Cultivating a Supportive Sphere: Designing Technology to Increase Social Support for Foster-Involved YouthApproximately 400,000 youth in the US are living in foster care due to experiences with abuse or neglect at home. For multiple reasons, these youth often don’t receive adequate social support from those around them. Despite technology’s potential, very little work has explored how these tools can provide more support to foster-involved youth. To begin to fill this gap, we worked with current and former foster-involved youth to develop the first digital tool that aims to increase social support for this population, creating a novel system in which users complete reflective check-ins in an online community setting. We then conducted a pilot study with 15 current and former foster-involved youth, comparing the effect of using the app for two weeks to two weeks of no intervention. We collected qualitative and quantitative data, which demonstrated that this type of interface can provide youth with types of social support that are often not provided by foster care services and other digital interventions. The paper details the motivation behind the app, the trauma-informed design process, and insights gained from this initial evaluation study. Finally, the paper concludes with recommendations for designing digital tools that effectively provide social support to foster-involved youth.2025IKIla Krishna Kumar et al.Supporting YouthCSCW
BoundarEase: Fostering Constructive Community Engagement to Inform More Equitable Student Assignment PoliciesPublic school districts across the United States (US) play a pivotal role in shaping access to quality education through their student assignment policies---most prominently, school attendance boundaries. Community engagement processes for changing such policies, however, are often opaque, cumbersome, and highly polarizing---hampering equitable access to quality schools in ways that can perpetuate disparities in achievement and future life outcomes. In this paper, we describe a collaboration with a large US public school district serving nearly 150,000 students to design and evaluate a new sociotechnical system, ``BoundarEase'', for fostering more constructive community engagement around changing school attendance boundaries. Through a formative study with 16 community members, we first identify several frictions in existing community engagement processes during boundary planning, like individualistic over collective thinking; a failure to understand and empathize with different community members when considering policy impacts; and challenges in accessing and understanding the impacts of boundary changes. We then use these frictions to inspire the design and development of BoundarEase, a web platform that allows community members to explore and offer feedback on potential boundaries based on their preferences. A user study with 12 community members reveals that BoundarEase prompts reflection among community members on how policies might impact families beyond their own, and increases transparency around the details of policy proposals. Our paper offers education researchers insights into the challenges and opportunities involved in community engagement for designing student assignment policies; human-computer interaction researchers a case study of how new sociotechnical systems might help mitigate polarization in local policymaking; and school districts a practical tool they might use to facilitate community engagement to foster more equitable student assignment policies.2025COCassandra Overney et al.Community Engaged ResearchCSCW
Becoming Infrastructure: A Critical Realist Account of the Evolution of DHIS2 as Digital Public Health Infrastructure in Sierra LeoneIn this article, we examine the design, implementation, and maintenance of DHIS2 as health information systems infrastructure in Sierra Leone over a period of 14 years - from 2008 to 2022. \hl{Today, DHIS2 has become the de-facto standard for open-source health management information systems and Sierra Leone's status as the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to implement DHSI2 makes it a productive place for researchers interested in understanding the end-to-end process of infrastructuring in a low-resource bureaucratic setting. We present an intensive case study discretized by three morphogenetic cycles (decentralization, centralization, and fragmentation) and furnished with explanatory account's of DHIS2's evolution using a critical realist research methodology to describe the emergence of DHIS2 as digital public health infrastructure. These accounts highlight the structural and cultural systems of DHIS2, their elaborations, and their interaction with agents over successive periods of DHIS2's evolution. Our study finds that, despite its continued use in Sierra Leone, the increasing generativity in the structural and cultural systems of DHSI2 and Sierra Leone’s public health system engenders a persistent instability that requires continuous resolution. Though we find that extant literature aids in our understanding of DHIS2’s evolution, we proffer two mechanisms, infrastructural capture and socio-technical debt, which aid our explanation of events observed in our case. Our work makes a case for more ontologically-diverse theorizing of bureaucracy-aware computing systems.2025IJInnocent Ndubuisi-Obi Jr et al.Open Source CommunitiesCSCW
