analysis and sentiment analysis, the findings provide valuable insights into the challenges faced, experiences shared, and recommendations offered by participants. Based on these findings, we propose design implications to develop a robust digital infrastructure capable of addressing similar challenges in future scenarios. Our work contributes to CHI by serving as a foundation for policymakers and designers to create effective solutions that mitigate the adverse effects of Internet shutdowns.

Comparative Analysis of Independent Food Delivery Platforms: Empowering Food Movement Values

CHI 2025, Mon, 28 Apr | 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM 

Siti Khadijah binti Sultan, Aarti Israni, Jared Katzman, Tawanna Dillahunt

Food insecurity remains a persistent issue in the United States, affecting approximately 10–15% of households, with marginalized communities disproportionately impacted. Food security focuses on ensuring consistent access to adequate and nutritious food. In contrast, the food movement, which encompasses principles of food justice and food sovereignty, addresses these disparities by advocating for equitable access to healthy food and empowering communities to shape their food systems. Our study investigates how independent food delivery platforms (indie) align with food movement values by selecting and analyzing a random sample of 50 US-based platforms out of a total pool of 489. Our findings reveal that while many platforms demonstrate strong alignment with food security principles, particularly in terms of accessibility and nutritional quality, significant gaps remain in anti-racist practices, community control, and sustainability efforts. We offer design recommendations and policy insights to help indie platforms promote equity, inclusivity, and sustainability, ultimately advancing more equitable food systems and addressing systemic challenges in food insecurity.

VisQuestions: Constructing Evaluations for Communicative Visualizations

CHI 2025, Mon, 28 Apr | 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM 

Ruijia Guan, Elsie Lee-Robbins, Xu Wang, Eytan Adar

Communicative visualization designers devote few resources to evaluating their designs. Although general guidelines may guide them, the uniqueness of each communicative visualization makes evaluation challenging. Recent research has suggested that modeling designer intents as learning objectives can guide the construction of evaluative assessments. In this paper, we present VisQuestions, a system that streamlines the creation of multiple-choice questions for visualization evaluation. Using source material (e.g., data, notes, prototypes) and contextual data (e.g., captions, annotations, and other text), VisQuestions guides the creation of questions. The system's mixed-initiative features can help create or improve learning objective definitions, questions, and distractors. We report on the performance of the questions by deploying different visualization designs and quizzes through an online experiment. Our findings support the utility of the tool for crafting assessments that can identify how much visualizations support designer intents.

Parents, Children, and ChatGPT in Home Environments: The Conversation Content and the Interaction Mode

CHI 2025, Tue, 29 Apr | 10:30 AM - 11:10 AM, 3:40 PM - 4:20 PM

Shuang Quan, Yao Du, Yao Lyu 

AI-powered conversational tools (e.g., ChatGPT) have been increasingly adopted by families and incorporated into their daily conversations. This qualitative interview study investigated five parents of children aged 6 and 13 regarding the content and modes of their interactions with ChatGPT at home. The findings revealed that families primarily use ChatGPT for knowledge-driven and play-driven conversations with two primary interaction modes: low-moderation (parents allow children to independently interact with the tool) and high-moderation (parents actively guide and scaffold the interactions). The study highlights limited and age-related parental concerns about children’s interactions with AI tools, offering insights on how these tools are integrated into daily conversations at home and providing guidance for the development of child-centered AI technologies in home settings.

SceneGenA11y: How can Runtime Generative tools improve the Accessibility of a Virtual 3D Scene?

CHI 2025, Tue, 29 Apr | 10:30 AM - 11:10 AM

Xinyun Cao, Kexin Phyllis Ju, Chenglin Li, Dhruv Jain

With the popularity of virtual 3D applications, from video games to educational content and virtual reality scenarios, the accessibility of 3D scene information is vital to ensure inclusive and equitable experiences for all. Previous work include information substitutions like audio description and captions, as well as personalized modifications, but they could only provide predefined accommodations. In this work, we propose SceneGenA11y, a system that responds to the user's natural language prompts to improve accessibility of a 3D virtual scene in runtime. The system primes LLM agents with accessibility-related knowledge, allowing users to explore the scene and perform verifiable modifications to improve accessibility. We conducted a preliminary evaluation of our system with three blind and low-vision people and three deaf and hard-of-hearing people. The results show that our system is intuitive to use and can successfully improve accessibility. We discussed usage patterns of the system, potential improvements, and integration into apps. We ended with highlighting plans for future work.

Technological Tensions In Urban Food Sovereignty: Insights from Detroit’s Farmers

CHI 2025, Wed, 30 Apr | 10:30 AM - 11:10 AM, 3:40 PM - 4:20 PM 

Jared Katzman, Aarti Israni, Samartha Okyne, Holden Winton, Tawanna Dillahunt

Food insecurity in Detroit reflects a long history of food apartheid which has led to systemic inequities in access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally relevant food. In response, Detroit has become a leader in the food sovereignty movement, emphasizing community autonomy, justice, and sustainability in developing a local food system. This study investigates the role of technology in supporting food sovereignty initiatives, focusing on urban farmers and growers in Detroit. Through three months of fieldwork and three participatory design workshops, we explored the opportunities and challenges farmers perceive in using technology to address the city's systemic food insecurity. Our findings highlight tensions where technology, rather than empowering communities, may inadvertently reinforce exploitative dynamics that remove a community's capacity for self-determination and autonomy. We contribute empirical insights and actionable principles for designing sustainable food systems that align with the values of the food sovereignty movement.

