Programme

The AlpCHI conference will be held from March 1st to 5th, 2026 at the CSF. Owing to its deliberately small and focused format, full participation from Sunday through Thursday is expected. Participants are invited to arrive on Sunday early afternoon in time for a welcome drink in the afternoon. The conference will be opened afterwards with keynotes and will conclude on Thursday, with departures after lunch.

The conference programme will begin each day with scientific talks in the mornings. In the afternoons, there will be a combination of workshops and keynote sessions.

In addition, the programme will include workshops and curated sessions featuring classic and influential papers. We are also open to further contributions.

Keynote Speakers

We are pleased to confirm keynote presentations by:

Yvonne Rogers

University College London

Elisabeth Andrรฉ

Augsburg University

David Kim

Google

Harald Reiterer

University of Konstanz

Yvonne Rogers

University College London

Elisabeth Andrรฉ

Augsburg University

David Kim

Google

Harald Reiterer

University of Konstanz

Yvonne Rogers – "When Small is Beautiful in HCI"
Abstract

In recent times, we have witnessed a relentless drive towards making everything BIG โ€“be it the size of a LLM, cloud storage, cars, GPU computers, research labs, and now research conferences. It is no surprise, that the field of HCI has also become supersized โ€“ there was a record 1700 papers accepted at CHI this year from over 6000 submissions. But is bigger always better? Increasingly, people have started complaining that our field is getting out of control and becoming too overwhelming. What if we turned the tables and tried to downsize HCI? Could we, would we? Just like Schumacherโ€™s (1973) classic book โ€œSmall is Beautifulโ€, that championed โ€œappropriate technologiesโ€ that could empower people and local communities, the goal of the inaugural AlpCHI is to bring back small HCI, โ€œemphasising the importance of community-building and hands-on interaction, offering a space where researchers can connect meaningfully.โ€ In my talk, I will conjecture what it means in practice, with examples from my own research of when it made sense to go small.

Elisabeth Andrรฉ – "Rethinking Human-AI Teamwork in an Age of Overproduction"
Abstract

Human-AI teamwork used to be motivated by a sensible distribution of tasks between humans and machines that reduces human workload or augments human skills. This view is increasingly challenged by developments in generative AI, which enable the production of large volumes of output. Nowadays, it often requires more human effort to analyze and filter content than to produce it. Ironically, countermeasures involve increased reliance on AI, as demonstrated by approaches such as LLMs serving as judges. One area in which this trend is evident is academic publishing. More and more people rely on generative AI to write scientific papers, probably leading to a loss of diversity and originality by requesting the AI to produce papers that are in line with the styles of the venues to which they will be submitted. To manage the volume of papers, conferences and journals apply stricter quality criteria, particularly for survey papers that can be easily generated with AI techniques. Furthermore, AI-generated reviews are explicitly added to augment (hopefully, at least partially) human-authored reviews. There is a risk of ending up with papers that are neither written nor read by any human being. Furthermore, generative AI is employed not only for software development but also for simulating users. In HCI research, the replacement of real users raises questions regarding the user experiences that are studied and for whom. Taking this trend into account, the talk argues for a greater emphasis on HCI submissions that are presented and experienced physically, rather than merely described in a paper. Interactive installations and live demonstrations are beneficial for foregrounding bodily experiences, expressing human intent, and supporting human agency.

Bio

Elisabeth Andrรฉ is a full professor of Computer Science and Founding Chair of Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (AI) at Augsburg University in Germany. She has a long track record in multimodal human-machine interaction and AI-based human behavior analysis with applications in social coaching, psychotherapy and mental health diagnosis. Her work has won many awards including the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz Prize 2021 of the German Research Foundation (DFG), the most prestigious German research award. In 2017, she was elected to the CHI Academy, an honorary group of leaders in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. To honor her achievements in bringing Artificial Intelligence techniques to Human-Computer Interaction, she was awarded a EurAI fellowship (European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence) in 2013. In 2019, she was named one of the 10 most influential figures in the history of AI in Germany by National Society for Informatics (GI). Elisabeth Andrรฉ is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Academy of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association, the National Academy of Science and Engineering acatech and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Furthermore, she is a fellow of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS).

