CXL

CXL at CHI 2026

The ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems is the leading international conference on Human-Computer Interaction. CHI 2026 will take place in Barcelona at the Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona. CXL will participate at CHI in several ways.

PhD student Seher Sing will present the poster Between Curiosity and Clunkiness: Why Virtual Museums Still Fall Short, co-authored with Richard Bibb and Lars Erik Holmquist. The research looked at the modern virtual museum experience through a comparative, user centered lens. Analysis showed three main findings - that the quality and design of the virtual museums make or break the experience, the user expectations when viewing the different platforms influence their perception, and that they have strong potential to complement physical museum visits. The research suggests virtual museums must be intentionally designed experiences that not just replicate but also compliment the physical visits.

PhD student Anh Pham will participate in the CHI 2026 Dissertation Research Roundtable and present her thesis work in the poster The Inclusive Metaverse: Using Self-discrepancy Theory and Artificial Intelligence to Create Personalized Immersive Experiences. She is a second-year PhD student and her doctoral research examines the relationship between AI and user EEG data through studies exploring user needs in hybrid interactive experiences.

PhD student Malindu Ehelagasthenna will present the poster Haptic Pillow Sleeve: Enhancing Sleep Quality by Providing Vital Sound Awareness Through Vibrotactile Feedback, co-authored with Lars Erik Holmquist, Carlos Oliveira, Arash M. Shahidi, Pasindu Lugoda and Theo Hughes-Riley. Sleeping environments—particularly shared or noisy ones—often disrupt rest, while solutions like earplugs or sleep masks help only to an extent and can reduce awareness of critical sounds (e.g., fire alarms, baby crying), creating safety risks. To address this, we developed an interactive pillow sleeve that delivers quiet, personalized vibrotactile feedback during sleep, supporting better sleep quality without relying on audible and visual cues. Because the system can be easily added to an everyday object (a standard pillow), it enhances usability and also provides significant safety benefits for individuals with hearing impairments.

Yifan Kang, PhD student at University of Nottingham, will present the poster How Self-Confidence and Gender Shape Training Experience in Mixed Reality: A Case Study in Flight Simulator Training co-authored with Glyn Lawson and Xu Sun. This poster examines how self-confidence and gender influence learning experiences in an MR-based flight simulator. The performance of sixteen participants was monitored before they completed subjective ratings of self-confidence and other User Experience (UX) indices. The result shows that self-confidence level differed significantly between genders and was negatively associated with Situation Awareness and User Satisfaction.

Click here to see details of all CXL presentations in the CHI 2026 program!

Additionally, researchers from CXL will take part in a number of workshops and meet-ups. Also, Lars Erik Holmquist was Associate Chair for the Blending Interaction papers track, and will be a mentor in the Student Mentorship Program and Dissertation Research Roundtable.

We hope to see you there!

Talk by Professor Yvonne Rogers: Human-Computer Interaction in a Crisis

We are very happy to welcome the world-leading human-computer interaction researcher Professor Yvonne Rogers from University College London to give a talk at NTU!

Time:

Thursday, February 26

12:30-1 PM – Lunch

1-2:15 PM – Talk and Q&A

Location:

Nottingham Trent Newton & Arkwright building, ARK009

Human-Computer Interaction in a Crisis

Human-Computer Interaction is facing a crisis. Like many other disciplines, we are being confronted with having to decide how, what and when to use AI in our research and practice. As we are discovering, GenAI can now competently perform all manner of UX tasks and research activities previously done by human practitioners and human researchers. Not only can it do extensive desk research at lightning speed it can also simulate users, run hypothetical experiments, create synthetic data, conduct thematic analysis, design new apps, and even write an impressive CHI paper. What should we as a field be doing about these developments? Do we embrace all the changes afoot or try to put our foot down and resist? In my talk, I will put forward what it means for us as a community as our field lurches ever more towards being AI-enabled HCI.

Yvonne Rogers is a Professor of Interaction Design at University College London. Her research is concerned with designing interactive technologies that can empower humans, especially human-centred AI, and how to develop AI tools to think with. Central to her work is a critical stance towards how visions, theories and frameworks shape the fields of HCI, cognitive science and ubiquitous computing. She been instrumental in promulgating new theories (e.g., external cognition), alternative methodologies (e.g., in the wild studies) and far-reaching research agendas (e.g., “Being Human” manifesto). She has received various awards including the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Research Award, a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Society Robin Milner Medal for computer science. She is one of the authors of the definitive textbook on Interaction Design and HCI now in its 6th edition, that has sold over 300,000 copies worldwide.