Connecting through Comics: Design and Evaluation of Cube, an Arts-Based Digital Platform for Trauma-Impacted YouthThis paper explores the design, development and evaluation of a digital platform that aims to assist young people who have experienced trauma in understanding and expressing their emotions and fostering social connections. Integrating principles from expressive arts and narrative-based therapies, we collaborate with lived experts to iteratively design a novel, user-centered digital tool for young people to create and share comics that represent their experiences. Specifically, we conduct a series of nine workshops with N=54 trauma-impacted youth and young adults to test and refine our tool, beginning with three workshops using low-fidelity prototypes, followed by six workshops with Cube, a web version of the tool. A qualitative analysis of workshop feedback and empathic relations analysis of artifacts provides valuable insights into the usability and potential impact of the tool, as well as the specific needs of young people who have experienced trauma. Our findings suggest that the integration of expressive and narrative therapy principles into Cube can offer a unique avenue for trauma-impacted young people to process their experiences, more easily communicate their emotions, and connect with supportive communities. We end by presenting implications for the design of social technologies that aim to support the emotional well-being and social integration of youth and young adults who have faced trauma.2025IKIla Krishna Kumar et al.Trauma & AbuseCSCW
Togedule: Scheduling Meetings with Large Language Models and Adaptive Representations of Group AvailabilityScheduling is a perennial—and often challenging—problem for many groups. Existing tools are mostly static, showing an identical set of choices to everyone, regardless of the current status of attendees' inputs and preferences. In this paper, we propose Togedule, an adaptive scheduling tool that uses large language models to dynamically adjust the pool of choices and their presentation format. With the initial prototype, we conducted a formative study (N=10) and identified the potential benefits and risks of such an adaptive scheduling tool. Then, after enhancing the system, we conducted two controlled experiments, one each for attendees and organizers (total N=66). For each experiment, we compared scheduling with verbal messages, shared calendars, or Togedule. Results show that Togedule significantly reduces the cognitive load of attendees indicating their availability and improves the speed and quality of the decisions made by organizers.2025JSJaeyoon Song et al.Working with AICSCW
Trans Data: A Research and Design Agenda from Trans Activists’ Transformative Data ScienceTrans activists play a deeply important role in caring for and advocating for the transgender community using data. Through an interview study with 16 trans activists working in trans-led and trans-serving organizations in the United States, we document how they use restorative/transformative data science processes of resolving, researching, recording, and refusing and using data. We incorporate their data practices with trans technology and trans competent interaction design approaches to propose a research agenda for trans data: materially improve trans lives, cross data boundaries, and constantly engage in power analysis. We expound on how a trans data research agenda can benefit data advocacy and CSCW research and design.2025ADAmelia Lee Dogan et al.Activism in a Time of DataCSCW
Graffiti: Enabling an Ecosystem of Personalized and Interoperable Social ApplicationsMost social applications, from Twitter to Wikipedia, have rigid one-size-fits-all designs, but building new social applications is both technically challenging and results in applications that are siloed away from existing communities. We present Graffiti, a system that can be used to build a wide variety of personalized social applications with relative ease that also interoperate with each other. People can freely move between a plurality of designs—each with its own aesthetic, feature set, and moderation—all without losing their friends or data. Our concept of total reification makes it possible for seemingly contradictory designs, including conflicting moderation rules, to interoperate. Conversely, our concept of channels prevents interoperation from occurring by accident, avoiding context collapse. Graffiti applications interact through a minimal client-side API, which we show admits at least two decentralized implementations. Above the API, we built a Vue.js plugin, which we use to develop applications similar to Twitter, Messenger, and Wikipedia using only client-side code. Our case studies explore how these and other novel applications interoperate, as well as the broader ecosystem that Graffiti enables.2025THTheia Henderson et al.Social Platform Design & User BehaviorGig Economy PlatformsSmart Home Interaction DesignUIST
SustainaPrint: Making the Most of Eco-Friendly FilamentsWe present SustainaPrint, a system for integrating eco-friendly filaments into 3D printing without compromising structural integrity. While biodegradable and recycled 3D printing filaments offer environmental benefits, there is a trade-off in using them as they may suffer from degraded or unpredictable mechanical properties, which can limit their use in load-bearing applications. SustainaPrint addresses this by strategically assigning eco-friendly and standard filaments to different regions of a multi-material print—reinforcing the areas that are most likely to break with stronger material while maximizing the use of sustainable filament elsewhere. As eco-friendly filaments often do not come with technical datasheets, we also introduce a low-cost, at-home mechanical testing toolkit that enables users to evaluate filament strength before deciding if they want to use that filament in our pipeline. We validate SustainaPrint through real-world fabrication and mechanical testing, demonstrating its effectiveness across a range of functional 3D printing tasks.2025MPMaxine Perroni-Scharf et al.Desktop 3D Printing & Personal FabricationCustomizable & Personalized ObjectsSustainable HCIUIST