David Kim – "Merging Worlds: A Personal Journey in Input and Interfaces for Mixed Reality in Academia and Industry"
Abstract

This talk traces a personal two-decade journey exploring novel interfaces and inputs for emerging platforms, spanning from multi-touch tabletops to augmented reality systems. Through a retrospective on key projects, including HoloDesk, KinectFusion, Digits, Holoportation, and recent work on ARCore and Android XR, the presentation illustrates the evolution of human-computer interaction, emphasizing the shift from surface-bound interaction to seamless 3D and world-aware computing. The talk highlights the power of interdisciplinary collaboration, the importance of innovating fundamental technology to unlock new interactions, and the influence of HCI research on product features. Drawing on personal career learnings, it offers a view on the future of AR and AI agents, focusing on creating subtle, reliable, and context-aware tools that will shape our everyday interactions.

Harald Reiterer – "Revisiting (my) HCI Research: How (my) previous research has shaped my understanding of research and HCI"
Abstract

In this talk, I will revisit my own and othersโ€™ HCI research to reflect on how it has shaped my understanding of both research practice and the discipline of HCI. I will first introduce a framework that I have found useful for structuring and positioning research contributions. Building on this framework, I will draw on selected examples from my work to discuss how theories, artifact design, and empirical observation interactโ€”and how this interplay has guided my research decisions over time. I will conclude by distilling the central thread of my research endeavour and reflecting on what it suggests about the role and impact of HCI research.

Programme

Download the programme as a PDF file: AlpCHI26 – Programme.pdf (732 KB, last updated 25.02.2026)

Sunday
(March 1, 2026)
Arrival

โ˜• Coffee

Spazio Roccia

14:30 – 15:30

[S1] Conference Opening

Auditorium

15:30 – 16:00

๐Ÿน Welcome Drink

18:30 – 19:00

๐Ÿ Dinner

19:00 – 20:00

Monday
(March 2, 2026)
[S3] Papers #1

& CSF Welcome

Chair: Ralf Doerner

Auditorium

09:00 – 10:30

โ˜• Coffee Break

Spazio Roccia

10:30 – 11:00

[S3.1] Papers #1 Showcase

Balint Hall

11:15 – 12:00

๐Ÿ Lunch

12:00 – 13:00

[S4a]
Workshop 1

Crossing Lenses

Eranos Room

[S4b]
Workshop 2

Human Cognition, AI, and the Future of HCI

Balint Hall

[S4c]
Guided Tour

โ€œMonte Veritร : Experiments in Art and Lifeโ€

13:30 – 15:30

โ˜• Coffee Break

Spazio Roccia

15:30 – 16:00

[S4a]
Workshop 1

Crossing Lenses

Eranos Room

[S4b]
Workshop 2

Human Cognition, AI, and the Future of HCI

Balint Hall

16:00 – 18:00

๐Ÿ Dinner

19:00 – 20:00

[S5] Informal Meet & Greet

Networking with early-stage and senior researchers

Balint Hall

20:00 – 21:30

Tuesday
(March 3, 2026)
[S6] Papers #2

Chair: Alexander Kalus

Auditorium

09:00 – 10:30

โ˜• Coffee Break

Spazio Roccia

10:30 – 11:00

[S6.1] Papers #2 Showcase

Balint Hall

11:15 – 12:00

๐Ÿ Lunch

12:00 – 13:00

[S7] Revisiting HCI #1

Chair: Christine Bauer

Auditorium

13:30 – 15:30

โ˜• Coffee Break

Spazio Roccia

15:30 – 16:00

๐Ÿ Dinner

19:00 – 20:00

[S8] Hands-On Innovation

Demo Showcase
(with Drinks)

Balint Hall

20:00 – 21:30

Wednesday
(March 4, 2026)
[S9] Papers #3

Chair: Florian Michahelles

Auditorium

09:00 – 10:30

โ˜• Coffee Break

Spazio Roccia

10:30 – 11:00

[S9.1] Papers #3 Showcase

Balint Hall

11:15 – 12:00

๐Ÿ Lunch

12:00 – 13:00

[S10a]
Workshop 3

SUSHIยฒ

Pioda Room

[S10b]
Workshop 4

Beyond Fatigue

Eranos Room

13:30 – 15:30

โ˜• Coffee Break

Spazio Roccia

15:30 – 16:00

[S10a]
Workshop 3

SUSHIยฒ

Pioda Room

[S10b]
Workshop 4

Beyond Fatigue

Eranos Room

16:00 – 18:00

๐Ÿฅ‚ Conference Dinner

19:00 – 21:00

Thursday
(March 5, 2026)
[S11] Revisiting HCI #2

Chair: Philipp Liebrenz

Auditorium

09:30 – 10:30

โ˜• Coffee Break

Spazio Roccia

10:30 – 11:00

[S12] Wrap-Up and Closing Session

Auditorium

11:00 – 12:00

๐Ÿ Optional Lunch

12:00 – 13:00

Departure
Optional Hike: “AlpCHIke”

