We invite researchers, designers, artists, and practitioners worldwide are to contribute to four exciting workshops at AlpCHI 2026:
W1: Crossing Lenses – Exploring HCI/UX Projects Through Academic and Industry Perspectives
Submission Deadline: January 16, 2026
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 January 16, 2026 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
W2: Human Cognition, AI, and the Future of HCI: Navigating the Disruptive and Wild Landscape of Large Language Models and Agentic AI
Submission Deadline: December 19, 2025
Workshop Description
Large Language Models (LLMs) and agentic AI are reshaping HCI by altering human cognition, interaction, and collaboration. This half-day workshop at AlpCHI 2026 will gather researchers, practitioners, and artists to explore emerging theories, applications, and ethical challenges, and to co-create frameworks for ubiquitous human-centred AI. The Alpine context will inspire new perspectives on designing HCI for the era of ubiquitous human-centred AI.
Topics of Interest
- Cognitive models for human–AI collaboration
- HCI paradigms under AI disruption
- Interaction design for AI in high-stakes or resource-constrained contexts
- Trust, transparency, and explainability in agentic systems
- Ethical and societal impacts of AI–HCI systems
- Case studies from research, industry, and creative practice
Submission Process
Submit short papers (max. 3 pages, ACM double-column format) by December 19, 2025 to EasyChair:
https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=hcaihci2026
Contact
Organisers
Prof. Christoph Hölscher, ETH Zurich – Cognitive science, usability, spatial cognition. Christoph Hoelscher has been a Full Professor of Cognitive Science at ETH Zurich since 2013, specializing in Applied Cognitive Science. Christoph is Principal Investigator at the Singapore ETH Center (SEC) Future Cities Laboratory Global, heading research on ‘Architectural Cognition in Practice’ and serves as Lead Principal Investigator of Future Resilient Systems FRS. He holds a PhD in Psychology (University of Freiburg), served as an honorary senior research fellow at UCL, Bartlett, and as a visiting Professor at Northumbria University, Newcastle. The team in Zurich and Singapore study spatial decision making in complex environments, combining real-world observations and VR experiments with physiological and behavioural methods.
Prof. Verena Zimmermann, ETH Zurich – safety, IT security and privacy. Verena Zimmermann is Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) for Security, Privacy and Society at ETH Zürich since 2022. She has completed her dissertation in the interdisciplinary research area of Human-Centered Security at TU Darmstadt and the German National Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research. Her research interests comprise the human aspects of safety, IT security and privacy, i.e., the intersection of humans and emerging (security) technologies including AI. As such ongoing research projects in her team include expert-AI collaboration in cybersecurity and privacy implications of chatbot use.
Prof. Menna El-Assady, ETH Zurich – Interactive Visualization and Intelligence Augmentation. Menna El-Assady is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at ETH Zürich, where she heads the Interactive Visualization and Intelligence Augmentation (IVIA) lab. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Konstanz, Germany, with a thesis on “Levels of Explainability for Human-AI Interaction in Visual Text Analytics.” Prior to her current role, she was a research fellow at the ETH AI Center and a research associate at the University of Konstanz and OntarioTech University in Canada. Her research is at the intersection of data analysis, visualization, computational linguistics, and explainable artificial intelligence, with a focus on designing human-AI collaboration interfaces for problem-solving. Her work has been recognized with the 2024 Visualization Significant New Researcher Award and the 2023 EuroVis Early Career Award.
Dr. Leonel Aguilar, ETH Zurich – Spatial Cognition, AI/ML systems, Large Scale Social Simulations, High Performance Computing, Behavioural Experiments. Leonel holds a PhD from the Computational Science and High Performance Computing Laboratory at the University of Tokyo. He is a Senior Researcher at the Cognitive Science group at ETH Zurich and has held postdoctoral positions at the Data Science Service and Systems Group, the Computational Social Science Group at ETH Zurich, and the Center for Large Scale Earthquakes and Disasters at the University of Tokyo. He is an associated researcher with the ETH AI Center and the Future Cities Laboratory Global at the SEC in Singapore. Named an Innovator Under 35 by MIT Technology Review for his work on large-scale evacuation simulation, he lectures at ETH Zurich on subjects including HCI Cognition and Usability, Methods for Experimental Design, Large Language Models and their Impact on Society, and previously, methods for social simulations.
