2026 Highlights from Faculty and Research

UC San Diego Design Lab at CHI 2026

Research Showcase

Barcelona, Spain · April 13–17, 2026 · programs.sigchi.org/chi/2026

The Design Lab is proud to celebrate the 15 publications being presented by Design Lab researchers at the ACM CHI 2026 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Of these, 1 paper has received a Best Paper Award and 4 received honorable mentions. This achievement reflects the rigorous research and meaningful impact that faculty members are having in the field of human-centered design. From advancing emerging technologies to deepening our understanding of how people interact with them, these contributions highlight the breadth and depth of work happening across the lab. Congratulations to all of the authors and collaborators from across the Design Lab on this remarkable achievement.

Publications

🏆 BEST PAPER AWARD

CoBRA: Programming Cognitive Bias in Social Agents Using Classic Social Science Experiments

Xuan Liu, HaoYang Shang, Haojian Jin

🎖 HONORABLE MENTION

Belidor: A Specification Language for Operationalizing Structural Analogies Between User Interfaces

Matthew T Beaudouin-Lafon, Devamardeep Hayatpur, Arvind Satyanarayan, Haijun Xia

🎖 HONORABLE MENTION

Orca: Browsing at Scale Through User-Driven and AI-Facilitated Orchestration Across Malleable Webpages

Peiling Jiang, Haijun Xia

🎖 HONORABLE MENTION

Taking the Control Back — An Adventure in Developing Personalized Content Moderation

Wenshan Luo, Pat Pannuto, Kristen Vaccaro

🎖 HONORABLE MENTION

Barriers that Programming Instructors Face While Performing Emergency Pedagogical Design to Shape Student-AI Interactions with Generative AI Tools

Sam Lau, Kianoosh Boroojeni, Harry Keeling, Jenn Marroquin

VizCrit: Exploring Strategies for Displaying Computational Feedback in a Visual Design Tool

Mingyi Li, Mengyi Chen, Sarah Luo, Yining Cao, Haijun Xia, Maitraye Das, Steven P. Dow, Jane L. E

Tidynote: Always-Clear Notebook Authoring

Ruanqianqian (Lisa) Huang, Brian Hempel, Yining Cao, James Hollan, Haijun Xia, Sorin Lerner

Beyond the Desk: Barriers and Future Opportunities for AI to Assist Scientists in Embodied Physical Tasks

Irene Hou, Alexander Qin, Lauren Cheng, Philip Guo

"Bespoke Bots": Diverse Instructor Needs for Customizing Generative AI Classroom Chatbots

Irene Hou, Zeyu Xiong, Philip Guo, April Yi Wang

Deception at Scale: Deceptive Designs in 1K LLM-Generated E-Commerce Components

Ziwei Chen, Jiawen Shen, Luna, Hanyu Zhang, Kristen Vaccaro

PrivacyAkinator: Articulating Key Privacy Design Decisions by Answering LLM-Generated Multiple-choice Questions

Qiyu Li, Yuen Sum Wong, Yuen Kei Wong, Longxuan Yu, Haojian Jin

Understanding Parents' Desires in Moderating Children's Interactions with GenAI Chatbots through LLM-Generated Probes

John Driscoll, Yulin Chen, Viki Shi, Izak Vucharatavintara, Yaxing Yao, Haojian Jin

The Campus Mental Health Problem Isn't Capacity — It's Access!

Manas Satish Bedmutha, Poorva Satish Bedmutha, Amparo Averbuj, Varun Pillai, Sahithi Karumudi, Nicole May, Heidi Rataj, Nadir Weibel

What Does Generative UI Mean for HCI Practice?

Sian Lindley, Jack Williams, Yining Cao, Haijun Xia, Elizabeth F Churchill, Abigail Sellen, Jeffrey Nichols, David R Karger

How Creative Practitioners Use Tools to Capture Ideas: A Cross-Domain Study

Emilia Rosselli Del Turco, Nanna Inie, James Hollan, Peter Dalsgaard