12 UBC Computer Science papers debut at leading human-computer interaction conference
Researchers to present 12 papers, one poster and one interactive demonstration at the ACM CHI 2026 conference
If you’ve ever used an app that was easy to navigate, it’s no accident. In fact, how intuitive and seamless a piece of technology feels is a result of hours and hours of human-computer interaction (HCI) research. From the placement and colours of buttons on a website, to the swoosh! noise when you send a text message, researchers carefully consider every design detail.
HCI practice begins with the hidden effort required to make an app solve a useful problem and do well. HCI research combines computer science, design, psychology and other fields to look ahead: to envision how emerging technology can serve our future needs, and to anticipate concerning effects and steer it to mitigate them.
To present their recent projects and learn about the latest in the field, UBC researchers will be in Barcelona, Spain from April 13-17, 2026 for the Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM CHI 2026), with a total of 12 papers, a poster and an interactive demonstration.
Noteworthy papers in their respective areas were awarded by the conference. The paper “The Words That Can't Be Shared: Exploring the Design of Unsent Messages,” led by PhD student Michael Yin and Assistant Professor Robert Xiao, was one of 62 papers that won a Best Paper Award, representing the top 1% of conference papers. “Tattered Teddies and Pentagram Charms: How People Use Touchable Comfort Objects and What This Means for Designing Affective Haptic Systems,” a paper led by PhD student Preeti Vyas, Professor Karon MacLean and collaborators, was one of 213 papers awarded an Honourable Mention Award, which represents the top 4% of conference papers.
UBC Computer Science will be presenting 12 papers at the conference:
- AI Twin: Enhancing ESL Speaking Practice through AI Self-Clones of a Better Me
Minju Park, Seunghyun Lee, Juhwan Ma, Dongwook Yoon
- Cloning the Self for Mental Well-Being: A Framework for Designing Safe and Therapeutic Self-Clone Chatbots
Mehrnoosh Sadat Shirvani, Jackie Crowley, Cher Peng, Jackie Liu, Thomas Chao, Suky Martinez, Laura Brandt, Ig-Jae Kim, Dongwook Yoon
- Roomify: Spatially-Grounded Style Transformation for Immersive Virtual Environments
Xueyang Wang, Qinxuan Cen, Weitao Bi, Yunxiang Ma, Xin Yi, Robert Xiao, Xinyi Fu, Hewu Li
- TimeMarbles: A More Holistic Approach to Self-Reflecting on Focus in the Knowledge Workplace
Anastasia Ruvimova, Joanna McGrenere, Thomas Fritz
UBC Computer Scientists will also present a poster and an interactive demonstration at the conference:
Poster: When To Help? Toward Non-Intrusive Struggle Detection to Support Older Adults Learning New Computer Tasks
Yixin Jiang, Manushree Singhania, Teerapaun Tanprasert, Joanna McGrenere