Dr. Marcus Cheetham, University Hospital of Zurich – Cognition, values clarification, preference elicitation, decision making. Marcus is Senior Researcher at the University Hospital Zurich. His work is situated at the intersection of Health Decision Science, cognitive psychology, and digital health innovation. His research focuses on the design and evaluation of digital tools that facilitate health-related decision making and communication under conditions of uncertainty, complexity, and personal risk. He previously served as the scientific lead of the Multimorbidity and Complexity Research Group at the University Hospital Zurich and held a faculty position as Professor of Psychology at NBU in Seoul, South Korea. He has a background in cognitive neuroscience, holding a Ph.D. (University of Zurich) with focus on neuroimaging and human engagement with virtual agents.
Dr. Ben Davison, ETH Zurich / Google – Quantitative UX research on large-scale products. Ben Davison is a Staff Quantitative User Experience Researcher at Google Search in Zurich, Switzerland. He has a long history with Google, having worked for the company for over 13 years in various quantitative user experience researcher roles for products like Google Maps, Google Cloud, and Android Wear. He is Lecturer at ETH Zurich, where he teaches the “HCI: Cognition and Usability” course sharing his expertise in survey research, log analysis, and communicating data. He holds a Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Dr. Manuel Flurin Hendry, ETH Zurich / Zurich University of the Arts – Artistic and philosophical perspectives on AI. Manuel Flurin Hendry is an award-winning feature film director, screenwriter, lecturer, and artistic researcher based in Zurich, Switzerland. He is a Lecturer at ETH Zurich, where he designs and teaches an interdisciplinary workshop on the societal implications of Large Language Models. He also serves as a Lecturer for Film Direction and Artistic Researcher at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). As the Principal Investigator of research projects like <<cineMINDS>>, he investigates the impact of digital systems on self-perception and artistic practice. He obtained his Ph.D. in Dramaturgy at Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, where he explored research in the affective sciences and neurophysiology to inform the art of acting.
W3: Security and Usability Studies on Human–Infrastructure Interaction (SUSHI²)
Submission Deadline: December 31, 2025
Workshop Description
As critical infrastructures such as power grids, transport networks, and other cyber-physical systems become increasingly automated and data-driven, their security and resilience depend not only on technologies but also on the humans who use, design, monitor, and respond to them. The human role in cybersecurity, and privacy therefore remains essential.
SUSHI2 examines how HCI principles can support usable and trustworthy security practices across the lifecycle of critical infrastructures from secure configuration and incident response to privacy management and post-incident forensics. We invite contributions that address the design, evaluation, or governance of human-centered security processes, including tools, interfaces, and methods that empower operators and end users to detect, interpret, and respond to security or privacy events effectively.
We particularly welcome interdisciplinary submissions bridging HCI, cybersecurity, privacy, and forensic readiness, with an emphasis on empirical insights, design approaches, and frameworks that improve human trust, transparency, and decision-making in complex socio-technical systems.
Topics of Interest
Topics include, but are not limited to:
- Usable and explainable security tools for operators and end users
- End-user design solutions enhancing security and privacy
- Privacy-aware design and user empowerment in data-intensive systems
- Human factors in digital forensics and forensic readiness
- Visualization and interaction techniques for incident response and evidence analysis
- Interfaces for secure configuration, monitoring, and threat detection
- Automation, accountability, and human oversight in AI-driven security
- Cognitive load, trust, and decision-making in security operations
- Methods for inclusive and accessible security and privacy design
- Cross-sector human-centered security perspectives connecting energy, mobility, and other critical domains
Submission Process
Authors are invited to submit work in progress short papers (up to 2 pages, excluding references) or posters describing ongoing research, position papers, case studies, or conceptual ideas related to the workshop themes.
Submit your work to sushi@iseclab.ch not later than December 31, 2025.
Accepted papers will be presented during the workshop and discussed in the interactive session to encourage collaboration and shared knowledge.
Organisers
Lima Madomi is a research assistant and Ph.D. student at the I-Sec Lab, University of Geneva (UNIGE). She is currently working on the EU-funded ULTIMO project. Her research focuses on cybersecurity and forensic readiness in connected and autonomous systems, with a strong emphasis on post-incident analysis and practical forensic methods for incident investigation in automated environments.
