- W1: Crossing Lenses – Exploring HCI/UX Projects Through Academic and Industry Perspectives
- W2: TBA
- W3: TBA
W1: Crossing Lenses – Exploring HCI/UX Projects Through Academic and Industry Perspectives
Submission Deadline: 31st Dec 2025
Workshop Description
Join us for a hands-on, collaborative workshop designed to bring together academics and practitioners to co-create, critique, and explore real-world projects and early-stage ideas.
This workshop offers a structured space for interdisciplinary exchange, focusing on both academic depth and practical feasibility. Participants are invited to bring past, current, or future projects or concepts to the table. Each contribution will be explored from two complementary perspectives:
- Academic lens: What theoretical frameworks, methods, or research insights can deepen the work?
- Practical lens: What are the real-world constraints, opportunities, and implementation challenges?
This is not a venue for polished pitches, but a working session centered on mutual learning, open feedback, and idea development. Whether you are in academia or industry, we welcome your participation in this unique opportunity for cross-sector innovation.
We aim to collaboratively explore how academic and industry perspectives can complement each other and what value interdisciplinary exchange can bring to both sides.
Submission Process
We invite contributions from academics and practitioners who conduct or participate in empirical projects; particularly those that focus on human-centered design, usability, and user experience.
Topics of Interest (including but not limited to):
- How research methods are adapted or limited in academic vs. industry contexts.
- Case studies of successful/failed industry-academia collaborations.
- What challenges arise when aligning academic rigor with industry constraints (e.g., timelines, resources)?
- Experience reports from conducting research projects in the wild (e.g., Innosuisse projects).
- How do priorities, incentives, and constraints differ across settings—and how can they be reconciled?
- Perspectives from industry experts who participated in research as users or co-designers
- How can we ensure marginalized groups are included in both academic and industry research initiatives?
- Toward a shared understanding: how should human-centered research evolve across sectors?
The aforementioned list is illustrative and not comprehensive; additional topics of relevance to the overarching theme are equally encouraged and valued.
Submission Format
We allow the following types of contributions:
- Experience reports (max. 3 pages, ACM double-column format) or
- 3-minute video or
- Alternative formats, such as pictorials (e.g., diagrams, sketches, illustrations, photos, annotated visuals, collages)
Video or image-based submissions must be accompanied by brief explanatory text. Submissions are published in the workshop proceedings of the AlpCHI conference. For all written text, please make use of the ACM templates: https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template.
To present at the workshop, a submission is required by 31.12.2025 via email at florian.mathis@fhgr.ch and philipp.liebrenz@fhgr.ch. Please use “AlpCHI 2026 Workshop Submission: [Title]” as subject.
Authors whose submissions are accepted will be invited to present their work during the workshop.
We are committed to making this workshop accessible and inclusive for all participants. If you have specific needs or questions regarding the submission process, please contact the organizers.
Accepted contributions – Next Steps
If your workshop contribution is accepted, we will contact you regarding the preparation.
Organisers
Dr. Florian Mathis is a Lecturer in User Experience at the University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons and a Senior Researcher at the University of St. Gallen. His work focuses on how the concept of an extended reality can support people in their daily lives. Furthermore, he is leading multiple human-centred AI and UX projects with industry partners. Prior to his positions in Chur and St. Gallen, Florian completed his PhD at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where he specialized in the use of Virtual/Augmented/Mixed Reality as a research method in usable security, and worked at Meta Reality Labs Research in Canada, Toronto.
Contact: florian.mathis@fhgr.ch
Prof. Philipp Liebrenz is the Director of the Master’s program in User Experience Design at the Swiss Institute for Information Science (SII) at the University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons. He studied Information Engineering at the University of Konstanz and Human-Computer Interaction at University College London. After his studies, he worked as a UX Designer at Vodafone, as a UX Researcher for Samsung, as a Usability Consultant at UBS, and also held roles as an Interaction Designer and Manager in various departments at Swisscom.
Contact: philipp.liebrenz@fhgr.ch