To Slide or Not To Slide: Exploring Techniques for Comparing Immersive VideosImmersive videos (IVs) provide 360° environments that create a strong sense of presence and spatial exploration. Unlike traditional videos, IVs distribute information across multiple directions, making comparison cognitively demanding and highly dependent on interaction techniques. With the growing adoption of IVs, effective comparison techniques have become an essential yet underexplored area of research. Inspired by the "sliding" concept in 2D media comparison, we integrate two established comparison strategies from the literature—toggle and side-by-side—to support IV comparison with greater flexibility. For an in-depth understanding of different strategies, we adapt and implement five IV comparison techniques across VR and 2D environments: SlideInVR, ToggleInVR, SlideIn2D, ToggleIn2D, and SideBySideIn2D. We then conduct a user study (N=20) to examine how these techniques shape users' perceptions, strategies, and workflows. Our findings provide empirical insights into the strengths and limitations of each technique, underscoring the need to switch between comparison approaches across scenarios. Notably, participants consistently rate SlideInVR and SlideIn2D as the most flexible and favorite methods for IV comparison.2026XWXizi Wang et al.University of WaterlooImmersion & Presence Research360° Video & Panoramic ContentCHI
Challenges in Synchronous & Remote Collaboration Around VisualizationWe characterize 16 challenges faced by those investigating and developing remote and synchronous collaborative experiences around visualization. Our work reflects the perspectives and prior research efforts of an international group of 29 experts from across human-computer interaction and visualization sub-communities. The challenges are anchored around five collaborative activities that exhibit a centrality of visualization and multimodal communication. These activities include exploratory data analysis, creative ideation, visualization-rich presentations, joint decision making grounded in data, and real-time data monitoring. The challenges also reflect the changing dynamics of these activities in the face of recent advances in extended reality (XR) and artificial intelligence (AI). As an organizing scheme for future research at the intersection of visualization and computer-supported cooperative work, we align the challenges with a sequence of four sets of research and development activities: technological choices, social factors, AI assistance, and evaluation.2026MBMatthew Brehmer et al.University of WaterlooInteractive Data VisualizationRemote Work Tools & ExperienceMulti-User Large Display CollaborationCHI
Stories for I, They and You: Exploring In-situ Virtual Camera Setups for Live Streaming in Virtual RealityVirtual reality live streaming (VR streaming) is becoming increasingly popular as an entertainment medium, but its unique aspects of virtual camera usage remain underexplored. This paper presents a two-phase study investigating how VR streamers currently use virtual cameras to create engaging content for viewers on 2D displays. We first analyzed 8 popular Twitch streamers' videos totaling 2625 minutes to identify common virtual camera usage. Then, we interviewed 10 media experts all with about 10+ years of professional experience to derive design considerations for VR streamers and design implications for future developers. We also proposed the Immersion Triangle, a conceptual framework to analyze and explore the concept of immersion within VR streaming context. Our findings highlight VR streaming as a novel mass media format that can offer new perspectives on both VR and live streaming. This study also suggests opportunities for future research to enhance interactions between streamers and their viewers.2026LWLiwei Wu et al.University of WaterlooSocial & Collaborative VRLive Streaming & Spectating ExperienceCHI
NeuroSync: Intent-Aware Code-Based Problem Solving via Direct LLM Understanding ModificationConversational LLMs have been widely adopted by domain users with limited programming experience to solve domain problems. However, these users often face misalignment between their intent and generated code, resulting in frustration and rounds of clarification. This work first investigates the cause of this misalignment, which dues to bidirectional ambiguity: both user intents and coding tasks are inherently nonlinear, yet must be expressed and interpreted through linear prompts and code sequences. To address this, we propose direct intent–task matching, a new human–LLM interaction paradigm that externalizes and enables direct manipulation of the LLM understanding, i.e., the coding tasks and their relationships inferred by the LLM prior to code generation. As a proof-of-concept, this paradigm is then implemented in NeuroSync, which employs a knowledge distillation pipeline to extract LLM understanding, user intents, and their mappings, and enhances the alignment by allowing users to intuitively inspect and edit them via visualizations. We evaluate the algorithmic components of NeuroSync via technical experiments, and assess its overall usability and effectiveness via a user study (N=12). The results show that it enhances intent–task alignment, lowers cognitive effort, and improves coding efficiency.2025WZWenshuo ZHANG et al.Human-LLM CollaborationExplainable AI (XAI)UIST