TBD

Accepted Works

Papers

[S3] Papers #1: Embodied Interaction and Sensory Feedback in XR

๐Ÿ—“๏ธ Monday, March 2, 2026

๐Ÿ“„ Extending the Fishing Reel – Improving Multiple Object Selection in VR Using Transparency and a Resizable Pointer
Jonathan Wieland, Samar Abed, Anke Reinschluessel, Johannes Zagermann, Harald Reiterer and Tiare Feuchtner
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780046

๐Ÿ“„ Pressing a Sensor Is Harder Than Pushing a Button: Comparing On-Smart-Ring Clutch Events For Gesture Detection
Lennart Wenke and Katrin Wolf
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780047

๐Ÿ“„ Simulating Avatars’ Stamina in Virtual Reality through Weight-Changing Controllers
Alexander Kalus, Thilo Hohl, Luca Hilbrich, Katrin Wolf and Niels Henze
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780053

๐Ÿ“„ Promoting Head Movements Through a Weight-Shifting Helmet
Juan F Olaya Figueroa, David Dann, Alexander Kalus and Katrin Wolf
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780060

๐Ÿ“„ TrainCafรฉ: VR Usage on the Go through Virtual Metaphors
Yu Sun, Adrian Pandjaitan and Gero Trรคm
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780062

[S6] Papers #2: Affective, Reflective, and Mental Health Experiences with Technology

๐Ÿ—“๏ธ Tuesday, March 3, 2026

๐Ÿ“„ DigitalOmmie: Adapting Calm Design from Social Robots to Digital Replicas to Reduce Momentary Anxiety
Selina Giger, Heike Brockmann, Florian Mathis
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780048

๐Ÿ“„ Connected Words, Shared Journeys: Understanding the Motivations, Practices, and Experiences of Individual and Collaborative Gratitude Journalling Users
Annika Kaltenhauser, Adrian Preussner, Meike Kocholl and Johannes Schรถning
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780050

๐Ÿ“„ Friend or Therapist? A Systematic Literature Review on Chatbots and Mental Health in Young People
Negin Hashmati, Therรฉse Skoog, Mohammad Obaid and Thommy Eriksson
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780052

๐Ÿ“„ Are Digital Characters Suitable for Emotion Recognition Tasks? An Evaluation Study Using MetaHumans
Federica Bruno, Razeen Hussain, Manuela Chessa, Guillaume Sacco, Valeria Manera, Maรซl Addoum and Fabio Solari
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780054

๐Ÿ“„ Prompting the Future: AI-Guided Episodic Thinking to Support Long-Term Goals
Fiona Verena Feldhus, Josef Mawas, Yi Li and Florian Michahelles
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780058

๐Ÿ“„ Breathing Space: Spatial Mapping of Breath and Cardiac Biofeedback for Affective State Representation and Coherence Training in Viscereality
George Fejer, Till Holzapfel, Taru Hirvonen, Anestis Lalidis Mateo, Johannes Blum, Michael Gaebler and Bigna Lenggenhager
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780061

[S9] Papers #3: Training, Testing, Visualizing & Human-AI Interaction

๐Ÿ—“๏ธ Wednesday, March 4, 2026

๐Ÿ“„ Wildfire@Home: Personalized Immersive Training for Household Situation Awareness
Tianyi Xiao, Yan Feng, Suvodip Chakraborty, Peter Kiefer, Toups Dugas Phoebe and Martin Raubal
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780049

๐Ÿ“„ Exploring peopleโ€™s testing strategies in ML-based image classification
Tรฉo Sanchez, Fani-Marina Kalamara, Simone Stumpf and Baptiste Caramiaux
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780051

๐Ÿ“„ A User-Centered Design to Support Trajectory Deviation Visualization
Ilyes Kadri, Simon Ruffieux and Denis Lalanne
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780055