Panels

Beyond Deficit-Based Design: Re-imagining Co-Creation Approaches with Underrepresented Groups

CHI 2025, Mon, 28 Apr | 2:10 PM - 3:40 PM 

Jaisie Sin, Sho Conte, Cosmin Munteanu, Jules Maitland, Novia Nurain, Sayan Sarcar, Wei Zhao

Design practice and inquiry is often motivated by a perceived problem or deficit of a community in question, with attempts to "fix" or "improve" these communities according to dominant group standards. Such approaches frequently fail to meet community needs and risk causing unintended harm to the target populations. While co-creation methodologies show promise for facilitating more equitable collaborations between researchers and communities, their implementation and implications remain complex and challenging. In this panel, we bring together scholars, practitioners, and researchers to examine the potential of co-creation approaches for meaningful and equitable engagement. Through focused discussion on challenging deficit narratives and pursuing inclusive design practices, we aim to build a community of practice and chart future directions for ethical community-centered design.

Special Interest Groups

Transnational lgbTq+ SIG

CHI 2025, Wed, 30 Apr | 11:10 AM - 11:10 AM 

Rose Bohrer, Shano Liang, Michelle V Cormier, Takaeo Fujii, Phoebe O. Toups Dugas, Rua Mae Williams, Amy J Ko, Katie Seaborn, Oliver Haimson

This Special Interest Group (SIG) serves to support the needs of the LGBTQ+ communities within CHI. Following tradition, the primary focus is on community-building and support, with research as a secondary interest. This year’s event builds on the Queer-in-HCI SIGs of previous years, but adopts a new name to emphasize two points of focus this year. First, it is transnational: we place special emphasis on enabling connections among LGBTQ+ people from different nations. Second, it is lgbTq+: we welcome attendance from all members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies, but place special emphasis on the needs of the transgender community, which are significantly impacted by global political events at the time of this writing.

Unanticipated Lessons from Communities: Navigating Society-CenteredResearch in the AI Era

CHI 2025, Wed, 30 Apr | 2:10 PM - 2:10 PM 

Ding Wang, Remi Denton, Anoop K. Sinha, Shruti Sheth, Lauren Wilcox, Maryam Eslami, Ken Holstein, Maarten Sap, Angela D.R. Smith, Andrea G Parker, Neha Kumar, Naveena Karusala, Tawanna R. Dillahunt, Jared Katzman

As AI technologies increasingly integrate into daily life, their deployment often overlooks the complexities of the communities they aim to serve. This gap is particularly acute for marginalized communities, where AI can exacerbate inequalities due to techno-solutionism -- the tendency to frame technology as a one-size-fits-all solution. This Special Interest Group (SIG) will explore unexpected lessons from community-led AI initiatives, emphasizing strategies for meaningful collaboration, shared ownership, and equitable partnerships. Through discussions and storytelling, the SIG aims to advance community-centered approaches to AI development and foster a robust, sustained network of researchers and practitioners.

Case Studies 

The Right to Be Skeptical: Insights from Recruiting At-Risk Users on Nextdoor

CHI 2025, Wed, 30 Apr | 12:10 PM - 12:22 PM 

Sam Addison Ankenbauer, Robin Brewer

This case study explores the challenges of recruiting a particular at-risk population, older adults affected by scams, focusing on the complexities of recruitment and trust in online environments. Specifically, we analyze a contentious recruitment attempt on Nextdoor, a hyper-local social platform aimed at fostering community engagement within neighborhoods. While responses varied, a vocal subset of users raised concerns about the legitimacy of the study, the researcher's identity, and the recruitment methods employed. Through an analysis of user responses, this case study examines the individual, community, and researcher-led negotiations of trust and distrust in this recruitment process. We emphasize the validity of doubt, the importance of user engagement, the features of recruitment that were found (un)trustworthy, and the role of context in recruitment. These findings provide insights into the under-researched area of recruitment, specifically concerning effective strategies for engaging at-risk users in online research while navigating distrust.

Doctoral Consortium

Scaling Code Understanding for Introductory Programming in the AI Era

CHI 2025, Sat, 26 Apr | 9:00 AM - 9:00 AM 

Ashley Ge Zhang

Scaling programming education has become a significant challenge due to rapidly increasing learning needs and limited instructional resources. With the numerous data generated in programming education, scaling code understanding is crucial for instructors to make informed decisions, such as providing feedback and adapting course materials. However, this is impractical due to the wide variation among students’ code and the complexity of activities like tracking coding progress and analyzing solution trajectories. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has great potential for analyzing large volumes of data, but it also presents difficulties in making this data quickly understandable for humans. My research aims to scale code understanding in meaningful ways for introductory programming through combining techniques from AI and visualization. I design and develop interactive systems that enable instructors to navigate large, complex collections of code and identify patterns, thereby enhancing teaching activities and improving learning outcomes.

Awards

SIGCHI Academy 

CHI 2025, Mon, 28 April 2:10 PM - 3:40 PM

Carl DiSalvo, James Fogarty, Elizabeth Gerber, Wendy Ju, Pattie Maes, Joanna McGrenere, Antti Oulasvirta, Kate Starbird, Wolfgang Stuerzlinger, Kentaro Toyama, Martin Wattenberg

SIGCHI Society Impact Award 

CHI 2025, Tue, 29 April 4:20 PM - 5:50 PM

Kentaro Toyama

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