Refashion: Reconfigurable Garments via Modular DesignWhile bodies change over time and trends vary, most store-bought clothing comes in fixed sizes and styles and fails to adapt to these changes. Alterations can enable small changes to otherwise static garments, but these changes often require sewing and are non-reversible. We propose a modular approach to garment design that considers resizing, restyling, and reusability earlier in the clothing design process. Our contributions include a compact set of modules and connectors that form the building blocks of modular garments, a method to decompose a garment into modules via integer linear programming, and a digital design tool that supports modular garment design and simulation. Our user evaluation suggests that our approach to modular clothing design can support the creation of a wide range of garments and can help users transform clothing into different sizes and styles while reusing the same building blocks.2025RLRebecca Lin et al.Customizable & Personalized ObjectsDesign FictionUIST
EmbroChet: A Hybrid Textile Fabrication Approach for 3D Personalized Handicraft via Heat-ShrinkingWe propose EmbroChet, a hybrid approach that bridges digital fabrication and textile craftsmanship, empowering individuals unfamiliar with intricate craft techniques to design and fabricate 3D textile handicrafts intuitively. EmbroChet allows the creation of handicrafts by embroidering chain stitches (a fundamental embroidery technique) onto a heat-shrinkable film, which subsequently self-transforms from a 2D composite to a 3D textile through a freely controllable heating triggering process. Through a single stitch type, the method enables custom designs and intricate geometries to be achieved without complex manual skills that often requires expertise between different stitch knowledge. To better demonstrate EmbroChet, we propose a design tool that includes shape-changing libraries to assist users in customizing 3D shapes. The evaluation demonstrates its unique strength in balancing geometric complexity and textile softness. Furthermore, our workshop verifies the feasibility of EmbroChet, exploring its potential for personalized textile fabrication, and synergizing the precision of digital fabrication with the tactile artistry of textile craftsmanship.2025GWGuanyun Wang et al.Shape-Changing Interfaces & Soft Robotic MaterialsProgramming Education & Computational ThinkingShape-Changing Materials & 4D PrintingUIST
GestureCoach: Rehearsing for Engaging Talks with LLM-Driven Gesture RecommendationsThis paper introduces GestureCoach, a system designed to help speakers deliver more engaging talks by guiding them to gesture effectively during rehearsal. GestureCoach combines an LLM-driven gesture recommendation model with a rehearsal interface that proactively cues speakers to gesture appropriately. Trained on experts’ gesturing patterns from TED talks, the model consists of two modules: an emphasis proposal module, which predicts when to gesture by identifying gesture-worthy text segments in the presenter notes, and a gesture identification module, which determines what gesture to use by retrieving semantically appropriate gestures from a curated gesture database. Results of a model performance evaluation and user study (N=30) show that the emphasis proposal module outperforms off-the-shelf LLMs in identifying suitable gesture regions, and that participants rated the majority of these predicted regions and their corresponding gestures as highly appropriate. A subsequent user study (N=10) showed that rehearsing with GestureCoach encouraged speakers to gesture and significantly increased gesture diversity, resulting in more engaging talks. We conclude with design implications for future AI-driven rehearsal systems.2025ARAshwin Ram et al.Hand Gesture RecognitionHuman-LLM CollaborationCreative Collaboration & Feedback SystemsUIST
FabObscura: Computational Design and Fabrication for Interactive Barrier-Grid AnimationsWe present FabObscura: a system for creating interactive barrier-grid animations, a classic technique that uses occlusion patterns to create the illusion of motion. Whereas traditional barrier-grid animations are constrained to simple linear occlusion patterns, FabObscura introduces a parameterization that represents patterns as mathematical functions. Our parameterization offers two key advantages over existing barrier-grid animation design methods: first, it has a high expressive ceiling by enabling the systematic design of novel patterns; second, it is versatile enough to represent all established forms of barrier-grid animations. Using this parameterization, our computational design tool enables an end-to-end workflow for authoring, visualizing, and fabricating these animations without domain expertise. Our applications demonstrate how FabObscura can be used to create animations that respond to a range of user interactions, such as translations, rotations, and changes in viewpoint. By formalizing barrier-grid animation as a computational design material, FabObscura extends its expressiveness as an interactive medium.2025TSTicha Sethapakdi et al.Shape-Changing Materials & 4D PrintingCustomizable & Personalized ObjectsDigital Art Installations & Interactive PerformanceUIST