๐Ÿ“„ Enough With Trust! Why We Must Move Beyond a Convenient but Insufficient Concept in AI-Supported Decision-Making Research
Patricia Kahr and Abraham Bernstein
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780056

๐Ÿ“„ Wheeling the Outdoors in Austria: Challenges not Imposed by Nature but by a Dispersed Information Landscape
Felix Fussenegger and Katta Spiel
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780057

๐Ÿ“„ Using Large Language Models to Detect Insufficient Effort Responding in Open-Ended Survey Questions
Nick von Felten
https://doi.org/10.1145/3780045.3780059

Revisit HCI

[S7] Revisit HCI #1

๐Ÿ“„ Revisiting “User Experience Over Time”: Towards Methods and Metrics for Temporal UX Phases in the Age of AI
Sebastian Zepf, Nima Zargham and Matthias Kraus
Download PDF

๐Ÿ“„ Creativity-oriented HCI: From Classic Approach to LLMs-based CSTs
Ana Rodrigues, Diogo Cabral and Pedro Campos
Download PDF

๐Ÿ“„ Revisiting Disability Studies in HCI: From Access to Justice through Artistic Practices
Puneet Jain, Katta Spiel and Chris Salter
Download PDF

๐Ÿ“„ Guidelines are Less than Half of the Story: Accessibility Evaluations in 2025 and Beyond
Maximiliano Jeanneret Medina and Denis Lalanne
Download PDF

๐Ÿ“„ Learner-Centered Design: The (Updated) Challenge for HCI in the 21st Century
Cรฉlina Treuillier and Denis Lalanne
Download PDF

๐Ÿ“„ Rethinking Eco-Feedback: Expanding Interaction Design through the Humanโ€“Building Interaction Perspective
Yidong Huang and Yann Laurillau
Download PDF

[S11] Revisit HCI #2

๐Ÿ“„ From Search for Children to Children as Searchers
Diletta Micol Tobia, Hrishita Chakrabarti, Maria Soledad Pera and Monica Landoni
Download PDF

๐Ÿ“„ A Retrospective on Ultrasound Mid-Air Haptics in HCI
Arthur Fleig
Download PDF

๐Ÿ“„ Ceremony Meets Usability: An HCI Lens on Authentication
Lorin Schรถni
Download PDF

๐Ÿ“„ Innocent’s Soft Facades: Rediscovering a Vision for Adaptive and Malleable Interfaces
Christoph Albert Johns
Download PDF

Demos

[S8] Hands-On Innovation: Interactive Demos

๐Ÿ“„ Heads Up!: Towards In Situ Photogrammetry Annotations and Augmented Reality Visualizations for Guided Backcountry Skiing
Christoph Albert Johns, Lรกszlรณ Kopรกsci, Michael Barz and Daniel Sonntag
Download PDF

๐Ÿ“„ Real-Time Object Detection and Augmented Reality to Support Low-Vision Navigation and Object Localization: A
Demonstration

Yong-Joon Thoo, Karim Aebischer, Nicolas Ruffieux and Denis Lalanne
Download PDF

๐Ÿ“„ Kinetiq: Active Bodies, Healthy Minds – Microinterventions for Movement and Learning
Annabella Sakunkoo and Jonathan Sakunkoo

๐Ÿ“„ Walking the Digital Street: A VR Tool for Assessing Urban Walkability
Viet Hung Pham, Malte Wagenfeld and Regina Bernhaupt
Download PDF

๐Ÿ“„ Proxemics – Exploring Personal Space, Digital Embodiment and Environmental Awareness through Interactive Mixed Reality Installation
Marco Strobel, Christian Geiger and Ivana Druลพetiฤ‡-Vogel

๐Ÿ“„ Voices of the Boyne: An Audio-First Locative Augmented Reality Game for Experiential Historical Exploration
Karun Manoharan, Mads Haahr, Joris Vreeke, Svetlana Rudenko and Breanne Pitt

๐Ÿ“„ SingLing: Learning Languages by Singing Code-Switched Lyrics
Jonathan Sakunkoo and Annabella Sakunkoo

๐Ÿ“„ CyMe: Connecting Menstrual Cycles and Sports Tracking for Everyday Athletes
Madeleine Soukup, Flavia Taras, Carol Barbara Ernst, Kristijonas Buciunas, Elaine Huang and Marcia NiรŸen
Download PDF