Sustainable Innovation in Practice: Documenting the Processes, Methods and Perspectives of Low-Tech Designers Sustainability is becoming a key focus in HCI. The low-tech design approach, emerging outside traditional HCI frameworks, focuses on creating simpler artifacts, fostering user autonomy, and minimizing environmental impacts. Although it offers a tangible route toward sustainability for citizens and industry, low-tech design practices remain largely undocumented. Understanding how practitioners conceive and build low-tech artifacts can inform broader sustainable efforts in HCI. We investigated low-tech design processes through interviews with 14 French low-tech makers, focusing on concrete examples and completed projects. Our contributions include (1) a practice-based scoping of the low-tech concept (2) an account of the unique aspects of the low-tech approach to design for sustainability (3) an analytical description of three core low-tech perspectives — Durability, Sobriety, and Autonomy — and their integration into design processes. By critically reflecting on low-tech perspectives for the design of sustainable socio-technical systems, this work opens a dialog between low-tech practice and design research.2025RDRémi Duhamel et al.Sustainable HCIEcological Design & Green ComputingDIS
Manipulative Design and Older Adults: Co-Creating Magic Machines to Understand Experiences of Online ManipulationManipulative designs --- i.e., dark patterns --- have pervaded online interactions in most sectors from e-commerce to social media, banking, and healthcare. Understanding how individuals experience and cope with online manipulation is essential to support evolved design practices and regulatory measures. Yet studies on populations who may be more vulnerable to online manipulation are scarce. Through a series of ``magic machines'' workshops, we investigated the experiences of older adults (N=31) with online manipulation, their needs, and the strategies they imagine to resist manipulative practices. Our results show that participants tend to attribute manipulation to an ``unknown'' person and do not distinguish platforms from content. Through their machines, they expressed four primary needs to resist manipulation: knowledge, awareness, right to sanctuary, and control. Our study contributes insights into older adults' experiences with online manipulation and brings design challenges for effective countermeasures to manipulation that address the needs of all users.2024LCLorena Sanchez Chamorro et al.Dark Patterns RecognitionDIS
''My Mother Told Me These Things are Always Fake" - Understanding Teenagers' Experiences with Manipulative DesignsManipulative and deceptive design practices are ubiquitous, impacting technology users in various ways across several domains. Certain groups are likely more susceptible to these impacts but have not received sufficient attention yet. In this paper, we seek to characterize one such understudied group, describing teenagers' experience of manipulative design. We conducted semi-structured interviews with six teenagers between 15 and 17 years old, to understand their daily interactions with manipulative designs in three contexts: social networks, video games, and e-commerce. Using reflexive thematic analysis, our findings describe how risk is a shared experience for teenagers, and interrogate how teenagers' personal and social context shape their experience of risk. We relate our findings to existing knowledge about how the general population is impacted by manipulative design practices and consider opportunities to further understand and support the experiences of teenagers and other vulnerable groups.2024LCLorena Sanchez Chamorro et al.Dark Patterns RecognitionOnline Identity & Self-PresentationDIS
Grand Challenges in SportsHCIThe field of Sports Human-Computer Interaction (SportsHCI) investigates interaction design to support a physically active human being. Despite growing interest and dissemination of SportsHCI literature over the past years, many publications still focus on solving specific problems in a given sport. We believe in the benefit of generating fundamental knowledge for SportsHCI more broadly to advance the field as a whole. To achieve this, we aim to identify the grand challenges in SportsHCI, which can help researchers and practitioners in developing a future research agenda. Hence, this paper presents a set of grand challenges identified in a five-day workshop with 22 experts who have previously researched, designed, and deployed SportsHCI systems. Addressing these challenges will drive transformative advancements in SportsHCI, fostering better athlete performance, athlete-coach relationships, spectator engagement, but also immersive experiences for recreational sports or exercise motivation, and ultimately, improve human well-being.2024DEDon Samitha Elvitigala et al.Monash UniversityGame UX & Player BehaviorSerious & Functional GamesMental Health Apps & Online Support CommunitiesCHI
