Today’s social and political movements against dominant Western narratives call for a re-contextualization of cultural heritage (CH) toward inclusivity, multiperspectivity, and sensemaking. Our work approaches this challenge from a Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) perspective, questioning how HCI approaches, tools and methods can contribute to CH re-contextualization. Through collaborative reflection on our research practice, we identified four diverging case studies highlighting the different roles of HCI and its increasing entanglement with CH. Case studies 1–3 focus on HCI as a medium for CH, case 4 on digital CH, and thereby on the HCI–CH entanglement. Our reflections contribute to CH re-contextualization by highlighting the need for co-design and slow design approaches, the role of HCI technologies in preserving, communicating, and shaping CH, and open questions and challenges related to the increasing HCI–CH convergence.

Over the past decades, a plethora of innovative ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) systems have been constructed. The acceptance of the systems, however, depends on how users experience them in real contexts. While many of the ubicomp research projects include some form of user study, there is no overview of how user experience (UX) is approached in ubicomp research. To this end, we conducted a systematic literature review of ubicomp UX studies. Our findings reveal that users‘experiences with ubicomp systems have often been investigated in rather lightweight ways, for example by addressing basic usability issues, collecting ratings by simple, predetermined scales, or producing descriptions of general experiences such as fun and trust. Based on the findings we argue that a deeper and more fine-grained understanding of user experience would help developing more successful ubicomp systems. We propose a ubicomp UX framework that can help design and evaluate ubicomp systems with a desirable set of target experiences.

Using organic materials for interactive products has gained attention during the past few years. Among them, mycelium, the vegetative part of the mushroom, is a promising material and explored by only distinct examples in HCI. This paper adopts a systematic approach to combining mycelium with LEDs, optical fibers, servo motors, micro-vibration motors, thermochromic inks, conductive threads and fabrics. We created 10 material samples utilizing input (touch) and/or output (light, movement and color-change) features. We describe our material exploration process, as well as the results of an online survey (N=30) and two design workshops (N=10) which examined the experiences evoked by different interactive elements and collected potential use-cases. Our work contributes insights about the technology inclusion to the natural feel of the mycelium, the material’s suitability for tangible interaction and suggests future applications for the composites as a sustainable alternative for interactive interior design elements and ambient displays.

The creative industries are at a significant turning point, blurring the lines between human innovation and machine efficiency due to the advent of AI tools for design. This research addresses the design community’s reaction to generative AI’s rapid ascent. Involving both professionals and students, this paper uses a survey (n=49), focus groups (n=6), and interviews (n=6), to explore the perspectives on AI’s role in creative workflows, revealing a mix of enthusiasm and dread for its potential to enhance innovation and concerns about its fit in traditionally human realms. The prevailing view frames AI as a partner or co-worker in design, yet calls for ethical considerations and transparent practices in its applications. This exploration aims to understand current designer attitudes and presents an initial framework for the adoption of AI tools in the designer’s workflow.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions are becoming prevalent in almost all aspects of human life. However, their acceptance may be limited by a lack of transparency of how the AI works. Explainable AI (XAI) aims to provide the users of AI systems with an understanding of why decisions are made, increasing trust in the system. To date, research into XAI has focused on the use of graphical user interfaces, presenting numerical, textual or graphical explanations. However, AI is increasingly being used in systems that include physical devices, and hence the need for explainability in physical or tangible user interfaces (TUI) is also increasing. We present an initial conceptual framework for tangible explainable AI (TangXAI), which identifies the potential approaches of communicating XAI through physical artifacts, using the concepts of data physicalization and tangible interaction. The framework provides a basis into which ongoing research of tangible explainable AI can be mapped and related research gaps identified.