ATCion: Exploring the Design of Icon-based Visual Aids for Enhancing In-cockpit Air Traffic Control CommunicationEffective communication between pilots and air traffic control (ATC) is essential for aviation safety, but verbal exchanges over radios are prone to miscommunication, especially under high workload conditions. While cockpit-embedded visual aids offer the potential to enhance ATC communication, little is known about how to design and integrate such aids. We present an exploratory, user-centered investigation into the design and integration of icon-based visual aids, named ATCion, to support in-cockpit ATC communication, through four phases involving 22 pilots and 1 ATC controller. This study contributes a validated set of design principles and visual icon components for ATC messages. In a comparative study of ATCion, text-based visual aids, and no visual aids, we found that our design improved readback accuracy and reduced memory workload, without negatively impacting flight operations; most participants preferred ATCion over text-based aids, citing their clarity, low cognitive cost, and fast interpretability. Further, we point to implications and opportunities for integrating icon-based aids into future multimodal ATC communication systems to improve both safety and efficiency.2025YLYue Lyu et al.Head-Up Display (HUD) & Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS)Interactive Data VisualizationVisualization Perception & CognitionUIST
MACEDON : Supporting Programmers with Real-Time Multi-Dimensional Code Evaluation and OptimizationRecent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) have led programmers to increasingly turn to them for code optimization and evaluation. However, programmers need to frequently switch between code evaluation and prompt authoring because there is a lack of understanding of the underlying code. Yet, current LLM- driven code assistants do not provide sufficient transparency to help programmers track their code based on the intended evaluation metrics, a crucial step before aligning these evaluations with their optimization goals. To address this gap, we adopted an iterative, user-centered design process by first conducting a formative study and a large-scale code analysis. Based on the findings, we then developed MACEDON, a system that supports multi-dimensional code evaluation in real time, direct code segment optimization, as well as shareable report displays. We evaluated MACEDON through a controlled lab study with 24 novice programmers and two real-world case studies. The results show that MACEDON significantly improved users’ ability to identify code issues, apply effective optimizations, and understand their code’s evolving state. Our findings suggest that multi-dimensional evaluation, combined with interactive, segment-specific guidance, empowers users to perform more structured and confident code optimization. The code for this paper can be found in <link-TBD>2025XLXuye Liu et al.360° Video & Panoramic ContentGenerative AI (Text, Image, Music, Video)Human-LLM CollaborationUIST
ClassComet: Exploring and Designing AI-generated Danmaku in Educational Videos to Enhance Online LearningDanmaku, users’ live comments synchronized with, and overlaying on videos, has recently shown potential in promoting online video-based learning. However, user-generated danmaku can be scarce—especially in newer or less viewed videos—and its quality is unpredictable, limiting its educational impact. This paper explores how large multimodal models (LMM) can be leveraged to automatically generate effective, high-quality danmaku. We first conducted a formative study to identify the desirable characteristics of content- and emotion-related danmaku in educational videos. Based on the obtained insights, we developed ClassComet, an educational video platform with novel LMM-driven techniques for generating relevant types of danmaku to enhance video-based learning. Through user studies, we examined the quality of generated danmaku and their influence on learning experiences. The results indicate that our generated danmaku is comparable to human-created ones, and videos with both content- and emotion-related danmaku showed significant improvement in viewers' engagement and learning outcome.2025ZJZipeng Ji et al.Human-LLM CollaborationOnline Learning & MOOC PlatformsDIS