Optimizing the Use of the Sentence Completion Survey Technique in User Research: A Case Study on the Experience of E-ReadingSentence completion, originally a semi-projective psychological technique, has been used as an effective and lightweight user research method in user experience (UX) design. More information is yet still needed to understand how different sentence stems probe users’ insights, thereby providing recommendations for effective sentence completion surveys. We used the completion method on a large-scale sample to explore (e-)readers’ experiences and needs. Depending on their reading habits, participants (N=1880) were asked to complete a set of sentences, as part of a web survey. With 14143 user ideas collected in two weeks, our results confirm that remote online sentence completion is a cost-effective data collection method able to uncover feelings, attitudes, motivations, needs, or frustrations. Variation in sentence stems affected collected data in terms of item response rate, idea quantity as well as variety and originality. Building on previous research, this paper delivers actionable insights to optimize the richness of sentence completion outputs.2022CLCarine Lallemand et al.University of Luxembourg, Eindhoven University of TechnologyUser Research Methods (Interviews, Surveys, Observation)CHI
Exploring the Design Space of InterActive Urban Environments: Triggering Physical Activity through Embedded TechnologyPromoting healthy lifestyles is an essential endeavor for public health. The design of active urban environments can be an effective medium to nudge people into moving. With technology increasingly integrated into our daily lives, designers have access to more data than ever. In this pictorial, we explore the design space of interActive environments (contraction of ‘interactive’ and ‘active’); places designed to increase the physical activity of users or passers-by through the use of interactive technology. Through sketches, a benchmark of existing concepts, and an analysis of designed artefacts, we map the different intervention levels, interaction modalities, behavior change strategies and technological opportunities to design such interActive environments. With this work, we invite the community to consider how digital technology can help understand and shape human behavior in urban environments, and provide inspiration to designers and practitioners.2021LRLoes van Renswouw et al.Smart Cities & Urban SensingSustainable HCIHuman-Nature Relationships (More-than-Human Design)DIS
The Office Jungle: Exploring Unusual Ways of Working through Bodily ExperimentationsModern office environments foster sitting, a major public health risk, with physical inactivity being the fourth cause of death worldwide. This provocative pictorial presents the design explorations and bodily experimentations culminating in The Office Jungle, a critical and speculative redesign of the office environment that encourages physical activity by embracing wildness. The Office Jungle is a design exemplar of a “wild” office space presented as a suspended geodesic structure. It is built to experience how our office environment and our behaviour at work affect each other. We advocate that bringing wildness into office spaces will create more durable office environments that foster movement. With this pictorial, we aim to spark discussion amongst designers to think in new ways and to consider new opportunities to design for workplaces that integrate physical activity with work.2021IDIda Damen et al.Knowledge Worker Tools & WorkflowsParticipatory DesignDIS
Crafting On-Skin Interfaces: An Embodied Prototyping JourneyThis pictorial presents a design exploration of On-Skin Interfaces for recreational running. By integrating principles of interaction design, art and psychology, we explore the design of unconventional interfaces that facilitate the intuitive understanding of biofeedback and physiological-related information. We explored how principles from agency and bodily ownership can be applied in the design of sport-related wearables. Through our embodied prototyping journey, we gained insights on the implications of using the skin as an interactive design material. We focused on diverse materiality explorations to uncover and highlight the possibilities and challenges of materializing both functional and appealing On-Skin Interfaces. We synthesize and reflect on our theoretical and practical explorations and deliver actionable insights for this growing field of bodily and unconventional interfaces.2021JRJuan Restrepo-Villamizar et al.Haptic WearablesOn-Skin Display & On-Skin InputDIS
Laina: Dynamic Data Physicalization for Slow Exercising FeedbackThe increased popularity of recreational sports, like running, led to the development of numerous technologies supporting people in their training. However, in their current form and interaction, these take a rather standardized approach focusing on quantified data tracking displayed through screens or audio. In this paper, we explore how dynamic data physicalization through a shape-changing interface can open the design space of exercise feedback. Relying on an expert study on the aesthetics of interaction (N=23), we designed Laina, a shape-changing art piece presenting physicalized running data through a slow feedback mechanism. We deployed Laina at 3 participant’s home, during a series of 3-weeks field studies. Results show that Laina allows for deep reflection, anticipation and exploration of running behavior. The aim of our paper is to provide insights on the use of slow feedback mechanisms for exercise-related products, through the design of a dynamic data physicalization artefact.2021DMDaphne Menheere et al.Shape-Changing Interfaces & Soft Robotic MaterialsData PhysicalizationDIS
