Northwestern wins awards at ACM CHI 2026

The premier international conference of Human-Computer Interaction in the world, ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) CHI, is taking place in Barcelona, Spain, from April 13th to April 17th. Northwestern is presenting 16 papers, 12 posters, 4 workshops, and 2 interactivity demos this year. Check out the awards and presentations below.

This year's award winners

This year, Center for HCI+D students and faculty affiliates have received one Best Paper Award, one inductee to the Academy class of 2026, and three Best Paper, Honorable Mentions. 

Caryn Tran, Kristin Fasiang, Max Kanwal, and Eleanor O’Rourke received a Best Paper award for their research “Starting From Scratch Again and Again: Tracing the Origins of High Schoolers’ Negative Perceptions of Block-Based Programming”.

Julia Aileen McKenna received a Best Paper, Honorable Mention for her research “Noondawind: Co-Designed Dashboard for Indigenous Data Access and Environmental Policy Implementation”
Kapil Garg, a former PhD student, and Darren Gergle received a Best Paper, Honorable Mention for their paper "It's trained by non-disabled people": Evaluating How Image Quality Affects Product Captioning with Vision-Language Models”.

Incoming Technology & Social Behavior PhD student Cindy Peng received a Best Paper, Honorable Mention for her paper “Large Language Models in Peer-Run Community Behavioral Health Services: Understanding Peer Specialists and Service Users’ Perspectives on Opportunities, Risks, and Mitigation Strategies”.

Co-director Darren Gergle has been inducted into the ACM CHI Academy Class of 2026 , reflecting his longstanding influence on HCI, CSCW, and Social Computing research.

HCI+D Schedule

Monday, April 13th

Data Literacy for the 21st Century: Perspectives from Visualization, Cognitive Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Education
Type: Workshops
Authors: Lily W. Ge, Michael S Horn, Duri Long, Judith E. Fan, Matthew Kay

Demonstrating Eyes-Free Object Retrieval via Fingertip Deflection Guidance Using the NURing 
Session: Reception and Interactivity Demos
Type: Interactivity
Authors: Tomasz P Trzpit, Gregory Reardon, Elizabeth Gerber, Pedro Lopes, Michael Peshkin, J. Edward Colgate

Inoculating Against Visualization Misinformation Through Gamification
Type: Posters
Authors: Lily W. Ge, Matthew Kay, Michael S Horn 

Web Pages as 3D Proxies in VR: A Design Framing and Preliminary Exploration
Type: Posters
Authors: Tianjie Shu, Peihyu Zhang 

"Chat, Should I Leave Him?" Risks, Rewards, and Roles for AI in Relationship Advice
Session: AI in Family, Dating, and Private Life
Type: Papers
Authors: Emily Tseng, Calvin A Liang

"It's trained by non-disabled people": Evaluating How Image Quality Affects Product Captioning with Vision-Language Models
Session: Power, Values, and Politics of Accessibility 
Type: Papers
Authors: Kapil Garg, Xinru Tang, Jimin Heo, Dwayne R Morgan, Darren Gergle, Erik Sudderth, Anne Marie Piper
Honorable Mention

Tuesday, April 14th

Community Advisory Boards for Technology Design in HCI: Lessons from Trans and Queer Research
Session: Alternative Perspectives
Type: Papers
Authors: Calvin A Liang, Kat Brewster, Kathryn Macapagal, Oliver L. Haimson

Designing a Social Robot to Enhance Digital Health Literacy in Cantonese-speaking Chinese Immigrant Communities
Type: Posters
Authors: Yanfu Liu, Go-Eum Cha, Clayton Xu,Wenyan Wang, Ivy Leung, Tracy Kwan, Laura Tom, Maia Jacobs, Betina Yanez, Melissa Simon, Grace Chan, Sooyeon Jeong

Empower My Digital Neighbors: How LLM-Driven NPCs Shape Player Interaction in Single-Player and Multiplayer Contexts
Type: Posters
Authors: Han Nan, Yujia Han, Yu Peng, Xiang Yuan, Xuanyu Pan

Framing Helper Therapy to Support User Engagement: Causal Evidence from a Public Deployment of a Mental Health Support Text Messaging Program
Session: LLM Interactions and Generative AI Mechanics
Type: Papers
Authors: Tony Liu, Bhargavi S Patil, Thu K Ngo, Chris J. Karr, Theresa Nguyen, Rachel Kornfield, Jonah Meyerhoff

Linguistic Similarity Within Centralized FLOSS Development
Type: Posters 
Authors: Matthew Gaughan, Darren Gergle, Aaron Shaw

Rhetoric vs Responsibility: How Tech Companies Shape AI for Accessibility
Session: Safety, Identity, and Relatedness
Type: Papers
Authors: Aparajita S Marathe, Quan Zhou, Achi Mishra, Anne Marie Piper
 
 “Helping Me Versus Doing It for Me”: Designing for Agency in LLM-Infused Writing Tools for Science Journalism
Session: Living with AI/LLMS
Type: Papers
Authors: Sachita Nishal, Mina Lee, Nicholas Diakopoulos, Jennifer Wortman Vaughan

Wednesday, April 15th

BiasViz: A Project-Based, Narrative-Centered Learning Tool for Engaging Middle School Students in Critical Thinking about AI Biases
Session: AI Literacy, Ethics, and Critical AI Understanding
Type: Papers
Authors: Hasti Darabipourshiraz, Daria Smyslova, Dongkuan Xu, Shiyan Jiang, Duri Long

Camera-Based Closed-Loop Fingertip Deflection Guidance: Pilot Demonstrations in Target Acquisition and Object Retrieval
Type: Posters
Authors: Tomasz P Trzpit, Gregory Reardon, Elizabeth Gerber, Pedro Lopez, Michael Peshkin, J. Edward Colgate