To Search or To Gen? Design Dimensions Integrating Web Search and Generative AI in Programmers' Information-Seeking ProcessProgrammers now use both generative AI (GenAI) and traditional web search for information-seeking, yet how these tools are used individually or in combination remains unclear. To answer this, we conducted a multi-phase investigation, including retrospective interviews to identify foraging behaviours and challenges and an observational study with a technology probe to analyze how contextual information flows across tools. Our findings reveal that effective information-seeking requires adaptable strategies and varying levels of contextual detail. Building on these insights, we propose five design dimensions for developing tools that integrate web search, GenAI, and code editors. We further demonstrated the generative power of these design dimensions with a proof-of-concept prototype, validated through a user study, offering actionable design implications for enhancing integrated information-seeking workflows across web search and GenAI in programming.2025RYRyan Yen et al.Human-LLM CollaborationRecommender System UXDIS
Code Shaping: Iterative Code Editing with Free-form AI-Interpreted SketchingWe introduce the concept of code shaping, an interaction paradigm for editing code using free-form sketch annotations directly on top of the code and console output. To evaluate this concept, we conducted a three-stage design study with 18 different programmers to investigate how sketches can communicate intended code edits to an AI model for interpretation and execution. The results show how different sketches are used, the strategies programmers employ during iterative interactions with AI interpretations, and interaction design principles that support the reconciliation between the code editor and sketches. Finally, we demonstrate the practical application of the code shaping concept with two use case scenarios, illustrating design implications from the study.2025RYRyan Yen et al.University of Waterloo, School of Computer Science; MIT, CSAILGenerative AI (Text, Image, Music, Video)Human-LLM CollaborationAI-Assisted Creative WritingCHI
"You'll Be Alice Adventuring in Wonderland!" Processes, Challenges, and Opportunities of Creating Animated Virtual Reality StoriesAnimated virtual reality (VR) stories, combining the presence of VR and the artistry of computer animation, offer a compelling way to deliver messages and evoke emotions. Motivated by the growing demand for immersive narrative experiences, more creators are creating animated VR stories. However, a holistic understanding of their creation processes and challenges involved in crafting these stories is still limited. Based on semi-structured interviews with 21 animated VR story creators, we identify ten common stages in their end-to-end creation processes, ranging from idea generation to evaluation, which form diverse workflows that are story-driven or visual-driven. Additionally, we highlight nine unique issues that arise during the creation process, such as a lack of reference material for multi-element plots, the absence of specific functionalities for story integration, and inadequate support for audience evaluation. We compare the creation of animated VR stories to general XR applications and distill several future research opportunities.2025LYLin-Ping Yuan et al.The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Department of Computer Science and EngineeringImmersion & Presence ResearchInteractive Narrative & Immersive StorytellingCHI
Influencer: Empowering Everyday Users in Creating Promotional Posts via AI-infused Exploration and CustomizationCreating promotional posts on social platforms enables everyday users to disseminate their creative outcomes, engage in community exchanges, or generate additional income from micro-businesses. However, crafting eye-catching posts with appealing images and effective captions can be challenging and time-consuming for everyday users since they are mostly design novices. We propose Influencer, an interactive tool that helps novice creators quickly generate ideas and create high-quality promotional post designs through AI. Influencer offers a multi-dimensional recommendation system for ideation through example-based image and caption suggestions. Further, Influencer implements a holistic promotional post-design system supporting context-aware exploration considering brand messages and user-specified design constraints, flexible fusion of content, and a mind-map-like layout for idea tracking. Our user study, comparing the system with industry-standard tools, along with two real-life case studies, indicates that Influencer is effective in assisting design novices to generate ideas as well as creative and diverse promotional posts with user-friendly interaction.2025XLXuye Liu et al.University of WaterlooGenerative AI (Text, Image, Music, Video)Recommender System UXCHI