Welcome new PhD student Wanqi Wang!

Wanqi Wang is a PhD researcher at the Nottingham School of Art and Design. She holds a BA in Communication Studies and Art History from St. Lawrence University in 2020 and an MA in Contemporary Art Practice from the Royal College of Art in 2023. Working as an interdisciplinary artist and performance maker, Wanqi’s practice spans multiple media and is informed by cultural inquiry, inclusive design, and audience experience. Her work explores how meaning is produced beyond visual dominance, particularly within the abstract, conceptual, and multisensory nature of contemporary art. Alongside her artistic practice, she has professional experience as a museum tour guide in London, which shaped her interest in public engagement and accessibility within cultural institutions.

Her PhD research, Creating an AI Discussion Partner for Contemporary Art Galleries for Visitors with Sight Loss, investigates how conversational AI can facilitate inclusive, non-visual engagement with contemporary art. It focuses on supporting visitors with sight loss to navigate the abstract, conceptually rich, and multimodal nature of contemporary artworks. Rather than functioning as a simple descriptive tool, the AI acts as a conversational partner, fostering dialogue, reflection, and imaginative exploration. By integrating AI with human-centred design, the research aims to enhance accessibility, deepen understanding, and offer practical insights for galleries and inclusive cultural experiences.

Funded PhD project in Virtual Production and Mixed Reality interfaces

Do you want to join CXL? We are looking for an excellent candidate for a fully funded PhD project in Virtual Production (VP) and Mixed Reality (MR) interfaces (UK candidates only). This project will combine in situ user studies and technical prototyping to lay the groundwork for a new VP architecture, where physical and real assets are integrated seamlessly. We will take advantage of Nottingham Trent's professional-grade VP facilities (pictured) and work with partner studios across the UK. More information here:

Crossing Boundaries: Understanding the virtuality and physicality of Virtual Production

Talk: Understanding Untruth in Artificial Intelligence Through Synthetic Ethnography

Lars Erik Holmquist will give a talk at KTH The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden and online on research about untruth in AI. Large Language Models (LLMs) have many practical uses in areas like journalism, search, coding and more. However, a growing concern is that they are also prone to presenting incorrect information. This is sometimes called “hallucinations”, but a more correct term would be “bullshit”, i.e. text produced without concern for its truth. In this study, we are not interested in what specific untruths LLMs presents, but how they do it. We used synthetic ethnography, a method for the qualitative study of generative models, to study two LLMs with different size and capability. We collected 3 cases where LLMs presented incorrect information and observed the strategies they used to justify this. From these observations we can start to form an understanding of what happens when an LLM reaches the edge of its knowledge-base and takes corrective action. Our conclusion is that the interfaces should be better designed to reveal this tendency of LLMs to “fill in” information they are missing, but that this ability may also be one of their strengths.

Time: Friday, October 31, 11.00-12.00 CET.

Information on how to join online or in person.

Talk by Lars Erik Holmquist on XR and Virtual Production

Time: Tuesday September 9, 13.15 CET

Lars Erik Holmquist will give an online talk in the series Positive Technology Visions organised by the Department of Applied IT at University of Gothenburg. The title is Liberated Pixels and Virtual Production: A Framework and a Test Case for XR Beyond Glasses, and it will be about how tangible interaction, extended reality and other advanced user interface concepts could be developed to support advanced film and media production.

Nottingham School of Art and Design has a state-of-the-art virtual production studio in our Design and Digital Arts building, which is used by students and staff for creating amazing environments and special effects. The picture to the right shows a recent filming of a Blade Runner-inspired dystopian short film which features a flying car!

Click here for full information and joining instructions!

Device Prototyping Summer School at Lancaster University

CXL PhD students Seher Singh and Anh Pham attended the 2025 Device Prototyping Summer School, held at Lancaster University from 15-18 June and sponsored by the pro² network+.

The event itself was a great mix of presentations, demos, tutorials, panels, and hands-on activities, such as soldering components on a printed circuit board and getting to grips with CAD software. The students were able to connect with other brilliant minds across this space, including established researchers such as Steve Hodges and Lorraine Underwood, as well as students from universities across the world. The summer school was very useful in helping the students understand how devices are made and how to scale up their production, and both of them really enjoyed and appreciated this opportunity.

Seher Singh was also awarded with a prize worth £200 for her prototype idea Tomadoro: a gamified pomodoro device.

You can find more information about the summer school as well as the student papers here: https://prosquared.org/2025-summer-school/