From Algorithmic Scaffolding to Embodied Authority: Negotiating Human Expertise in AI-Mediated Fitness Coaching
Type: Posters
Authors: Wenyu Liao, Nai Liu

From Searchable to Non-Searchable: Generative AI and Information Diversity in Online Information Seeking
Type: Posters
Authors: Yulin Yu, Siddharth Suri, Yizhou Li, Scott Counts 

Me²: Co-Designing Deepfake Encounters With One's Child Self in XR
Type: Posters
Authors: Roxane Laetitia Frund, Paulina Zybinska, Jonas Wiesendanger, Diego Brandenberger, Elena Márquez Segura, Charlotta Rühlmann, Laura Kivelitz, Birgit Kleim, Bigna Lenggenhager, Marte Roel Lesur
 
Reimagining Participatory Agile Development in Community-Industry Partnerships
Session: Envisioning the Future
Type: Papers
Authors: Calvin A Liang, Elizabeth Fetterolf, Emily Tseng, Mary Gray

Restoring Human Authenticity in AI-Mediated Communication
Type: Workshops
Authors: Jiyeon Amy Seo, Hyungjun Cho, Naomi Yamashita, Woosuk Seo, Ge Gao, Elizabeth Gerber, Volker Wulf, Pernille Bjørn, Donghee Yvette Wohn

Speculative Fiction for Interdisciplinary, Proactive, and Publicly Engaged AI Ethics
Session: Qualitative Method Reflection and Tools
Type: Papers
Authors:  Achi Mishra, Daniel Kellogg, Gio Jones, Heather Bentley, Darren Gergle, Duri Long

Thursday, April 16th

Access Is Not Enough: Toward Developmental Flourishing
Type: Posters
Authors: Yuanyang (YY) Teng, Darren Gergle

AI for Haptics and Haptics for AI: Challenges and Opportunities
Type: Workshops
Authors: Easa AliAbbasi, Dennis Wittchen, Yinan Li, Shihan Lu, Thomas Müller, Donald Degraen, Thomas Leimkühler, Sang Ho Yoon, Hasti Seifi, Oliver Schneider, Heather Culbertson, Jürgen Steimle, Paul Strohmeier

Designing a Self-Regulated Learning System for Introductory Computer Science Courses
Type: Posters
Authors: Yinmiao Li, Melissa Chen, Ayse Hunt, Mike Horn, Eleanor O'Rourke
 
Role Reversals and Role-Based Inequality on Stack Overflow After the Release of ChatGPT
Type: Posters
Authors: Ji Eun Kim, Léa Vitale, Yulin Yu
 
ROOTED in Us: A Framework for Cultivating Community Ecosystems through Relationships and Data
Session: Labor, Data, and Ethics
Type: Papers
Authors: Sheena Erete, Jessa Dickinson, Hawra Rabaan, Anthonia Carter, Caitlin K Martin, Vanessa Frias-Martinez, Natasha Smith-Walker, Nichole Pinkard
 
Starting From Scratch Again and Again: Tracing the Origins of High Schoolers’ Negative Perceptions of Block-Based Programming
Session: AI, Learning, and Inclusion in Education
Type: Papers
Authors: Caryn Tran, Kristin Fasiang, Max Kanwal, Eleanor O'Rourke
Best Paper Award

Toward Relationship-Centered Care with AI: Designing for Human Connections in Healthcare
Type: Workshops
Authors: Woosuk Seo, Edward R Melnick, Hyunggu Jung, Yasaman S. Sefidgar, Mattew Sakumoto, Isabel Schwaninger, Sarah Krüg, Andrew B.L. Berry, Bat-Zion Hose

Friday, April 17th

A Design Space for Live Music Agents 
Session: Music to My Ears
Type: Papers
Authors: Yewon Kim, Stephen Brade, Alexander Wang, David Zhou, Haven Kim, Bill Wang, Sung-Ju Lee, Hugo F Flores Garcia, Anna Huang, Chris Donahue

Codesigning Ripplet: an LLM-Assisted Assessment Authoring System Grounded in a Conceptual Model of Teachers’ Workflows 
Session: Learning in the AI Era
Type: Papers
Authors: Yuan Cui, Annabel Marie Goldman, Jovy Zhou, Xiaolin Liu, Clarissa M Shieh, Joshua Yao, Mia Lillian Cheng, Matthew Kay, Fumeng Yang

Governing Together: Toward Infrastructure for Community-Run Social Media
Session: Community Governance and Maintenance
Type: Papers
Authors:  Sohyeon Hwang, Sophie Rollins, Thatiany Andrade Nunes, Yuhan Liu, Richmond Y. Wong, Aaron Shaw, Andrés Monroy-Hernández

Noondawind: Co-Designed Dashboard for Indigenous Data Access and Environmental Policy Implementation
Session: BIPOC Sovereignty and Care
Type: Papers
Authors: Julia Aileen McKenna, Gabriela Buraglia, Jahanvi Kolakaluri, Rachel Baker-Ramos, Samantha Carter, Joe Graveen, Jonathan Gilbert, James Rasmussen, Brandon Byrne, Darren Vogt, Josiah Hester, Kim Marion Suiseeya, Alex Cabral
Honorable Mention 

Through a Live Elections Dashboard, Darkly: Managing Expectations and Trust in Progressive Vote Counting During the 2024 U.S. Election 
Session: The Dark Sides of AI
Type: Papers
Authors: Mandi Cai, Grace Wang, Chloe Rose Mortenson, Fumeng Yang, Erik Nisbet, Matthew Kay