Julie-Christine Bürki is a researcher and Ph.D. student in the I-Sec Lab at UNIGE, working on the EU-funded OPEVA project. She holds an M.Sc. in Information Systems (University of Lausanne) and a B.A. in Economics (University of Basel; major in business, minor in law). Her research focuses on cybersecurity and privacy for electric vehicles and grid infrastructure, with a strong emphasis on usable security for end users and operators.
Prof. Dr. Anastasija Collen is an Associate Professor of Cybersecurity at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland (HES-SO – HEG), Geneva and co-head of the I-Sec Lab. She holds a PhD in Information Systems from UNIGE and has worked in the industry as a software and R&D engineer before returning to the academia. Her research focuses on applied cybersecurity, privacy protection, and automated risk assessment in connected and intelligent systems, particularly within the IoT and automated mobility domains. She was recognised by the IEEE Computer Society among Computing’s Top 30 Early Career Professionals for 2024.
Dr. Niels Alexander Nijdam received the Ph.D. degree in computer science from UNIGE, where his topics included collaborative systems, ubiquitous computing and rendering and programmable graphics. He is a Computer Scientist and a Senior Lecturer at UNIGE and is leading the I-Sec Lab.
W4: Beyond Fatigue: Building an Ergonomic Future for XR
Submission Deadline: January 16, 2026
Workshop Description
Head-mounted displays (HMDs) have fundamentally transformed how we interact with digital content, evolving from desktop computing to heads-down mobile devices, and now to heads-up mobile experiences in Extended Reality (XR). To support efficient and expressive interaction in these immersive environments, input modalities have expanded from single-channel approaches (hand gestures, voice commands, or gaze tracking alone) to sophisticated multimodal systems that seamlessly integrate hand, gaze, and audio inputs, while also enabling interactions across HMDs, smartphones, and other connected devices.
While this evolution has unlocked unprecedented interaction possibilities, it has also introduced significant physiological and cognitive challenges. Interaction-induced fatigue manifests in various forms, including gorilla arm syndrome from sustained mid-air gestures and eye strain from prolonged focus demands. As XR technologies move from research labs to real-world applications, addressing ergonomic concerns becomes critical for sustainable adoption.
This workshop at AlpCHI 2026 will bring together XR researchers and developers to collaboratively brainstorm, prototype, and define an actionable research agenda that bridges the gap between ergonomic XR design principles and practical implementation. Through structured activities and facilitated discussions, participants will work toward making comfortable, sustainable XR experiences a reality.
Topics of Interest
- Fatigue modeling and measurement – Methods for quantifying and predicting physical and cognitive fatigue across different interaction modalities in XR
- Ergonomic interaction techniques – Design patterns and best practices for comfortable, sustainable XR interactions that minimize physical strain
- Adaptive and context-aware interfaces – Systems that dynamically adjust to user state, task demands, and environmental factors to reduce fatigue
- Multimodal interaction design – Strategies for effectively combining hand, gaze, voice, and other modalities to balance efficiency and user comfort
- Long-term usage and health considerations – Understanding the effects of extended XR sessions on users’ physical and mental wellbeing
Submission Process
Submit a short paper (max.3 pages, ACM double-column format) by January 16, 2026 to yi.5.li@tuwien.ac.at with the subject line: “AlpCHI 2026 Workshop Submission”.
Submissions should clearly describe how the proposed work relates to ergonomics, fatigue, or human factors in XR. All submissions will be reviewed for relevance. Accepted authors will be invited to present their work and contribute to collaborative discussions and agenda-setting activities during the workshop. Join us in shaping the future of comfortable, adaptive, and human-centered XR interaction!
Organisers
Dr. Yi Li is a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute of Visual Computing and Human-Centred Technology at TU Wien, Austria. Her research focuses on modelling physical fatigue in gesture- and gaze-based interactions within XR and HRI, and on developing adaptive interaction techniques for fatigue-aware systems.
Jonathan Wieland is a Ph.D. candidate in the Human-Computer Interaction Group at the University of Konstanz, Germany. His research interests include exploring the potential and challenges of extended reality-supported interactive exhibitions.
Dr. Johannes Zagermann is a postdoctoral researcher in the Human-Computer Interaction Group at the University of Konstanz, Germany. His research focuses on combining devices and modalities (i.e., complementary interfaces) for individual and collaborative scenarios and on measuring cognitive workload in interactive systems.