Brickify: Enabling Expressive Design Intent Specification through Direct Manipulation on Design TokensExpressing design intent using natural language prompts requires designers to verbalize the ambiguous visual details concisely, which can be challenging or even impossible. To address this, we introduce Brickify, a visual-centric interaction paradigm — expressing design intent through direct manipulation on design tokens. Brickify extracts visual elements (e.g., subject, style, and color) from reference images and converts them into interactive and reusable design tokens that can be directly manipulated (e.g., resize, group, link, etc.) to form the visual lexicon. The lexicon reflects users’ intent for both what visual elements are desired and how to construct them into a whole. We developed Brickify to demonstrate how AI models can interpret and execute the visual lexicon through an end-to-end pipeline. In a user study, experienced designers found Brickify more efficient and intuitive than text-based prompts, allowing them to describe visual details, explore alternatives, and refine complex designs with greater ease and control.2025XSXinyu Shi et al.University of WaterlooGenerative AI (Text, Image, Music, Video)Graphic Design & Typography ToolsCreative Collaboration & Feedback SystemsCHI
Investigating Composite Relation with a Data-Physicalized Thing through the Deployment of the WavData LampThis paper reports on a field study of the WavData Lamp: an interactive lamp that can physically visualize people’s music listening data by changing light colors and outstretching its form enclosure. We deployed five WavData Lamps to five participants' homes for two months to investigate their composite relation with a data-physicalized thing. Findings reveal that their music-listening norms were determined by the instantiated materiality of the Lamp in the early days. With a tilted form enclosure, the WavData Lamp successfully engendered rich actions and meanings of the cohabiting participants and their family members. In the end, the participants described their experiences of entangling with and living with the Lamp as a form of collaboration. Reflecting on these empirical insights explicitly extends the intrinsic meaning of the composite relation and offers rich implications to promote further HCI explorations and practices.2025CZCe Zhong et al.University of Waterloo, School of Computer ScienceShape-Changing Interfaces & Soft Robotic MaterialsData PhysicalizationCHI
Exploring Uni-manual Around Ear Off-device Gestures for EarablesShimon 等人研究智能耳穿戴设备的单手耳周的手势交互方式，为可穿戴交互设计提供新思路。2024SSShaikh Shawon Arefin Shimon et al.Foot & Wrist InteractionUbiquitous ComputingUbiComp
CoLadder: Manipulating Code Generation via Multi-Level BlocksThis paper adopted an iterative design process to gain insights into programmers' strategies when using LLMs for programming. We proposed CoLadder, a novel system that supports programmers by facilitating hierarchical task decomposition, direct code segment manipulation, and result evaluation during prompt authoring. A user study with 12 experienced programmers showed that CoLadder is effective in helping programmers externalize their problem-solving intentions flexibly, improving their ability to evaluate and modify code across various abstraction levels, from their task's goal to final code implementation.2024RYRyan Yen et al.Human-LLM CollaborationComputational Methods in HCIUIST
Memolet: Reifying the Reuse of User-AI Conversational MemoriesAs users engage more frequently with AI conversational agents, conversations may exceed their memory capacity, leading to failures in correctly leveraging certain memories for tailored responses. However, in finding past memories that can be reused or referenced, users need to retrieve relevant information in various conversations and articulate to the AI their intention to reuse these memories. To support this process, we introduce Memolet, an interactive object that reifies memory reuse. Users can directly manipulate Memolet to specify which memories to reuse and how to use them. We developed a system demonstrating Memolet's interaction across various memory reuse stages, including memory extraction, organization, prompt articulation, and generation refinement. We examine the system's usefulness with an N=12 within-subject study and provide design implications for future systems that support user-AI conversational memory reusing.2024RYRyan Yen et al.Conversational ChatbotsHuman-LLM CollaborationUIST