Understanding Walking Meetings: Drivers and BarriersThere is increased interest in reducing sedentary behavior of office workers to combat the negative health effects of prolonged sitting. Walking meetings offer a promising solution to this problem as they facilitate a physically active way of working. To inform future development of technologies supporting these type of meetings, in-depth qualitative insights into people's experiences of walking meetings are needed. We conducted semi-structured walking interviews (N=16) to identify key drivers and barriers for walking meetings in a living lab setting by using the 'WorkWalk'. The 'WorkWalk' is a 1.8 km walking route indicated by a dotted blue line with outdoor meeting points, integrated into the room booking system. Our findings provide insights into how walking meetings are experienced and affect the set-up and social dynamics of meetings. We offer design recommendations for the development of future technologies and service design elements to support walking meetings and active ways of working.2020IDIda Damen et al.Eindhoven University of TechnologyNotification & Interruption ManagementWorkplace Wellbeing & Work StressCHI
Meeting Designers Where They Are: Using Industry Events as a Research Venue for HCI and Design Methods DevelopmentThere is much work in the CHI community about the 'industry-academia divide', and how to bridge it. One key crossover between HCI/UX scientists and practitioners is the development and use of tools and methods—boundary objects between academia and practice. Among other forms of collaboration, there is an underdeveloped opportunity for academics to make use of industry events (conferences, meetups, design jams) as a research venue in the context of tool and method development. This paper describes three cases from work in academia-industry engagement over the last decade, in which workshops or experiments have been run at industry events as a way of trialling and developing tools directly with practitioners. We discuss advantages of this approach and extract key insights and practical implications, highlighting how the CHI community might use this method more widely, gathering relevant research outcomes while contributing to knowledge exchange between academia and practice.2020DLDan Lockton et al.Carnegie Mellon UniversityParticipatory DesignPrototyping & User TestingCHI
Security – Visible, Yet Unseen? How Displaying Security Mechanisms Impacts User Experience and Perceived SecurityAn unsolved debate in the field of usable security concerns whether security mechanisms should be visible, or blackboxed away from the user for the sake of usability. However, tying this question to pragmatic usability factors only might be simplistic. This study aims at researching the impact of displaying security mechanisms on User Experience (UX) in the context of e-voting. Two versions of an e-voting application were designed and tested using a between-group experimental protocol (N=38). Version D displayed security mechanisms, while version ND did not reveal any security-related information. We collected data on UX using standardised evaluation scales and semi-structured interviews. Version D performed better overall in terms of UX and need fulfilment. Qualitative analysis of the interviews gives further insights into factors impacting perceived security. Our study adds to existing research suggesting a conceptual shift from usability to UX and discusses implications for designing and evaluating secure systems.2019VDVerena Distler et al.University of LuxembourgAlgorithmic Transparency & AuditabilityPrivacy by Design & User ControlPrivacy Perception & Decision-MakingCHI
Acceptability and Acceptance of Autonomous Mobility on Demand: the Impact of an Immersive ExperienceAutonomous vehicles have the potential to fundamentally change existing transportation systems. Beyond legal concerns, these societal evolutions will critically depend on user acceptance. As an emerging mode of public transportation [7], Autonomous mobility on demand (AMoD) is of particular interest in this context. The aim of the present study is to identify the main components of acceptability (before first use) and acceptance (after first use) of AMoD, following a user experience (UX) framework. To address this goal, we conducted three workshops (N=14) involving open discussions and a ride in an experimental autonomous shuttle. Using a mixed-methods approach, we measured pre-immersion acceptability before immersing the participants in an on-demand transport scenario, and eventually measured post-immersion acceptance of AMoD. Results show that participants were reassured about safety concerns, however they perceived the AMoD experience as ineffective. Our findings highlight key factors to be taken into account when designing AMoD experiences.2018VDVerena Distler et al.University of LuxembourgAutomated Driving Interface & Takeover DesignMotion Sickness & Passenger ExperienceCHI