Squidgets: Sketch-based Widget Design for Scene ManipulationPeople naturally sketch strokes over graphical scenes to convey scene changes. We propose automatically interpreting these strokes to execute scene changes with squidgets (sketch-widgets), a novel sketch-based UI framework for direct scene manipulation. Squidgets are motivated by the observation that curves resulting from visually abstracting scene elements provide natural handles for the direct manipulation of scene parameters. Additional curves can be defined by users to author custom handles associated with scene attributes. Users manipulate a scene by simply drawing strokes, that are partially matched against scene curves to select a squidget and interactively control scene parameters associated with the squidget. We present an implementation of squidgets within the 3D animation system Maya, showing 2D/3D stroke input to manipulate 2D/3D scenes. We report on a controlled experiment evaluating squidgets on 2D object translation and deformation tasks, and a broader informal study on squidget creation and manipulation.2025JKJoonho Kim et al.Immersion & Presence Research360° Video & Panoramic Content3D Modeling & AnimationUIST
EI-Lite: Electrical Impedance Sensing for Micro-gesture Recognition and Pinch Force EstimationMicro-gesture recognition and fine-grain pinch press enables intuitive and discreet control of devices, offering significant potential for enhancing human-computer interaction (HCI). In this paper, we present EI-Lite, a lightweight wrist-worn electrical impedance sensing device for micro-gesture recognition and continuous pinch force estimation. We elicit an optimal and simplified device architecture through an ablation study on electrode placement with 13 users, and implement the elicited designs through 3D printing. We capture data on 15 participants on (1) six common micro-gestures (plus idle state) and (2) index finger pinch forces, then develop machine learning models that interpret the impedance signals generated by these micro-gestures and pinch forces. Our system is capable of accurate recognition of micro-gesture events (96.33% accuracy), as well as continuously estimating the pinch force of the index finger in physical units (Newton), with the mean-squared-error (MSE) of 0.3071 (or mean-force-variance of 0.55 Newtons) over 15 participants. Finally, we demonstrate EI-Lite's applicability via three applications in AR/VR, gaming, and assistive technologies.2025JZJunyi Zhu et al.Vibrotactile Feedback & Skin StimulationFoot & Wrist InteractionUIST
GyFoam: Fabricating Lattice Foam with Customizable Stiffness through Uniform ExpansionWe present GyFoam, a fabrication method integrating foam material with lattice structure to enable controlled and uniform expansion, which supports high-quality forming in appearance and customizable stiffness in function, using standard 3D printers, filaments, commercially available Thermo-Expandable Microspheres and silicone. To achieve customizable stiffness, we propose two methods through experiment: modifying material concentration and adjusting lattice structural parameters. Additionally, we propose three shape control strategies for creating complex shapes: bending, wavy edges, and internal doming. Furthermore, a user-friendly design tool is established for users to construct lattice structures, preview basic deformation, and generate mold models for printing. Finally, through a series of applications, we validate GyFoam's practical usage of fabricating large objects, wearable products, enabling flexible interactions and creating aesthetic designs.2025GWGuanyun Wang et al.Desktop 3D Printing & Personal FabricationShape-Changing Materials & 4D PrintingCustomizable & Personalized ObjectsUIST
FiberCircuits: A Miniaturization Framework To Manufacture Fibers That Embed Integrated CircuitsWhile electronics miniaturization has propelled the evolution of technology from desktops to compact wearables, most devices are still rigid and bulky, often leading to abandonment. To enable interfaces that can truly disappear and seamlessly integrate into daily life, the next evolutionary leap will require further miniaturization to achieve full conformability. With FiberCircuits, we offer design and fabrication guidelines for the manufacturing of high-density circuits that are thin enough for full encapsulation within fibers. Our demonstrations include a 1.4 mm-wide ARM microcontroller with sensors as small as 0.9 mm-wide and arrays of 1 mm-wide addressable LEDs, which were woven into our interactive textiles. We provide example applications from fitness to VR, and propose a scalable fabrication process to enable large-scale deployment. To accelerate future research in HCI, we also made our platform Arduino-compatible, created custom libraries, and open-sourced all the materials. Finally, our technical characterizations demonstrate FiberCircuits' durability, thanks to its silicone encapsulation for waterproofness and braiding for robustness. From wearables to insertables or even implantables, we believe that by making miniature circuits accessible to researchers and beyond, FiberCircuits will open possibilities for new scalable interfaces that embody imperceptible computing.2025CHCedric Honnet et al.Biosensors & Physiological MonitoringElectronic Textiles (E-textiles)Customizable & Personalized ObjectsUIST
