Hendrik HeuerMy team and I are heading to #CHI2026 in Barcelona with 5 papers (+1 Honorable Mention).
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✍️ Honorable Mention: “When Handwriting Goes Social: Creativity, Anonymity, and Communication in Graphonymous Online Spaces” — investigates anonymous handwriting-based interaction and its impact on creativity and communication online.
with: Aditya Kumar Purohit, PhD, Aditya Upadhyaya, Nicolas Ruiz Giolito, Alberto Monge Roffarello
📕 https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.00371
🔗 https://programs.sigchi.org/chi/2026/program/content/222664
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When Handwriting Goes Social: Creativity, Anonymity, and Communication in Graphonymous Online Spaces
While most digital communication platforms rely on text, relatively little research has examined how users engage through handwriting and drawing in anonymous, collaborative environments. We introduce Graphonymous Interaction, a form of communication where users interact anonymously via handwriting and drawing. Our study analyzed over 600 canvas pages from the Graphonymous Online Space (GOS) CollaNote and conducted interviews with 20 users. Additionally, we examined 70 minutes of real-time GOS sessions using Conversation Analysis and Multimodal Discourse Analysis. Findings reveal that Graphonymous Interaction fosters artistic expression, intellectual engagement, sharing and supporting, and social connection. Notably, anonymity coexisted with moments of recognition through graphological identification. Distinct conversational strategies also emerged, which allow smoother exchanges and fewer conversational repairs compared to text-based communication. This study contributes to understanding Graphonymous Interaction and Online Spaces, offering insights into designing platforms that support creative and socially engaging forms of communication beyond text.
🔎 “Reflecting on 1,000 Social Media Journeys: Generational Patterns in Platform Transition” — explores how and why people switch platforms, revealing key push/pull factors and generational differences.
with: Artur Solomonik, Nicolas Ruiz Giolito
📕 https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.15489
🔗 https://programs.sigchi.org/chi/2026/program/content/223281
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Reflecting on 1,000 Social Media Journeys: Generational Patterns in Platform Transition
Social media has billions of users, but we still do not fully understand why users prefer one platform over another. Establishing new platforms among already popular competitors is difficult. Prior research has richly documented people's experiences within individual platforms, yet situating those experiences within the entirety of a user's social media experience remains challenging. What platforms have people used, and why have they transitioned between them? We collected data from a quota-based sample of 1,000 U.S. participants. We introduce the concept of \emph{Social Media Journeys} to study the entirety of their social media experiences systematically. We identify push and pull factors across the social media landscape. We also show how different generations adopted social media platforms based on personal needs. With this work, we advance HCI by moving towards holistic perspectives when discussing social media technology, offering new insights for platform design, governance, and regulation.
🤖 “A Conditional Companion: Lived Experiences of People with Mental Health Disorders Using LLMs” — examines how people with mental health conditions use LLMs, highlighting benefits, situational use, and clear limitations.
with: Aditya Kumar Purohit, PhD
📕 https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.00402
🔗 https://programs.sigchi.org/chi/2026/program/content/222909
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A Conditional Companion: Lived Experiences of People with Mental Health Disorders Using LLMs
Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly used for mental health support, yet little is known about how people with mental health challenges engage with them, how they evaluate their usefulness, and what design opportunities they envision. We conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with people in the UK who live with mental health conditions and have used LLMs for mental health support. Through reflexive thematic analysis, we found that participants engaged with LLMs in conditional and situational ways: for immediacy, the desire for non-judgement, self-paced disclosure, cognitive reframing, and relational engagement. Simultaneously, participants articulated clear boundaries informed by prior therapeutic experience: LLMs were effective for mild-to-moderate distress but inadequate for crises, trauma, and complex social-emotional situations. We contribute empirical insights into the lived use of LLMs for mental health, highlight boundary-setting as central to their safe role, and propose design and governance directions for embedding them responsibly within care ecosystem.
📰 “They Think AI Can Do More Than It Actually Can: Practices, Challenges, & Opportunities of AI-Supported Reporting in Local Journalism” — investigates how journalists use AI in practice, including expectations, challenges, and opportunities.
with: Besjon Cifliku
📕 https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.22887
🔗 https://programs.sigchi.org/chi/2026/program/content/223348
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They Think AI Can Do More Than It Actually Can: Practices, Challenges, & Opportunities of AI-Supported Reporting In Local Journalism
Declining newspaper revenues prompt local newsrooms to adopt automation to maintain efficiency and keep the community informed. However, current research provides a limited understanding of how local journalists work with digital data and which newsroom processes would benefit most from AI-supported (data) reporting. To bridge this gap, we conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with local journalists in Germany. Our study investigates how local journalists use data and AI (RQ1); the challenges they encounter when interacting with data and AI (RQ2); and the self-perceived opportunities of AI-supported reporting systems through the lens of discursive design (RQ3). Our findings reveal that local journalists do not fully leverage AI's potential to support data-related work. Despite local journalists' limited awareness of AI's capabilities, they are willing to use it to process data and discover stories. Finally, we provide recommendations for improving AI-supported reporting in the context of local news, grounded in the journalists' socio-technical perspective and their imagined AI future capabilities.
🔌 “Take the Power Back: Screen-Based Personal Moderation Against Hate Speech on Instagram” — explores how users want to moderate content and which interface features matter for dealing with hate speech.
with: Anna Ricarda Luther, Sebastian Haunss, Stephanie Geise, Andreas Breiter
📕 https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.01187
🔗 https://programs.sigchi.org/chi/2026/program/content/223403
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Take the Power Back: Screen-Based Personal Moderation Against Hate Speech on Instagram
Hate speech remains a pressing challenge on social media, where platform moderation often fails to protect targeted users. Personal moderation tools that let users decide how content is filtered can address some of these shortcomings. However, it remains an open question on which screens (e.g., the comments, the reels tab, or the home feed) users want personal moderation and which features they value most. To address these gaps, we conducted a three-wave Delphi study with 40 activists who experienced hate speech. We combined quantitative ratings and rankings with open questions about required features. Participants prioritized personal moderation for conversational and algorithmically curated screens. They valued features allowing for reversibility and oversight across screens, while input-based, content-type specific, and highly automated features are more screen specific. We discuss the importance of personal moderation and offer user-centered design recommendations for personal moderation on Instagram.
Feel free to reach out if you’d like to connect and chat about these papers or our other work. See you in Barcelona!
#CHI2026 #HCI #AI #TrustworthyAI #SocialMedia #Journalism
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