Exploring Visualizations for Precisely Guiding Bare Hand Gestures in Virtual RealityBare hand interaction in augmented or virtual reality (AR/VR) systems, while intuitive, often results in errors and frustration. However, existing methods, such as a static icon or a dynamic tutorial, can only inform simple and coarse hand gestures and lack corrective feedback. This paper explores various visualizations for enhancing precise hand interaction in VR. Through a comprehensive two-part formative study with 11 participants, we identified four types of essential information for visual guidance and designed different visualizations that manifest these information types. We further distilled four visual designs and conducted a controlled lab study with 15 participants to assess their effectiveness for various single- and double-handed gestures. Our results demonstrate that visual guidance significantly improved users' gesture performance, reducing time and workload while increasing confidence. Moreover, we found that the visualization did not disrupt most users' immersive VR experience or their perceptions of hand tracking and gesture recognition reliability.2024XWXizi Wang et al.University of WaterlooHand Gesture RecognitionImmersion & Presence ResearchCHI
Exploring Interactive Color Palettes for Abstraction-Driven Exploratory Image ColorizationColor design is essential in areas such as product, graphic, and fashion design. However, current tools like Photoshop, with their concrete-driven color manipulation approach, often stumble during early ideation, favoring polished end results over initial exploration. We introduced Mondrian as a test-bed for abstraction-driven approach using interactive color palettes for image colorization. Through a formative study with six design experts, we selected three design options for visual abstractions in color design and developed Mondrian where humans work with abstractions and AI manages the concrete aspects. We carried out a user study to understand the benefits and challenges of each abstraction format and compare the Mondrian with Photoshop. A survey involving 100 participants further examined the influence of each abstraction format on color composition perceptions. Findings suggest that interactive visual abstractions encourage a non-linear exploration workflow and an open mindset during ideation, thus providing better creative affordance.2024XSXinyu Shi et al.University of WaterlooGenerative AI (Text, Image, Music, Video)Graphic Design & Typography ToolsCreative Collaboration & Feedback SystemsCHI
CoPrompt: Supporting Prompt Sharing and Referring in Collaborative Natural Language ProgrammingNatural language (NL) programming has become more approachable due to the powerful code-generation capability of large language models (LLMs). This shift to using NL to program enhances collaborative programming by reducing communication barriers and context-switching among programmers from varying backgrounds. However, programmers may face challenges during prompt engineering in a collaborative setting as they need to actively keep aware of their collaborators' progress and intents. In this paper, we aim to investigate ways to assist programmers’ prompt engineering in a collaborative context. We first conducted a formative study to understand the workflows and challenges of programmers when using NL for collaborative programming. Based on our findings, we implemented a prototype, CoPrompt, to support collaborative prompt engineering by providing referring, requesting, sharing, and linking mechanisms. Our user study indicates that CoPrompt assists programmers in comprehending collaborators' prompts and building on their collaborators’ work, reducing repetitive updates and communication costs.2024LFLi Feng et al.The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)Immersion & Presence ResearchHuman-LLM CollaborationCreative Collaboration & Feedback SystemsCHI
EmoWear: Exploring Emotional Teasers for Voice Message Interaction on SmartwatchesVoice messages, by nature, prevent users from gauging the emotional tone without fully diving into the audio content. This hinders the shared emotional experience at the pre-retrieval stage. Research scarcely explored "Emotional Teasers"—pre-retrieval cues offering a glimpse into an awaiting message's emotional tone without disclosing its content. We introduce EmoWear, a smartwatch voice messaging system enabling users to apply 30 animation teasers on message bubbles to reflect emotions. EmoWear eases senders' choice by prioritizing emotions based on semantic and acoustic processing. EmoWear was evaluated in comparison with a mirroring system using color-coded message bubbles as emotional cues (N=24). Results showed EmoWear significantly enhanced emotional communication experience in both receiving and sending messages. The animated teasers were considered intuitive and valued for diverse expressions. Desirable interaction qualities and practical implications are distilled for future design. We thereby contribute both a novel system and empirical knowledge concerning emotional teasers for voice messaging.2024PAPengcheng An et al.Southern University of Science and TechnologyHaptic WearablesVoice User Interface (VUI) DesignIntelligent Voice Assistants (Alexa, Siri, etc.)CHI