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The 2025�� (DIS) in Madeira, Portugal, features work from ten ATLAS community members representing three labs. This year’s event has five focus areas: Critical Computing and Design Theory, Design Methods and Processes, Artifacts and Systems, Research Through Design, and AI and Design with an overall theme around “design that transcends human-centered perspectives.”

ATLAS researchers study a broad range of topics, from human-computer interaction to biomaterials to woven forms.��

Ellen Do, professor and ACME director, explains what connects the work our community is presenting at the conference: “I think all of the papers and presentations we have are on designing interactive systems. Some of the systems could be physical, some could be digital, some could be human-and-people, human-and-physical objects. So I think the theme about interactive systems and how you make systems interactive, what kind of user experience or human experience or immersive experience with the object or system or even the ecosystem, or the human communication system—I think that's all there.”

ATLAS research at DIS 2025

Gabrielle Benabdallah,��Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez (ATLAS PhD student),��Laura Devendorf (ATLAS Unstable Design Lab director, associate professor),��Mirela Alistar (ATLAS Living Matter Lab director, assistant professor)

This paper explores the dynamics of interdisciplinary collaboration between designers, scientists, and engineers through ten stories as told from the perspective of material-led designers. These stories focus on material-led designers working in contexts like biodesign and smart textiles, where novel materials, fabrication methods, and technology often intersect, requiring cross-disciplinary collaboration. By including perspectives from designers within and adjacent to HCI, the study broadens the understanding of interdisciplinary teamwork that combines scientific, technical, and craft-based expertise. Our analysis highlights how designers navigate challenges like differing terminologies, epistemic hierarchies, and conflicting priorities. We discuss strategies such as material prototypes, attitudes of inquiry and openness, switching lexicons, and the value of interdisciplinary contexts. This research underscores designers as “translators” who mediate epistemological tensions, use tangible artifacts to communicate, and articulate possible applications. This research contributes ten stories as narrative resources for understanding strategies and fostering interdisciplinary spaces within HCI.
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Etta W. Sandry (ATLAS PhD student),��Lily M. Gabriel (ATLAS undergraduate student),��Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez (ATLAS PhD student),��Laura Devendorf (ATLAS Unstable Design Lab Director, associate professor)

The ability to create a wide and varied set of interactive textiles depends on the materials that one has available. Currently, the range of yarns that can be used to bring interactivity to textiles is greatly limited, especially considering the diversity available in non-conductive yarns. This pictorial traces a design journey into hand spinning that seeks to address this limitation and contributes samples of techniques and materials that could be used to create conductive yarns along with reflection on design methods that enabled us to explore a wider range of aesthetic expressions. We advocate for an approach that reconnects with the textiles in e-textiles, embraces divergence, and prioritizes the material as the driver of a design concept. We offer pathways for readers and researchers to continue this exploration within varied domains and practices.

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Ruhan Yang (ATLAS PhD alum),��Ellen Yi-Luen Do (ATLAS ACME Lab director, professor)

Hybrid physical-digital games often rely on screen-based interactions, which can detract from their tactile nature. We introduce Connect!, a card game that integrates paper circuits and real-time LED feedback, enabling players to construct functional circuits as part of gameplay. Unlike traditional hybrid games, Connect! embeds feedback directly into physical components while preserving material interaction. We conducted a user study comparing gameplay with and without electronic feedback. Our findings suggest that real-time feedback not only increased engagement but also altered players' behavior, encouraging rule exploration and emergent play. Our work contributes to tangible interaction and game-based learning, demonstrating the potential of low-cost electronics in enhancing interactive experiences.

Connect! game cards

David Hunter (ATLAS PhD student)

Data can enrich our understanding of the world and improve our society. However the datafication of our society comes with challenges for empowering communities. In designing systems for recording and representing data, a theme has emerged of these interfaces as the site of conversations and sense-making, and the participatory nature is valuable beyond the data itself. This insight has led me to investigate tools and experiences that enable open-ended data creation and exploration as a grounding for discussion and prompting action. The goal is to design interfaces and systems for exploring places and futures through data, to empower communities and supporting civic participation, learning and making, situational awareness, and scenario planning. In this pictorial I present five ongoing research projects investigating these ideas.

How to Data Walk

Doenja Oogjes, Ege Kökel,��Netta Ofer (ATLAS PhD alum), Hsiang-Lin Kuo, Jasmijn Vugts, Troy Nachtigall,��Torin Hopkins (ATLAS PhD alum)

In this pictorial, we explore alternative ways of knowing urban trees through a more-than-human lens. Using a municipal tree dataset, we focus on “unknown” trees—entries unclassified due to error, decay, or absence—highlighting the limits of quantification and fixed knowledge systems. Urban trees, while critical for ecosystems, are often shaped by technological interventions (e.g., GIS, IoT sensors, AI diagnostics) that prioritize their utility over other expressions. We engage in knitting as a material inquiry to foreground nonhuman agencies and relational entanglements. Through reflective shifts and compromises, this project questions normative design practices, seeking to amplify nonhuman participation. We make two contributions. Firstly, we offer insights into fostering alternative, relational engagements with urban ecologies. Secondly, we reflect on our process of surfacing and working with agentic capacities, articulating guidance for other design researchers. Through this, we advocate for fragmented approaches that embrace complicity and complexity in more-than-human design.
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Rishi Vanukuru (ATLAS PhD student), Payod Panda, Xinyue Chen, Ava Elizabeth Scott, Lev Tankelevitch, Sean Rintel

Temporal work is an essential part of the modern knowledge workplace, where multiple threads of meetings and projects are connected across time by the acts of looking back (retrospection) and ahead (prospection). As we develop Generative AI interfaces to support knowledge work, this lens of temporality can help ground design in real workplace needs. Building upon research in routine dynamics and cognitive science, and an exploratory analysis of real recurring meetings, we develop a framework and a tool for the synergistic exploration of temporal work and the capabilities of Generative AI. We then use these to design a series of interface concepts and prototypes to better support work that spans multiple scales of time. Through this approach, we demonstrate how the design of new Generative AI tools can be guided by our understanding of how work really happens across meetings and projects.