Meta-antenna: Mechanically Frequency Reconfigurable Metamaterial AntennasWe introduce Meta-antenna, a design and fabrication pipeline for creating frequency reconfigurable antennas while making use of a single type of mechanical metamaterial structure. Unlike traditional static antenna systems with fixed radiation patterns and frequency responses per geometry, Meta-antenna leverages mechanical reconfiguration to alter the radiation and geometry characteristics of the antenna, making it more versatile for sensing and communication. Meta-antenna provides a design space of resonance frequency from 500 MHz to 6.3 GHz ≥10 dB upon the structure's compression, bending, or rotation. Additionally, we provide an Ansys-based editor that allows users to generate metamaterial antenna geometries and simulate their resonance frequency. We also provide a code template for Meta-antenna based sensing interactions. Our technical evaluation demonstrates that our fabricated Meta-antenna structures remain functional even after 10,000 compression cycles. Finally, we contribute three example applications showcasing Meta-antenna’s potential in adaptive personal devices, smart home systems, and tangible user interfaces.2025MAMarwa AlAlawi et al.Circuit Making & Hardware PrototypingCustomizable & Personalized ObjectsUIST
BioLIG: Functionalizing Biocomposites with Laser-induced Graphene for Bio-Rapid Prototyping of ElectronicsIn HCI, there is a rapidly growing interest in prototyping with conductive bio-based materials. However, the methods for conductive making of bio-based materials to suit the diverse needs of makers remain underexplored. We introduce BioLIG, a fabrication framework that functionalizes affordable and optimized bio-based substrates with a conventional CO2 laser to create highly conductive traces for sensors and circuits. To illustrate the framework, we first contribute five bio-based materials: three sheets (paper-like, fabric-like, plastic-like) and two paints (lignin-ink, chitosan-stain). A formal electrical characterization of our conductors highlight that they surpass activated charcoal, are on par with carbon black, and one ink is even comparable with the most common synthetic material used for laser-induced graphene. Then, we present three biodegradable coatings that ensure functionality and durability and balance protection with controlled degradation. Next, we build upon our sheets, paints, and coatings to form multifunctional biodegradable biocomposites and implement six end-to-end applications. Lastly, we define three strategies of how the framework supports a circular making culture. BioLIG enables accessible, fast, and ecologically minded prototyping, opening new directions for designing electronics with intentional impermanence and environmental integration.2025YLYuqing Lucy Li et al.Desktop 3D Printing & Personal FabricationSustainable HCIUIST
POET: Supporting Prompting Creativity and Personalization with Automated Expansion of Text-to-Image GenerationState-of-the-art visual generative AI tools hold immense potential to assist users in the early ideation stages of creative tasks -- offering the ability to generate (rather than search for) novel and unprecedented (instead of existing) images of considerable quality that also adhere to boundless combinations of user specifications. However, many large-scale text-to-image systems are designed for broad applicability, yielding conventional output that may limit creative exploration. They also employ interaction methods that may be difficult for beginners. Given that creative end users often operate in diverse, context-specific ways that are often unpredictable, more variation and personalization are necessary. We introduce POET, a real-time interactive tool that (1) automatically discovers dimensions of homogeneity in text-to-image generative models, (2) expands these dimensions to diversify the output space of generated images, and (3) learns from user feedback to personalize expansions. An evaluation with 28 users spanning four creative task domains demonstrated POET's ability to generate results with higher perceived diversity and help users reach satisfaction in fewer prompts during creative tasks, thereby prompting them to deliberate and reflect more on a wider range of possible produced results during the co-creative process. Focusing on visual creativity, POET offers a first glimpse of how interaction techniques of future text-to-image generation tools may support and align with more pluralistic values and the needs of end users during the ideation stages of their work.2025EHMehtab Khan et al.Generative AI (Text, Image, Music, Video)AI-Assisted Creative WritingUIST
NeuroChat: A Neuroadaptive AI Chatbot for Customizing Learning ExperiencesGenerative AI is reshaping education by enabling personalized, on-demand learning experiences. However, current AI systems lack awareness of the learner’s cognitive state, limiting their adaptability. In parallel, electroencephalography (EEG)-based neuroadaptive systems have shown promise in enhancing engagement through real-time physiological feedback. This paper introduces NeuroChat, a neuroadaptive AI tutor that integrates real-time EEG-based engagement tracking with a large language model to adapt its conversational responses. By continuously monitoring learners’ cognitive engagement, NeuroChat dynamically adjusts content complexity, tone, and response style in a closed-loop interaction. In a within-subjects study (n=24), NeuroChat significantly increased both EEG-measured and self-reported engagement compared to a non-adaptive chatbot. However, no significant differences in short-term learning outcomes were observed. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of real-time brain–AI interaction for education and highlight opportunities for deeper personalization, longer-term adaptation, and richer learning assessment in future neuroadaptive systems.2025DBDunya Baradari et al.Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) & NeurofeedbackHuman-LLM CollaborationIntelligent Tutoring Systems & Learning AnalyticsCUI